As You Like It Read Online Free PDF

Celia chooses “Aliena” as her new identity. They decide to take Touchstone with them.
ACT 2 SCENE 1
    The action moves from the court to the country, one of several binaries in the play, including male/female and hate/love, as well as the oppositions within and between characters: pairs of warring brothers and the division of various characters between their disguised selves and true identities.
    Duke Senior compares the “sweet” life in the forest with the “painted pomp” of the “envious court.” The language used to describe the forest by the duke and others reinforces the idyllic, pastoral nature of the setting, but there are also constant reminders of the realities and troubles of human existence, a tension sustained throughout the play. The duke suggests that they go hunting but is troubled that the “native” citizens of the forest, the deer, are to be usurped and killed “in their own confines,” an image that echoes his own deposition by his brother. A lord describes how the “melancholy Jaques” watched a dying deer and wept while moralizing onthe human condition. Duke Senior is entertained by Jaques’ somewhat excessive and affected moralizing and suggests that they go to find him.
ACT 2 SCENE 2
    Duke Frederick has discovered that Celia has fled with Rosalind. One lord reveals that Touchstone has gone with them; another reports that Celia’s waiting woman overheard them discussing Orlando and suspects that he is “surely in their company.” Frederick sends for Orlando, and, if he cannot be found, for Oliver.
ACT 2 SCENE 3
    Orlando is met by Adam, who warns him he should leave immediately. He reports that Oliver is so jealous of his brother that he plans to kill him. Orlando replies that he has nowhere to go and no money. Adam offers all the money he has saved for his old age and suggests that he go with him. Much moved by Adam’s goodness, Orlando agrees.
ACT 2 SCENE 4
    Rosalind (as Ganymede), Celia (as Aliena), and Touchstone arrive in the Forest of Arden. Celia and Touchstone are weary, but Rosalind is “merry” in spirit. She argues that, since she is disguised as a man, she must be brave, “as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat,” raising issues of gender but also the extent to which “disguise” creates or conceals identity. Two shepherds enter and the others stand aside to listen. The theme of love is raised again, as Silvius tells Corin how much he loves Phoebe. When Corin sympathizes, Silvius claims that Corin is too old to know how he feels and can never have loved as he does. Silvius leaves, still lamenting, and Rosalind sympathizes with him, seeing a parallel between his love and hers for Orlando. Touchstone, too, recalls past love, but with cynical, bawdy humor, concluding that “so is all nature in love mortal in folly.” Touchstone’s prosaic attitude is compounded by Celia,who is thinking only of food. They ask Corin to take them where they can rest and eat. He explains that he cannot help them himself: he is only “shepherd to another man,” introducing an anti-pastoral element of realism and reinforcing the play’s concerns with social position and status. He offers to take them to his master’s cottage, which is for sale. Rosalind offers to buy the “cottage, pasture and the flock.”
ACT 2 SCENE 5
    Amiens sings a song emphasizing the pleasant idleness of the pastoral setting. Jaques asks Amiens to carry on singing, but he refuses, as it will make Jaques melancholy. Revealing his affected nature, Jaques says he enjoys being melancholy, and Amiens continues. Jaques contributes a final, cynical verse, suggesting that anyone who leaves the “wealth and ease” of the court for the country is an “ass.” Amiens goes to call Duke Senior to a banquet.
ACT 2 SCENE 6
    Adam is weak from hunger. Orlando carries him, promising to find food and shelter.
ACT 2 SCENE 7
    Lines 1–88: Duke Senior searches for Jaques. He appears and describes a