Description
In pastoral literature, the countryside is not simply a place. Rather, it takes on symbolic weight—for it reflects certain dreams and values of the author. What does the Forest of Arden symbolize in As You Like It? (There are various possible answers to this question, so you only need to offer a plausible interpretation.) I will attach the play from Shakespeare. Need some evidence from text in the short essayACT I
SCENE I. Orchard of Oliver’s house.
Enter ORLANDO and ADAM
ORLANDO
As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion
bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crow ns,
and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his
blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my
sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, a nd
report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part,
he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak mor e
properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call y ou
that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that
differs not from the stalling of an ox? His hors es
are bred better; for, besides that they are fair
with their feeding, they are taught their mana ge,
and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his
brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the
which his animals on his dunghills are as much
bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he s o
plentifully gives me, the something that nature ga ve
me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets
me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my
gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, t hat
grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I
think is within me, begins to mutiny against thi s
servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I
know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
ADAM
Yonder comes my master, your brother.
ORLANDO
Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will
shake me up.
Enter OLIVER
OLIVER
Now, sir! what make you here?
ORLANDO
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Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.
OLIVER
What mar you then, sir?
ORLANDO
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God
made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idlen ess.
OLIVER
Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.
ORLANDO
Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them?
What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should
come to such penury?
OLIVER
Know you where your are, sir?
ORLANDO
O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.
OLIVER
Know you before whom, sir?
ORLANDO
Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know
you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle
condition of blood, you should so know me. The
courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that
you are the first-born; but the same tradition
takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers
betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as
you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is
nearer to his reverence.
OLIVER
What, boy!
ORLANDO
Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
OLIVER
Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
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ORLANDO
I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir
Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice
a villain that says such a father begot villains.
Wert thou not my brother, I would not take thi s hand
from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy
tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself .
ADAM
Sweet masters, be patient: for your father’s
remembrance, be at accord.
OLIVER
Let me go, I say.
ORLANDO
I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My
father charged you in his will to give me good
education: you have trained me like a peasant,
obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-li ke
qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow
me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or
give me the poor allottery my father left me by
testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.
OLIVER
And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent?
Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled
with you; you shall have some part of your will : I
pray you, leave me.
ORLANDO
I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
OLIVER
Get you with him, you old dog.
ADAM
Is ‘old dog’ my reward? Most true, I have lost my
teeth in your service. God be with my old master!
he would not have spoke such a word.
Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM
OLIVER
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Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will
physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand
crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!
Enter DENNIS
DENNIS
Calls your worship?
OLIVER
Was not Charles, the duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?
DENNIS
So please you, he is here at the door and importunes
access to you.
OLIVER
Call him in.
Exit DENNIS
‘Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.
Enter CHARLES
CHARLES
Good morrow to your worship.
OLIVER
Good Monsieur Charles, what’s the new news at the
new court?
CHARLES
There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news:
that is, the old duke is banished by his younger
brother the new duke; and three or four loving l ords
have put themselves into voluntary exile with him,
whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke;
therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
OLIVER
Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke’s daughter, be
banished with her father?
CHARLES
O, no; for the duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves
her, being ever from their cradles bred together,
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that she would have followed her exile, or have died
to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no
less beloved of her uncle than his own daugh ter; and
never two ladies loved as they do.
OLIVER
Where will the old duke live?
CHARLES
They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and
a many merry men with him; and there they live l ike
the old Robin Hood of England: they say many youn g
gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time
carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
OLIVER
What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?
CHARLES
Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a
matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand
that your younger brother Orlando hath a disp osition
to come in disguised against me to try a fall.
To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and h e that
escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him
well. Your brother is but young and tender; and,
for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I
must, for my own honour, if he come in: theref ore,
out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint yo u
withal, that either you might stay him from his
intendment or brook such disgrace well as he s hall
run into, in that it is a thing of his own search
and altogether against my will.
OLIVER
Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which
thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had
myself notice of my brother’s purpose herein an d
have by underhand means laboured to dissuade h im from
it, but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles:
it is the stubbornest young fellow of Franc e, full
of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s
good parts, a secret and villanous contriver again st
me his natural brother: therefore use thy
discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck
as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if
thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not
mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise
against thee by poison, entrap thee by some
treacherous device and never leave thee till he
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hath ta’en thy life by some indirect means or other;
for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak
it, there is not one so young and so villanous th is
day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but
should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I mu st
blush and weep and thou must look pale and w onder.
