Shakespeare & The WWF Smackdown
"We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly."
“We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.” — As You Like It, Act II, Scene 3, Lines 51-53.
As You Like It, likely written in 1599, is a fan favorite. This is largely thanks to the charming and mischievous Rosalind. But it is a play with a lot hidden beneath its comic surfaces. Shakespeare’s use of language is especially on display with cheeky references to the newly constructed Globe Theatre (“All the world’s a stage…”) and the clowns referring to themselves as clowns, the fools referring to themselves as fools, and the actors being referenced as actors. Rosalind winks at the audience as a boy actor playing a female character pretending to be a boy pretending to be a woman. And then, there’s his use of verse.
There are two types of language in Shakespeare plays — prose and verse. Prose is the arrhythmic language that doesn’t have rhyme or meter whereas verse has a rhythm and sometimes a rhyme. Verse is often (although not always) written in the iambic pentameter we’ve come to associate with Shakespeare, and considered the ‘higher’ language of the plays. Thus, it’s often reserved for high status characters (Dukes and princes) or topics (love).1 But because Shakespeare is who he is (was?), he’ll often break these rules for dramatic effect. Sometimes, he’ll put prose before a dramatic moment to make the transition into verse more resonant, almost like the music swelling in a film. Cool, right?
So, let’s see Old Bill work his magic, shall we? .
The Shake-Scene
The play opens with a dispute between two brothers, but not the two brothers whose dispute drives the plot of this play. Orlando, the younger brother, has been left to languish at home while his older brother is able to go off and study. Their father has died, so the older brother, Oliver, has full control of the estate. They fight and Orlando puts Oliver in a headlock, which as someone who rode in the middle seat between two rambunctious boy cousins from Arkansas to Minneapolis felt a bit *too real*, demands his share of the inheritance, and storms off. Perhaps this exchange gives us a bit of insight into the older pair of brothers we’ll meet later…
Oliver, still fuming (or scheming), is met by “Charles the Duke’s wrestler.” I’ll pause a moment for you all to cast this role in your mind. Stone Cold Steve Austin? Hulk Hogan? Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson? John Cena? Personally, I’m choosing Cena. What can’t that guy do? But I digress. Charles the Wrestler warns Oliver that Orlando plans to try and challenge him. Charles is worried he’ll hurt the little guy. Oliver thinks he should kill him. Ah, brotherly love.
Much inferior to lady-cousins-love (I’m looking at you Jaime), which is GOAT. Rosalind and Celia are two of the best besties in the cannon. Rosalind’s father was the duke (Duke Senior), but he was overthrown and banished. Celia’s father (the younger brother, of course) is the Duke (Duke Frederick). They find out that a wrestling match is about to start. They also find out that Charles the wrestler has *wrecked* his last three opponents. They meet the cutie Orlando and try to talk him out of challenging Charles, but his mind is made up. So they cheer him on instead.
And he wins!
And the music swells. Or, rather, the prose changes to verse. This is one of those moments where there’s a shift mid-scene by characters that speak in either prose or verse as if Shakespeare is saying ‘WAKE UP! THIS IS IMPORTANT!’ The Duke congratulates Orlando, probably intent on offering him some honor, but changes his mind when he learns who Orlando’s father was. Orlando’s father was loyal to Rosalind’s father (Duke Senior). Duke Frederick storms off and Orlando then has an adorbs exchange with Rosalind where he gets completely tongue tied. She gives him a chain and they go their separate ways.
And then things get worse. The Duke decides to banish Rosalind as he did with her father. She argues valiantly in her favor, but the Duke will not be moved. Celia, his daughter, argues too. But his mind is made up. He leaves, and the two women agree to run off to the forest of Arden together —and take the Court’s fool Touchstone as well.
Meanwhile, in the forest of Arden Duke Senior (appropriately named as he is the banished older brother) is hunting with the banished lords of his court. He continues to speak in verse, showing us that he is still of high status, even if low in fortune.
His brother, Duke Frederick, has noticed his daughter Celia is gone. Her nurse has told them that the young women were enamored of Orlando after meeting him at the wrestling match, and so Duke Frederick sends a messenger to Orlando’s brother to find them.
Orlando returns home after winning honor in the wrestling match, but his met by his servant Adam. Adam warns him that Orlando’s brother Oliver intends to “burn the lodging where you lie, and you within it.” Harsh, right? So Adam, who is quite old, and Orlando also run off to the forest of Arden together.
