A subversive little play called “As You Like It”
Read Shakespeare for an education in drag entertainment, freedom to love whom you want, and rejection of authoritarianism, all brought to you via a romp in the woods
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays in an attempt to make sense of the world. Today I’m writing about “As You Like It.” For a quick reference to posts on previous plays, click here. Next week, “Julius Caesar.”
For those of you who’ve been following my Shakespeare posts: congratulations! We’re now halfway through the plays with this essay. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays await us: Hamlet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, King Lear, Coriolanus, The Tempest. An embarrassment of riches, and I hope you agree.
In the summer of 2015, the US Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. The President acknowledged it with a simple yet profound message: “Love is love.”
Rejoicing in the historic decision, I thought at the time that I had no personal stake other than living in a country that had suddenly recognized millions of its citizens’ right to exist fully. Then, a friend invited us to celebrate her wedding1 to her long time girlfriend, and I felt the impacts more personally.
The wedding was remarkable, taking place in rural, conservative Missouri and not the more liberal pockets of a major city. The welcoming hosts, if judged unfairly on appearances alone, seemed to be people who would oppose the liberal politics in my house. We didn’t talk politics, so I could be wrong. If they were trenchantly conservative, they had made an exception for the woman in their family who married our friend. People make adjustments for those they love.
That era feels distant now. At the time, I thought that the county clerks and wedding cake bakers who defied the recognition of same sex marriage were kooks, outliers, or narcissistic self-promoters. Today, those who deny others the right to exist publicly are legion and extremely loud. They’ve learned that what couldn’t be accomplished with reason can be with brute force. Poster board signs that were once lifted high in victory—“LOVE > HATE”—lie trampled and torn in internet byways. Facts disagree with the sentiment, mostly.
A Sherman, Texas school made national headlines a few weeks ago when it stopped a production of ‘Oklahoma!’ because a transgender student was cast in the musical. Then a funny thing happened: the parents and students in this rural and conservative Texas town organized and convinced the school board to allow the musical to be performed with no cast changes.
It’s easier to judge when it’s not personal. You can mock the person you don’t know without giving it a second thought, even when that mockery threatens others. You can arrange your surroundings to create an echo chamber, and feel good about always being right. But what happens when your self-righteous prejudices bump up against the fully realized humanity of the person you’ve harmed? Welcome to the authoritarian realm of Duke Frederick, and even more to the romance of the Ardenne forest, in “As You Like It.”
Summary
As the play opens, we learn that Duke Frederick has usurped the dukedom of his brother, Duke Senior, who is currently in exile in the forest of Ardenne2. The brothers’ attributes manifest their opposition. Senior, out of power, is kind and thoughtful, open to multiple perspectives. Frederick is bombastic and intolerant. We’re told in the first scene that Duke Senior is in the forest with a bunch of random ‘merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England’—they’re a joke, as it were, according to Frederick’s court.
Each of the brothers has a daughter: the tall and fair Rosalind is the daughter of Duke Senior, and the shorter, brunette Celia is the daughter of Duke Frederick. The women are exceptionally close, one might say, intimate, friends. Duke Frederick has allowed Rosalind to live in his household, in consideration of her relationship with his daughter.
If you’re thinking that two young female characters in a Shakespearean comedy require two young male characters to fall in love with them, you can fill in the other major characters, who are also—no surprises here—brothers: Orlando and Oliver, sons of Sir Rowland de Bois, now deceased. Again, their characters are diametrically opposed: Orlando is a romantic sweetheart and Oliver is a bully.
Duke Frederick has a wrestler in his entourage who’s named Charles. Frederick organizes an exhibition match to showcase Charles’ skill and thus enhance Frederick’s image as a powerful ruler. Oliver has put out a rumor that his brother Orlando is eager to wrestle Charles in the show; Orlando of course knows nothing about his supposed challenge. Charles presses Oliver to dissuade his brother, bragging that at best Orlando will suffer a broken limb and at worst he could be killed. Oliver agrees heartily, hopeful that either of these outcomes come true. Oliver gains nothing from Orlando being out of the way, since Oliver is the older brother and inheritor to their father’s estate. His antipathy comes from the divisions arising from Frederick’s rule.
At the wrestling match, Orlando meets Rosalind and Celia, and immediately is struck dumb with love for Rosalind. In return, she’s clearly smitten.
Orlando is surprised to hear his name called as a challenger to Charles. Frederick urges him on to wrestle Charles. Encouraged to display his talents for his new love, Orlando steps into the ring. To everyone’s surprise, Orlando throws Charles and wins the match. As attendants carry Charles off stage, Duke Frederick asks Orlando who he is, and Orlando identifies himself as the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois, whom Frederick considers an enemy.
