As You Like It · Chapter
Scene II explained
Orlando hangs love poems on trees, then meets Rosalind disguised as Ganymede.
What happens
Orlando hangs love poems on trees, then meets Rosalind disguised as Ganymede. She playfully offers to cure him of love, and they agree to a wooing game. Touchstone and Corin debate court versus country life. Jaques and Orlando exchange witty insults.
Themes in this chapter
Disguise and Deception
Rosalind as Ganymede deceives Orlando, initiating a therapeutic game.
Court vs. Country
Touchstone and Corin debate the merits of courtly versus pastoral life.
Love and Marriage
Orlando's poetic devotion and Rosalind's playful critique of love's madness.
Characters to notice
- Orlando
Hangs verses on trees, meets Ganymede, agrees to woo him as Rosalind.
- Rosalind
Disguised as Ganymede, she teases Orlando and proposes to cure his love.
- Touchstone
Debates with Corin about court vs. country life.
- Corin
Defends the shepherd's life against Touchstone's mockery.
- Jaques
Exchanges barbs with Orlando, calls him 'Signior Love'.
- Celia
Present as Aliena, addressed by Rosalind as 'sister'.
Key passages
“Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do”
Love is just a form of insanity that should be treated like madness.
Rosalind dismisses romantic love as a curable lunacy.
“those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court”
Courtly manners look foolish in the countryside, and rustic ways seem absurd at court.
Corin points out the relativity of social customs.
“Time travels in divers paces with divers persons”
Time moves at different speeds for different people.
Rosalind explains how subjective time feels depending on one's situation.