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- Act II, scene v, lines 54-55

A possiblefor Jaques' reypt were the victih Moses "And it caht the Lord sypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle" (Exodus 12:29)

It was after this climactic visitation that the Hebrew slaves were finally allowed to leave the country and to make their way into the wilderness It could be that Jaques is using the phrase "all the first-born of Egypt" to symbolize the events that led to the exile of Duke Senior, and it is this against which he intends to rail

the lean and slippered pantaloon

Orlando suddenly bursts in on Duke Senior, Jaques, and the others in wild desperation Old Adao farther and Orlando demands food with sword drawn

Duke Senior speaks to hioes off to get Adam When the Duke uses this event to show that there are ic scenes on earth than their own, Jaques falls to eneral uselessness of life and of es that end in nothing By the sixth, e:

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose

- Act II, scene vii, lines 157-59

In Shakespeare's ti bands of actors give plays in different towns These bands developed stock characters in standard masks and costumes, and one of the most popular of the stock characters was called Pantaleone

The nareat bravery (and is Pantaloon in its English version) Naturally it would seem funny to have "all lion," a lecherous,lovers His characteristic appearance was sufficiently well known to make it unnecessary for Jaques to do more than mention the name

Pantaloon was always dressed in baggy trousers, by the hich came to be called pantaloons in their turn, or, for short, "pants"

Atalanta's better part

The pastoral life in the Forest of Arden now engulfs our various characters Touchstone matches ith the shepherd, Corin, and easily wins Orlando, with time now to think of the love he has conceived for Rosalind on the occasion of his wrestling s them on the trees in approved pastoral fashion

Rosalind in her disguise as Gany one which describes Rosalind as made up of:

Helen's cheek, but not her heart,

Cleopatra's majesty, A talanta's better part,

Sad Lucretia's modesty

- Act III, scene ii, lines 145-48

Three of these four ladies are subjects of Shakespearean plays or poems: Helen in Troilus and Cressida, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Lucretia in The Rape of Lucrece

As for Atalanta, she was a beautiful girl whose hand was sought by in She therefore insisted that no one marry her unless he beat her in a foot race and that if he was hihtened many, and the feho risked the race were beaten by the fleet-footed Atalanta and were killed

Finally, a youth naolden apples He raced Atalanta and each tiolden apples before her Being a woman, each time she paused to pick it up and, thanks to the time she lost, Hippomenes won

The reference in the poem, then, is that Rosalind has Atalanta's "better part," the beauty which drew so many to court her, but not the cruelty which killed those ooed and failed to beat her Atalanta was a byword for fleetness Thus, later on Jaques speaks scornfully of Orlando's retorts to his own ill-natured re:

You have a nimble wit I think

'twas made of Atalanta''s heels

- Act HI, scene ii, lines 273-74

an Irish rat

Rosalind is very pleased at all this, but affects indifference, saying:

I was never so berhymed since

Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat

- Act III, scene ii, lines 175-76

It was Pythagoras' doctrine of the trans referred to By it, Rosalind's soul ht once have inhabited the body of an Irish rat

But what has that to do with rhy? Well, the Celtic bards of Wales and Ireland were pastcurses into their improvised poetry They could use such deadly verses to kill rats and other vermin Therefore an Irish rat would be most "berhymed"

Gargantua's mouth

But Celia knoho has written the verses and finally reveals that it is none other than Orlando The excited Rosalind instantly de about it and hihing, says:

You antua's mouth first

- Act III, scene ii, line 223

Gargantua was a giant of folklore, as apparently first faanta, which is Spanish for gullet He became best known as a character in a faois Rabelais That book was first published in 1535

Jove's tree

Celia says she saw Orlando under an oak tree and Rosalind says:

It may well be called Jove's tree

when it drops forth such fruit

- Act III, scene ii, lines 234-35

The oak tree is sacred to Jupiter Indeed, the most ancient oracle in Greece was an oak tree in Dodona, in Epirus, two hundred miles northwest of Athens Plates and other objects of brass were suspended froether when the wind blew The sounds were then interpreted by the priests of the shrine and were delivered as oracles