Rosalind (now dressed as a boy named Ganymede), Celia (now dressed as a girl named Aliena) and their fool Touchstone are wandering through the forest when they come across an old man (Corin) and a young man (Silvius). They overhear Silvius lamenting being lovesick for Phebe, and Rosalind feels his pain. She’s lovesick for Orlando. After Silvius leaves, they ask Corin to give them food and he obliges. They all go off together.
And now we meet Jaques. Jaques is the fool who went into exile with Duke Senior. He is also the fool that gives us ‘All the World’s a Stage.’ And now that we’ve met both fools in this play, let’s have a brief interlude about fools. In the medieval court, there were essentially two types of fools: the ‘Natural Fool’ and the ‘Artificial Fool.’ The Natural Fool was someone with an intellectual disability. They were often very beloved, much like Henry VIII’s fool Will Somer who was a comedian of legend in Shakespeare’s day.2 The Artificial Fools were skilled comedians and even writers. In As You Like It, Touchstone who goes on the roadtrip with Rosalind and Celia is meant to be a Natural Fool (possibly even as a nod to Will Somer). Celia calls him a ‘natural’ in Act 1, Scene 2. While Jaques, who’s part of Duke Senior’s merry band of forest dwellers, is an Artificial Fool. One way this is apparent is that Touchstone only speaks in prose, while Jaques speaks in both verse and prose.
But back to our story. Jaques is avoiding the Duke because the Duke is being all mopey about his exile. He sings a song with Amiens the minstrel and goes on his merry way. The Duke enters looking for Jaques and finally finds him. Jaques mocks the Duke for his melancholy, saying “That I am wise, I must have liberty withal, as large a charter as the wind to blow on whom I please, for so fools have; and they that are most galled with my folly, they most must laugh.”3 They banter a bit, that is the role of a fool after all, but are interrupted when Orlando arrives with his sword drawn. Not the best first impression. He demands food for Adam, but the Duke Uno Reverses him saying “Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.” Orlando is then adorably embarrassed at having accosted them and states “I blush, and hide my sword.”
Now there’s a euphemism.
Orlando leaves to bring Adam. The Duke calls the world a “wide and universal theatre” and Jaques breaks into “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”4 Notably, this play was likely written in 1599, which is the same year The Globe Theatre (the original) opened. Shakespeare liked a meta joke. Orlando and Adam return, Duke Senior realizes Orlando is the son of one of his besties, and they all make nice.
Unlike Duke Frederick who threatens Oliver within an inch of his life. Duke Frederick demands that Oliver find Orlando and deliver him over. So Oliver also sets off for the forest of Arden.
For his part, Orlando is nailing love poetry about Rosalind to trees in the forest — speaking of the folly of love. And Touchstone is slowly going mad from not being at Court. He doesn’t have a Duke to banter with so he banters with the shepherd Corin. Touchstone argues that Corin is going to hell because he never learned good manners at Court. Corin argues that the manners of the Court have no place in the fields — who wants to kiss the hands of a man that handles sheep all day? Rosalind enters reading one of Orlando’s poems, which Touchstone soundly mocks. Celia comes with another. And, after much teasing, Celia tells Rosalind that Orlando is also in the forest.
And then, he arrives.
Rosalind and Celia hide as Orlando and Jaques enters. Orlando is lovesick and Jaques is over it, so he leaves. Rosalind (dressed as Ganymede) confronts Orlando. And, tricky little B she be, she convinces him to try to woo her as ‘Rosalind’ so she can break him of his lovesick melancholy. Interestingly, they’re also speaking in prose, not verse, potentially to hide that she’s a noble — although he recognizes a finer accent than belongs in the forest. And like that, her trap is set.
We then flip over to a puzzling subplot of the fool Touchstone wooing the rustic Audrey. He’s convinced a rustic priest to come and marry them, but Jaques convinces him to go to a church. Touchstone admits to the audience that he doesn’t really want the marriage, just the honeymoon, but he goes along anyway.
Rosalind impatiently awaits Orlando who is late (rude!). She mentions that she’s met her father but didn’t disclose herself his daughter. This might be because she barley knows him. He was exiled when she was quite young.
Corin the shepherd and the woman he loves, Phebe, arrive. Phebe scorns him harshly. So harshly that Rosalind and Celia interrupt, and Rosalind berates Phebe. Rosalind (dressed as Ganymede) insults Phebe — “You have no beauty — as by my faith I see no more in you than without candle may go dark to bed” but it just makes Phebe fall in love with her. More on that later.
Orlando finally arrives and Rosalind, dressed as Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind, toys with his affection. It’s a fun time to mention that Rosalind would’ve been played by a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl, adding a whole layer of farce to this scene. Rosalind even convinces him to pretend to marry her in a ceremony performed by Celia. They seemingly have fun with this farce, but Orlando has to go have lunch with the Duke. He promises to return at two. On time this time!
