May 14 2008
Summary: As You Like It
Acts I, II, III
Orlando and Oliver are two brothers who don’t get along. Their father has just died, and so the family’s money has been left to Oliver. Orlando is the younger of the two and decides he wants to go out into the world to get away from his brother. Orlando decides to go wrestle Charles, the Duke’s champion wrestler. Meanwhile, Rosalind and Celia, two cousins, are at court. Rosalind’s father has been banished by Celia’s father, his younger brother. Rosalind is extremely sad about this. When Orlando comes to court to wrestle Charles, Rosalind and Orlando immediately fall in love. Celia and Rosalind try to convince Orlando not to fight because they think he will be killed, but he will not be dissuaded.
After Orlando successfully beats Charles in the wrestling match, Duke Frederick suddenly gets mad at Rosalind, and banishes her from court. Celia decides that she cannot live without Rosalind, so the two girls run away together into the forest. They disguise themselves so that no one will recognize them. Rosalind dresses up as a guy named Ganymede, and Celia dresses up as a girl named Aliena. Meanwhile, Orlando also runs away into the forest because he learns that his brother Oliver is trying to kill him.
Celia and Rosalind bring Touchstone, the court fool with them when they run away. In the woods, Touchstone meets a young shepherdess named Audrey, and they fall in love. They decide to get married right away, but Touchstone wants it to be illegally, so that he can leave her easily. Also, Celia and Rosalind are finding love poems and songs hung on tree branches and shrubs all over the forest, and the author seems to be deeply in love with Rosalind. Celia claims that it is Orlando who is writing them. She says she knows this because she found him in the forest, and he told her. Rosalind, dressed up as Ganymede, (a guy) goes to Orlando and tells him that she knows how to cure the sickness of love. She claims that if Orlando pretends that she (who seems to be a guy) is the Rosalind he is in love with, and if he woos her (as a guy) as he would Rosalind, then he won’t be in love with Rosalind anymore. They then go off to try to cure him of his lovesickness.
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