Summary
Rosalind and Celia, still in disguise, briefly discuss
Orlando’s tardiness. Two hours have passed, and he has not returned,
as promised, to resume his love lessons. Silvius interrupts in order
to deliver a letter to Ganymede. It is from Phoebe and, after he
turns it over, Silvius warns the disguised Rosalind that its tone
is harsh. Phoebe, he admits, looked very angry when she penned it.
Rosalind scans the letter and reports that Phoebe judges Ganymede
to be a young man without looks or manners. She then accuses Silvius
of writing the letter himself, which he vehemently denies. Rosalind
asserts that no woman could have written such a rude and defiant
letter. To prove herself, she reads the letter aloud, but it turns
out to be full of unabashedly romantic declarations, comparing Ganymede
to a god who has destroyed Phoebe’s heart. Baffled, Silvius asks
if this language is what Ganymede calls chiding. Celia offers her
pity to the shepherd, but Rosalind says he deserves none for loving
such a woman as Phoebe. She sends Silvius back to Phoebe with the
message that Ganymede will never love Phoebe unless Phoebe loves
Silvius.
As Silvius leaves, Oliver enters. He asks for directions
to Ganymede and Aliena’s cottage. Then, looking over the pair, who are
still in disguise, he asks if they are the brother and sister who own
that property. When they admit that they are, Oliver remarks that
his brother Orlando’s description of the pair was very accurate. To
Ganymede, Oliver delivers a bloody handkerchief on Orlando’s behalf.
Rosalind asks what has happened. Oliver tells a lengthy story: soon
after leaving Ganymede, Orlando stumbled upon a ragged man asleep
in the forest, who was being preyed upon by a “green and gilded
snake” (IV.iii.107).
Orlando succeeded in scaring the snake away, only to see a hungry
lioness emerge from the underbrush. Orlando approached the ragged
man, and recognized him as his brother. Orlando’s first impulse
was to let Oliver, who treated him so abominably, perish in the
lion’s jaws, but his nobler nature would not allow it. He fought
off the lion, wounding his shoulder but ultimately saving Oliver’s
life. Orlando’s kind and selfless gesture have transformed Oliver
into a new man, and the elder brother confesses that he is ashamed
of his former self. He continues, saying that he and Orlando made
amends and went to see the duke. There, Orlando fainted, having
lost a great deal of blood in his fight with the lioness. Before
passing out completely, he charged Oliver to deliver an apology
to Ganymede in the form of a bloodstained handkerchief. Upon hearing
this story, Rosalind faints dead away. Celia and Oliver help her
recover, and Oliver remarks that young Ganymede “lack[s] a man’s
heart” (IV.iii.163–164).
Rosalind begs Oliver to impress upon Orlando how well she “counterfeited”
a suitable reaction to his injury, in accordance with their lessons (IV.iii.167).
Oliver protests that her reaction must be genuine, for her face
is flushed. Rosalind, however, assures him that she was merely playing
a part.
Analysis
In Act IV, scene iii, the play takes two important steps
toward its resolution. First, Rosalind begins to tire of the game
she plays. Her disguise as Ganymede allows her a number of freedoms
that she could not enjoy as a woman: she can leave court, travel
safely into the forest, express sexual desire, and initiate a romantic
courtship. But her disguise also has its limitations. After all,
it disables her from consummating her relationship with Orlando,
and Rosalind does not relish the idea of acting out the indefinitely
protracted desire depicted in Petrarch’s love poetry. If Orlando
were willing to test the bounds of their fiction and have sex with
Ganymede, he would discover Rosalind’s true identity. Even if Orlando
already suspects that Ganymede is Rosalind, as some critics suggest
he must, he could not very well pursue a sexual
relationship with her unless they were properly married. To do so
would be to compromise Rosalind’s virtue and denigrate her incomparably
delightful character. Besides, Rosalind’s disguise is meant to be
temporary yet powerful, just like the temporary yet critical move
to Ardenne.
As noted previously, Elizabethans placed a great importance upon
outward markers of identity such as dress and behavior. A cross-dressing
woman presents a very amusing spectacle temporarily, but the ruse
cannot be maintained indefinitely. Such a sustained subversion of
the social order would bring chaos, and Shakespeare takes care to
remind us that a woman in man’s clothing is still a woman, returning
to his Elizabethan audience’s expectations of gendered behavior.
For example, upon hearing of Orlando’s trial with the lioness, Rosalind
faints, prompting Oliver to remark that she lacks “a man’s heart”
(IV.iii.163–164),
to which she responds, “So I do; but, i’faith, I should have been
a woman by right” (IV.iii.173–174).
This call and response signals to the audience that the game is
still a game, that Ganymede is little more than a pair of pants,
and that Rosalind, though smart enough to avoid temporarily her
proper place in society, is ultimately willing to resume it.
The arrival of Oliver offers a second movement toward
resolution. When the previously evil Oliver steps foot in Ardenne,
he is transformed into the loving brother he never was before. This
transformation speaks to the mutability of the human experience:
people can change and, as As You Like It insists,
can change for the better. Certainly this transformation has much
to do with the movement from court into the country. Once removed
from the politics and pressures of life at court, the obstacles,
greed, and petty jealousies that separate the brothers dissolve.
Although the play at several points satirizes the pastoral mode
for its simplicity and unreality, here it indulges in the pastoral
fantasy that nature can heal the wounds inflicted by the artificial
and corrupt hierarchies of the man-made world.