But doesn’t. While Rosalind and Celia wait, Corin arrives with a letter from Phebe to Ganymede (Rosalind). He thinks it’s a scornful letter, but, when Rosalind reads it aloud, it’s a love letter. At this point, the scene goes from elevated verse to base prose, as though Corin’s broken heart can no longer sustain the rhythm of verse. Or, perhaps, its to make Oliver’s entrance a few lines later more dramatically heightened. And dramatic heightening it does. Oliver arrives and tells an outlandish tale about nearly being bitten by a snake and then attacked by a lion, and being saved by Orlando. About being reconciled with Orlando. About Orlando being injured by the lion and sending him to Ganymede to beg forgiveness for missing their date. Can she trust him? Elizabethan audiences had to wait through an act break (they had to change out the candles of the Globe), and another interlude of Touchstone threatening to beat up Audrey’s ex-boyfriend, to learn its truth.
But thankfully, it is the truth. Orlando and Oliver chat as they wait for Ganymede (Rosalind) to arrive. It turns out that Oliver is changed, and he’s fallen in love with Celia (who he think sis the shepherdess Aliena). He is so changed that he offers to give over his birthright as the first born to live and die as a shepherd with Aliena (Celia).
Rosalind arrives and finds that Orlando is also changed. He can no longer play the game of pretending Ganymede is Rosalind. Rosalind, desperate, pretends to know magic and says she will set Rosalind before Orlando during Oliver and Aliena’s wedding. Phebe and Silvius arrive, and Rosalind, who has now decided to unmask herself, decides to do so in the most dramatic way possible. She tells Phebe that “I will marry you, if ever I marry a woman, and I’ll be married tomorrow.” So tricky! Gotta love her. By the end of the interlude, she has gotten Orlando to agree to marry Rosalind if she shows up. Phebe to either marry Ganymede or, if she rejects Ganymede marry Silvius. And Silvius to marry Phebe if Phebe rejects Ganymede. The stage is set.
Oh, and Touchstone and Audrey are also planning on marrying tomorrow. Later, Jaques calls out this absurdity by likening the play to Noah’s ark as all the lovers come two-by-two.
Which brings us to the final scene.
Rosalind (dressed as Ganymede) brings Duke Senior (her father) and Orlando together, and again makes them promise that, if Rosalind appears, the Duke will offer her in marriage and Orlando will take her. They agree. When she goes to ‘do her magic’, the Duke and Orlando chat about how similar Ganymede looks to Rosalind. *Wink*
Touchstone and Audrey arrive and the scene is set for many many marriages. So, naturally, the Greek god Hymen (yes, that’s his name; and yes, that term was also already in use) arrives. He’s the god of marriages (*wink*) and he’s going to set all this straight (*wink* *wink*). Rosalind, now dressed as Rosalind, is reunited with her father and Orlando. Phebe, seeing her love is a woman, decides she’ll make due with Silvius — wonder if she’ll regret that in the morning. And, to top it all off, an as-of-yet-unmentioned brother to Oliver and Orlando arrives to say that Duke Frederick had a religious experience, is giving Duke Senior his title back, and running off to be a religious leader.5
Perhaps Rosalind is magic after all.
Speak the Speech, I Pray You
Bring Shakespeare’s words into your own life by:
Explain the great lengths you’ve gone through to get Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets;
Justifying a completely-not-real-life-story of how you wrote a sonnet comparing the Backstreet Boys to Greek gods; and
Try to reason with the TSA agent stopping you from making a dramatic declaration of love at your boyfriend’s gate:
Additional Resources
Find a copy of the entire play here.
Listen to a podcast here about the famed fool of Henry VIII’s Court, Will Somer.
Listen to the Shakespeare’s Shadows Podcast where the host interviews academics and actors about the character of Rosalind here.
Much of this information comes from “William Shakespeare; his world, his work, his influence (Shakespeare’s Use of Prose)” by Brian Vickers & John Andrews (Scribner).
See “Will Somer: Peter K. Andersson on Henry VIII’s Court Fool.” Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast, December 5, 2023, https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/will-somer-fool-peter-andersson/.
Act II, Scene 7, Lines 47-51. As a comedian, I have to agree. Those that have the least sense of humor most need to learn to laugh at themselves.
Act II, Scene 7, Lines 139-166.
It’s interesting that, unlike The Tempest, the brothers don’t meet at this point. I’d guess that’s because the roles of the Dukes were to be played by one actor, but that’s just a guess.