Shakespearean Wrestling Scene from 'As You Like It'
ShakespeareDrama

As You Like It

William Shakespearec. 1599
Influence20th pct
Popularity58th pct

Read this if you…

  • want one of Shakespeare's best characters, Rosalind
  • want "All the world's a stage" full speech, banger

Skip this if you…

  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated
  • don't like his comedies compared to his tragedies

Why It Matters

Shakespeare drops a comedy into a forest where the social rules dissolve, people pretend to be someone else, and everyone figures out what they actually want. Rosalind is his smartest and most self-aware comic heroine. The play keeps circling the gap between performing a role and being yourself, which makes it one of his most philosophical comedies.

The Groblé Take

A bunch of great characters, Jacques and touchstone. Rosalind’s scheming was also great. Some great poetry. Still not the highest of highs I’ve seen in other Shakespeare

Connections

The lineage through As You Like It

Built Onwhat came beforeAs You Like ItMetamorphosesThe Gospels

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid. As You Like It built on it. - Touchstone names Ovid by name, and the joke only works if you know the *Metamorphoses* standing behind it - Shakespeare's most-quarried classical source supplies the play's deep theme: love that transforms whoever it touches - Read Ovid first and Arden reveals itself as his golden world transplanted to an English forest
  • The Gospels by Matthew. As You Like It built on it. - Orlando frames his first scene as the Prodigal Son's story — the parable from the *Gospels* sets the comedy's exile-and-return in motion - "What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?" — the line all but quotes Luke 15, husks and hogs and all, straight from Shakespeare's Geneva Bible - Knowing the parable first lets you hear Orlando's complaint as the scriptural echo it is
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Orlando squares off against Charles the wrestler before Duke Frederick's court; Rosalind and Celia clutch each other in the centre while Touchstone sits at the front.

Daniel Maclise, 1854

A reluctant schoolboy with satchel creeps along a country lane on his way to school.

Robert Smirke, 1801

Standing portrait of the court fool Touchstone in motley with cap and bauble.

John William Waterhouse

Rosalind and Celia embrace as they plot their flight from Duke Frederick's court at the close of Act I, Scene 3.

Margaret Gillies

Rosalind, dressed as the boy Ganymede, sits pensively beneath a tree in the Forest of Arden contemplating her exile.

John Everett Millais, 1868

Rosalind, in boyish dress, presents her chain or necklace to Orlando after his victory over Charles the wrestler.

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, 1899

A bearded soldier, 'full of strange oaths', strides forward in armor seeking the bubble reputation.

Robert Smirke, 1801

Touchstone in motley pays court to the rustic goatherd Audrey in a country lane, with goats at her feet.

John Collier

Pen-and-ink illustration: Rosalind in boy's dress and Celia in country garb pause together in the Forest of Arden.

Hugh Thomson, 1909

Oliver presents the bloody napkin from Orlando's wound; Rosalind, still disguised as Ganymede, faints into Celia's arms.

William Hamilton, 1791

Rosalind in boy's dress sits in the forest reading the love verses Orlando has pinned to the trees.

Henry Nelson O'Neil, 1856

Rosalind, still disguised as Ganymede, stands beside Celia coaching Orlando through a mock wedding rehearsal in the forest.

Walter Howell Deverell, 1853

The melancholy Jaques leans on his staff in a forest glade beside a wounded deer weeping into a brook, watched by Duke Senior's exiled lords.

William Hodges, 1790

The shepherdess Phoebe coldly turns away from her kneeling suitor Silvius in a pastoral setting.

John Pettie, 1872

Orlando stands triumphant over the fallen Charles; Rosalind and Celia look on from one side, the court grouped on the other.

Francis Hayman, 1742

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$9.99$9.31

Folger Shakespeare Library

2004

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise google, without breaking the scene to do it.

Buy on Bookshop
#2

SparkNotes (No Fear Shakespeare)

2004

$7.99$7.45Buy
#3

Arden Shakespeare

2006

$14.89Buy

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

Notable Quotes

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

— Jaques, As You Like It

“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.”

— Jaques, Act II, Scene vii

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