Rosalind, in her boy's disguise, es to find Orlando and cleverly persuades hiood lover, he must practice She offers to play Rosalind and allow nun to woo her in that fashion (It iven Shakespeare pleasure to present scenes that were so vividly homosexual and yet done in such a way as to be inoffensive)

honest Ovid

Touchstone also has fallen in love, and with a goat-herding girl named Audrey He says to her:

/ aoats,

as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid,

was a the Goths

- Act III, scene iii, lines 6-8

Ovid had fallen into disgrace with the Ee I-389) perhaps because his erotic books spoiled Augustus' efforts to iustus' dissolute granddaughter, Julia, in soue

Ovid was therefore exiled to the Black Sea town of Tomi (the present-day port of Constanta in Ro a rustic and backward peasantry, eight hundred miles from Ro a strea they would persuade the Emperor to remit the punishment He never did

The inhabitants of Tomi were not Goths, but two centuries later the Goths (a Germanic tribe from the Baltic) had reached the Danube River To the Goths" in anticipation

Not only does Touchstone pun on "goats" and "Goths," but he also calls Ovid capricious, a hich is derived frooat

Dead shepherd

Still another set of lovers is Silvius and Phebe, the conventional shepherd and shepherdess of pastoral tales In this case, Silvius is desperately in love with Phebe, but Phebe answers only with scorn

Rosalind (as Gany so cruel She only makes matters worse, however, for to Rosalind's horror, Phebe is attracted to her at once in her boy's disguise When Rosalind leaves, Phebe sighs:

Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of ht,

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

- Act III, scene v, lines 81-82

The line is a quotation from the poem Hero and Leander written by Christopher Marlowe The poem was published in 1598, a year or so before As You Like It ritten, but Marlowe hie of twenty-nine Hence the reference to the "dead shepherd"

his brains dashed out

Orlando, as agreed, courts Rosalind in her disguise of Gany (and he thinks it is only pretense) that she is Rosalind Rosalind deliberately eggs hireat cynicism in the matter She scouts the notion that lovers would die if refused, saying:

Troilus had his brains dashed out

with a Grecian club;

yet he did what he could to die before,

- Act IV, scene i, lines 92-94

Troilus, having been betrayed by his love (see page I-119), had aed to live long enough to be killed in battle Actually, though, he was killed by Achilles' spear and not by anyone's club

Rosalind also sneers at the Hero and Leander tale (see page I-466), saying of Leander:

he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont,

and being taken with the cramp, was drowned;

and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it

was "Hero of Sestos"

- Act IV, scene i, lines 97-100

Caesar's thrasonical brag

Now Orlando's older brother, Oliver, enters the picture again Duke Frederick, suspecting that his daughter and her cousin had run off with Orlando, orders Oliver to find his brother on pain of his own death

In the forest, Oliver, sleeping, is threatened by a lioness Orlando comes upon his brother and the beast and is te himself to do this, however, so he attacks the lioness and Oliver, awaking, witnesses the rescue The older brother repents his earlier wickedness and is a changed character from this moment

He meets Celia and Ganymede and tells his story He and Celia immediately fall in love Rosalind/Gany:

There was never anything so sudden

but the fight of two ra

of "I came, saw, and overcame"

- Act V, scene ii, lines 29-31

Caesar's deliberately brief report of his battle in Asia Minor in 47 BC (see page II-64) was intended to display a soldierly character, since military men were supposed to be men of action and not of words There is nevertheless a certain affectation in the way in which Caesar sought the fewest syllables

Rosalind's characterization of it as a "thrasonical brag" makes use of too ing" The word co soldier in The Eunuch, a play by the Roman dra "overbold," which we may be sure Thraso pretended to be but was not

Hymen from heaven

Now Rosalind begins to arrange everything She makes Phebe promise to marry Silvius if it turns out she really cannot have "Ganyuise, led by none other than Hye I-55), who says:

Good Duke, receive thy daughter;

Hyht her,

- Act V, scene iv, lines 111-12

The characters now pair off: Orlando with Rosalind, Oliver with Celia, Silvius with Phebe, and Touchstone with Audrey

Only one thing is left to ht and that is supplied by the sudden appearance of Orlando's res the news that Duke Frederick, leading a large arainst Duke Senior, has ious life Duke Senior may thus consider himself restored to his title, and all ends happily