CHARLES
I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come
to-morrow, I’ll give him his payment: if ever he go
alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more: and
so God keep your worship!
OLIVER
Farewell, good Charles.
Exit CHARLES
Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see
an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why ,
hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle, neve r
schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of
all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so muc h
in the heart of the world, and especially of my own
people, who best know him, that I am altogether
misprised: but it shall not be so long; this
wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains b ut that
I kindle the boy thither; which now I’ll go about .
Exit
SCENE II. Lawn before the Duke’s palace.
Enter CELIA and ROSALIND
CELIA
I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
ROSALIND
Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of;
and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could
teach me to forget a banished father, you must not
learn me how to remember any extraordinary plea sure.
CELIA
Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight
that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father,
had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so th ou
hadst been still with me, I could have taught my
love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou ,
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if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously
tempered as mine is to thee.
ROSALIND
Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
rejoice in yours.
CELIA
You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is
like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt
be his heir, for what he hath taken away from th y
father perforce, I will render thee again in
affection; by mine honour, I will; and whe n I break
that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my
sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.
ROSALIND
From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
me see; what think you of falling in love?
CELIA
Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but
love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport
neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst
in honour come off again.
ROSALIND
What shall be our sport, then?
CELIA
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed e qually.
ROSALIND
I would we could do so, for her benefits are
mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
CELIA
‘Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce
makes honest, and those that she makes honest sh e
makes very ill-favouredly.
ROSALIND
Nay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office to
Nature’s: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world,
not in the lineaments of Nature.
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Enter TOUCHSTONE
CELIA
No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she
not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature
hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not
Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argume nt?
ROSALIND
Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
Fortune makes Nature’s natural the cutter-off of
Nature’s wit.
CELIA
Peradventure this is not Fortune’s work neither, but
Nature’s; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this
natural for our whetstone; for always the dulne ss of
the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now,
wit! whither wander you?
TOUCHSTONE
Mistress, you must come away to your father.
CELIA
Were you made the messenger?
TOUCHSTONE
No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
ROSALIND
Where learned you that oath, fool?
TOUCHSTONE
Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they
were good pancakes and swore by his honour the
mustard was naught: now I’ll stand to it, the
pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and
yet was not the knight forsworn.
CELIA
How prove you that, in the great heap of your
knowledge?
ROSALIND
Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
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TOUCHSTONE
Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
swear by your beards that I am a knave.
CELIA
By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
TOUCHSTONE
By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you
swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no
more was this knight swearing by his honour, for h e
never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away
before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard .
CELIA
Prithee, who is’t that thou meanest?
TOUCHSTONE
One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
CELIA
My father’s love is enough to honour him: enough!
speak no more of him; you’ll be whipped for taxatio n
one of these days.
TOUCHSTONE
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
wise men do foolishly.
CELIA
By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little
wit that fools have was silenced, the little fooler y
that wise men have makes a great show. Here com es
Monsieur Le Beau.
ROSALIND
With his mouth full of news.
CELIA
Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
ROSALIND
Then shall we be news-crammed.
CELIA
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All the better; we shall be the more marketable.
Enter LE BEAU
Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what’s the news?
LE BEAU
Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.
CELIA
Sport! of what colour?
LE BEAU
What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?
ROSALIND
As wit and fortune will.
TOUCHSTONE
Or as the Destinies decree.
CELIA
Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
TOUCHSTONE
Nay, if I keep not my rank,–
ROSALIND
Thou losest thy old smell.
LE BEAU
You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good
wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.
ROSALIND
You tell us the manner of the wrestling.
LE BEAU
I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please
your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is
yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming
to perform it.
CELIA
Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.
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LE BEAU
There comes an old man and his three sons,–
CELIA
I could match this beginning with an old tale.
LE BEAU
Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.
ROSALIND
With bills on their necks, ‘Be it known unto all men
by these presents.’
LE BEAU
The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the
duke’s wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him
and broke three of his ribs, that there is little
hope of life in him: so he served the second, and
so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,
their father, making such pitiful dole over them
that all the beholders take his part with weeping .
ROSALIND
Alas!
TOUCHSTONE
But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies
have lost?
LE BEAU
Why, this that I speak of.
TOUCHSTONE
Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first
time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport
for ladies.
CELIA
Or I, I promise thee.
ROSALIND
But is there any else longs to see this broken music
in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon
rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, co usin?
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