Rosalind learns that Duke Frederick has ordered her to leave, and she decides to join her father in the Ardenne forest. Celia is keen to leave with her. Fearful of being attacked after they leave the safety of the city walls, the women decide to disguise themselves. Rosalind, being tall, decides she will disguise herself as a man, and she takes the name Ganymede. Celia will travel as a peasant woman, calling herself Aliena, a name she picks with pride in being alienated from her father. They steal away from court. Duke Frederick is enraged when he discovers his daughter has gone, and he sends Oliver to find them.
Orlando is banished from court and he departs in exile. Along the way he meets an old man named Adam, who was a former servant of his father’s. The two of them set out for the forest.
We meet Duke Senior in the forest with his band of followers. He’s making the best of his exile, discovering beauty even in the cruel winter of nature. Several of his men have adopted his positive outlook: “I would not change it. Happy is your grace / That can translate the stubbornness of fortune / Into so quiet and so sweet a style.” Duke Senior calls for one of his men, the ‘melancholy Jaques3,’ who fits himself in gloom. The Duke’s interest is not to dissuade Jaques, but rather to search out a perspective that can provide him balance.
Orlando and Adam are deep in the forest when Adam says he can go no further: he’s worn from the journey and frail from hunger. He urges Orlando to carry on without him. Orlando doesn’t want to leave him behind, but he decides to leave to find food and shelter for Adam. He encounters Duke Senior and his men, and begs food of them. The Duke welcomes him to the table, but Orlando explains that he’s traveling with an old man who needs the food more than him. The Duke bids him to bring Adam to their table; they’ll wait dinner for him.
The Duke turns to Jaques, pointing out that some have it worse than they do. Jaques replies with the most famous speech in the play:
JAQUES All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. [….]
- Act 2 Scene 7
He continues to enumerate the seven stages of man, from infancy to senility and death (“Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”), each of them a character to be played on the stage of life. The speech lasts long enough for Orlando to return with Adam, whom the Duke welcomes to the table.
Orlando, still in love with Rosalind, walks the forest littering it with his love verses to her, inscribing the barks of trees with her name. Rosalind finds some of his verses addressed to her; she’s touched by his sentimentalism and also sees an opportunity for sport. When Orlando meets ‘Ganymede’ (Rosalind) and ‘Aliena’ (Celia), the young women toy with him before setting a scheme. Rosalind promises to cure Orlando of his love sickness. If he would imagine Ganymede were his Rosalind, Ganymede will cure him by playing the part. They set a time to meet for this ‘cleansing.’
Rosalind and Celia also meet a shepherd, Silvius, and a shepherdess, Phoebe, in the woods. Silvius is in love with Phoebe, who isn’t entirely convinced to marry him. Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede/Rosalind on first sight, which complicates the situation for Rosalind.
Orlando arrives late for his meeting with Ganymede, and Rosalind gives him grief over it. They make another assignation, and she warns him to be on time.
Oliver arrives in the forest with a big surprise: he’s undergone a ‘conversion’—a change that’s apparent in the friendliness of his first lines to Rosalind and Celia: “Good morrow, fair ones.” He tells them he’s just come from Orlando, and brings a blood-stained handkerchief, the sight of which causes Rosalind to faint. Once she’s revived, Oliver tells them the story: Orlando had come across a sleeping man lying in the forest, with a snake coiled around his neck. Orlando scared the snake away but noticed a lioness waiting in the darkness, whom Orlando fought off. Approaching the sleeping man, Orlando discovered it was he, his older brother. Celia and Rosalind are sarcastically amused by the irony:
CELIA
Are you his brother?
ROSALIND Was’t you he rescued?
CELIA
Was’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
-Act 4 Scene 3
Oliver admits that yes, he’s the brother, but he’s no longer the brother who once wanted to kill him, ‘since my conversion.’
He resumes his story. After their reunion, Orlando brought him to the Duke’s cave. There, Orlando discovered that the lioness had torn his flesh, hence the bloody handkerchief that they used to stanch the blood. Oliver has brought the handkerchief as evidence—a tardiness note—to explain to Ganymede why Orlando wasn’t on time for his assignation.
