Chapter Commentary of As You Like It - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

Phebe’s heartlessness in this scene outdoes Touchstone’s lack of gallantry a few scenes back. She is an incarnation of the disdainful Petrarchan mistress, prominent in many Renaissance sonnets. In taking Silvius’s extravagant love literally, she reveals its absurdity. Rosalind is again in control - her chiding of Phebe giving her a taste of her own medicine. The ironies of unrequited love are intensified to the point of comic absurdity when Phebe falls for the disguised Rosalind.

Act IV

Rosalind gets the better of Jacques in a debate about Melancholia. This genial and gentle mockery represents the banishment of melancholy by the mirthful spirit of comedy incarnated by the youthful and optimistic central character. In exuberant form Rosalind then chides Orlando for being late, bids him woo her and enlists Celia’s help in performing a mock marriage ceremony with him. This is the second great scene in which the central devise of disguise is used to advance the love plot as Rosalind ("in a holiday humour" - IV.1.61) manipulates Orlando and experiments with her language, some of which has bawdy undertones. She is bold, assertive and daring, promoting Celia’s later rebuke:

‘You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate’ (IV.1.186-7)

The normal conventions in relations between the sexes are subverted through the devise of disguise. When Orlando says he must leave her for two hours because her has to dine with the Duke, she warns him not to be a minute late for their next rendezvous or she will think him untrustworthy.

There follows an interlude in which Jacques elicits a song from a forester who has killed a deer that they propose to present to the Duke. The function of this scene is to fill the time demanded by the plot (two hours have to pass before Orlando returns to Rosalind). Jacques, who had earlier lamented at length the killing of a deer in the forest (II.1.27ff), appears to show no disapproval here. The idea of presenting the Duke with the horns prompts the old joke about cuckoldry, which is a recurrent theme taken up by Touchstone and Rosalind, to be repeated later.

Rosalind receives from the hands of Silvius a love letter from Phebe; at first she pretends that it is abusive and that she really believes Silvius to be the author. She then reads it to Silvius and rebukes him for his folly in love. Rosalind’s pretence, though her intentions are not malicious, compounds Silvius’s distress, who is treated quite severely, almost tormented. Oliver enters in search of Ganymede to deliver a message from Orlando which explains his non-arrival. It tells of how Oliver rescued him first from a snake and then a lion, and was wounded in the process. Rosalind faints.

Oliver's account of his conversion though the generosity of his brother provides further evidence of Orlando’s essential goodness, who is not so perfect that he did not contemplate revenge. Oliver’s account of Orlando "Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy" (IV.3.102) cleverly introduces what is a fanciful bittersweet narrative. The scene’s climax, in which Rosalind faints, is the occasion of comic and touching irony and an indication that under the pressure of her feelings her disguise is beginning to crack.

Touchstone’s threateningly dismisses of one of Audrey’s previous suitors, William, the country clown. This treatment contrasts with his good-natured dismissal of Jacques and the disinterested schooling of Silvius by Rosalind. In performance it can either be played as farce, with William’s simplicity exaggerated, or as genuinely vicious. Either way, it enhances Rosalind’s good-natured wit and character by contrast.

In conversation between the two brothers it emerges that Oliver and Aliena (Celia) have fallen in love at first sight and propose to get married the following day. When Orlando rebukes that it is a bitter thing to look into happiness through another man’s eyes, Rosalind promises that she will bring about his own marriage to Rosalind at the same time. Phebe rebukes Rosalind for revealing the contents of her letter. Silvius defines what it is to be a true lover referring to his own feelings for Phebe; Orlando and Phebe echo his feelings in a refrain as they yearn for Ganymede and Rosalind, while Rosalind joins in with her feeling "for no woman".