Summary: Act V, scene iv
Your ‘if’ is the only peacemaker; much
virtue in ‘if’.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
On the following day, Duke Senior asks Orlando if he
believes that Ganymede can do all that he has promised. With them,
Oliver, Celia disguised as Aliena, Amiens, and Jaques have gathered
to see whether the miracle of multiple marriages will be performed.
Rosalind enters in her customary disguise, followed by Silvius and Phoebe.
She reminds all parties of their agreements: the duke will allow
Orlando to marry Rosalind, if she appears, and Phoebe will marry
Ganymede unless unforeseen circumstances make her refuse, in which
case she will marry Silvius. Everyone agrees, and Rosalind and Celia
disappear into the forest.
While they are gone, Duke Senior notes the remarkable
resemblance of Ganymede to his own daughter—an opinion that Orlando seconds.
Touchstone and Audrey join the party. Touchstone entertains the
company with the description of a quarrel he had. As he finishes,
Rosalind and Celia return, dressed as themselves and accompanied
by Hymen, the god of marriage. Phoebe, realizing that the young
man she loves is, in fact, a woman, agrees to marry Silvius. Hymen
marries the happy couples: Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia,
Phoebe and Silvius, and Touchstone and Audrey. A great wedding feast
begins.
Halfway through the festivities, Jaques de Bois, the
middle brother of Oliver and Orlando, arrives with the information
that Duke Frederick mounted an army to seek out Duke Senior and destroy
him. As he rode toward the Forest of Ardenne, Duke Frederick met
a priest who converted him to a peace-loving life. Jaques de Bois
goes on to report that Frederick has abdicated his throne to his
brother and has moved to a monastery. All rejoice, happy in the knowledge
that they can return to the royal court. Only Jaques decides that
he will not return to court. He determines to follow Duke Frederick’s
example and live a solitary and contemplative existence in a monastery.
The wedding feast continues, and the revelers dance as everyone
except Rosalind exits the stage.
Read a translation of
Act V, scene iv →
Summary: Epilogue
It is not the fashion to see the lady
the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
the prologue.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Rosalind steps forward and admits that the play is breaking
theatrical customs by allowing a female character to perform the
epilogue. But the play, she says, improves with the epilogue, and
so she asks the audience’s indulgence. She will not beg for the
audience’s approval, for she is not dressed like a beggar. Instead,
she will “conjure” them (Epilogue, 9). She
begins with the women, asking them to like as much of the play as
pleases them “for the love [they] bear to men” (Epilogue, 10–11).
She asks the same of the men, saying that if she were a woman—for
all the female roles in Renaissance theater were played by men—she
would kiss as many of them as were handsome and hygienic. She is
sure the compliment would be returned, and that the men will lavish
her with applause as she curtseys.
Analysis: Act V, scene iv & Epilogue
In the play’s final act, Rosalind makes good on her promise
to “make all this matter even,” that is, to smooth out the remaining romantic
entanglements (V.iv.18). Both Duke Senior
and Orlando seem to have discovered Rosalind’s game by this time,
and, indeed, Orlando might well have known Ganymede’s true identity
from the start: “My lord, the first time that I ever saw him, /
Methought he was a brother to your daughter” (V.iv.28–29).
That Rosalind’s identity is known before she reveals it does nothing
to undermine the charm of her spell. On the contrary, her lover
would not be any less willing than the audience to play along with
her charms.
Rosalind’s love for Orlando requires the blessing of
marriage in order to have currency in the world beyond the forest.
Hymen, by his own declaration, is a god not of the forest but “of
every town,” and it is to town that the lovers will now return (V.iv.135).
This movement should not be read as a simple victory of city over
country, especially when we consider that one location necessitates
the other: only a respite in the country could mend what civilization
had broken. Although As You Like It draws discernable
lines between the merits of town and country, heterosexual and homosexual unions,
artifice and nature, youth and age, and idealism and realism, it
refuses to take a definitive stand on any issue. Rather, the play insists
on the complexity of life by allowing for the crossing of such boundaries.
The characters’ delight in transcending these boundaries suggests
a utopia where human existence is no less joyous for all its absurdities
and hardships, and one where all that has been broken can, to some
degree, be rebuilt. The play’s hopeful vision is one in which not
everyone can or will share, as the implacable Jaques makes clear,
but it is one to which most of us are only too delighted to cling.