In the last act, Oliver, Orlando, Rosalind, Celia, Silvius, and Phoebe all meet. It’s a wild mess of frustrated declarations of love. Rosalind brings it to a halt with some assertions intended to amaze the characters on stage, but which make complete sense to the audience, who’s in on the joke:
ROSALIND Pray you, no more of this, ‘tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon. [To Silvius] I will help you if I can. [To Phoebe] I would love you if I could,— Tomorrow meet me all together.[To Phoebe] I will marry you if ever I marry a woman, and I’ll be married tomorrow. [To Orlando] I will satisfy you if ever I satisfy man and you shall be married tomorrow. [To Silvius] I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married tomorrow. [To Orlando] As you love Rosalind, meet. [To Silvius] As you love Phoebe, meet. And as I love no woman, I’ll meet. So fare you well. I have left you commands. -Act 5 Scene 3
The next day, Duke Senior and his men greet the six young lovers4, with Rosalind and Celia still in disguise. Rosalind secures Phoebe’s assurance that she’ll marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede, and Silvius’ that he will marry Phoebe. Ganymede and Aliena exit. They return as Rosalind and Celia, with a character named ‘Hymen’ in tow, to bless the marriages.
Oliver and Orlando’s other brother (named ‘Jaques de Bois’) appears for the first time in the play, to announce that Duke Frederick has also undergone a conversion. Frederick now sees the error of his ways, has become a monk, and returns the usurped dukedom to Duke Senior. The play ends in dancing amongst the celebrants, and Jaques finding the solace of gloom in the Duke’s abandoned cave. Rosalind, in the epilogue, notes that everyone gets what they want.
Thoughts
Virginia Woolf wrote a novel titled “Orlando: A Biography,” the life story of an androgynous character who transitions from being a 16-year old youth in Elizabethan England through three centuries, ending when Orlando is a 36-year old woman in 1928. (Tilda Swinton played the part(s) in a film based on the novel.) Through this androgynous character, Woolf explored gender fluidity or neutrality, expanding on a conceit from “As You Like It,” which casts life as a stage on which the self plays successive characters from infancy to death.
“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”
-Virginia Woolf, “Orlando”
Unusual for a Shakespearean play, the Epilogue is given to one of the principals. Typically, the epilogue is assigned to a minstrel character who sings out the play and begs for applause or coins. Highlighting its transgressive nature, the play gives the epilogue to Rosalind, upending social and gender expectations. As you read these lines, bear in mind that when the play was performed originally, Rosalind would have been played by a male actor in drag.
ROSALIND {to the audience} It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ‘tis that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them—that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that like me, and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. -Epilogue
The epilogue argues not simply for women fulfilling roles historically played by men; it also reinforces the play’s conceit that licentiousness can be powerful. The forest of the play is a magical place that releases the bonds with which an authoritarian society holds its people captive. In this spirit, the epilogue underscores theater’s use of drag (men wearing women’s clothes and makeup) to perform its plays. It urges the audience to let go the binaries of good and evil: the only question is, what pleases you? “As You Like It” hides nothing in its title.
The play’s most powerful message comes from its most unbelievable plot point: the ‘conversion’ of Duke Frederick and his abdication for a life of religious contemplation. Oppressors, in fact, oppress themselves. Frederick became so fond of kicking out people he didn’t like that he lost his daughter and most of his court in the process. Seeking to take his vengeance to the place to which they all had fled, he instead came upon a religious man. He talked with him. He listened to him. He opened himself to an alternative. What he heard was convincing enough that he divested himself of everything he’d worked so hard to take from others. He was freed from his own oppression.
Despite a resolution that’s the stuff of tall tales, this conversion story makes the valid point that self-serving is necessarily self-destructive since we’re social animals. Even those who oppress other people’s children don’t want their own children to be harmed, and the fact is that we’re all connected. People who are like you. People who aren’t like you. Eventually, the harm you think you’re directing elsewhere boomerangs back. For the Sherman school district, it happened in a single news cycle.
What an Edenic world it would be if everyone bitter with hate could tap into emotions unadulterated by self-serving politics. Seemingly a Herculean task, it’s surprisingly simple to do. Just recognize the basic humanity of others. Everyone wants to be loved, our only differences lie in how we get there. It’s as you like it.
Thanks for reading,
The state of Missouri would only allow calling their marriage a 'partnership’, reminding me that ‘separate but equal’ still seems like a good idea to some people.
Some texts spell it ‘Arden.’ Scholars disagree on whether this forest is really in England (Arden) or in France (Ardenne). Given the character names that are French-like (Sir Rowland de Bois [of the wood], two characters named Jaques, a courtier to Frederick named Le Beau, Lord Amiens), the play does evoke the French Ardenne.
Pronounced in two syllables, e.g., ‘Jay-kweez.’
In another fantastical plot elision, Oliver and Celia fall in love. Because of course they do.
Those last two paragraphs are everything. “…self-serving is necessarily self-destructive since we’re social animals.” Timely advice.
Brilliant play, beautifully interpreted by this post. Brava, Dionne! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