Scenes from Shakespeare's As You Like It

As You Like It

Please see the bottom of each scene for full explanatory notes and study questions.
Please see the bottom of this page for additional helpful resources.

Dramatis Personae.
Act 1
- Scene 1. Orchard of Oliver's house.
- Scene 2. Lawn before the Duke's palace.
- Scene 3. A room in the palace.
Act 2
- Scene 1. The Forest of Arden.
- Scene 2. A room in the palace.
- Scene 3. Before OLIVER'S house.
- Scene 4. The Forest of Arden.
- Scene 5. The Forest.
- Scene 5. The Forest.
- Scene 7. The forest.
Act 3
- Scene 1. A room in the palace.
- Scene 2. The forest.
- Scene 3. The forest.
- Scene 4. The forest.
- Scene 5. Another part of the forest.
Act 4
- Scene 1. The forest.
- Scene 2. The forest.
- Scene 3. The forest.
Act 5
- Scene 1. The forest.
- Scene 2. The forest.
- Scene 3. The forest.
- Scene 4. The forest.
- Epilogue

Next: As You Like It, List of Characters

In the Spotlight

Quote in Context

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a
man's good wit seconded with the forward child
Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
great reckoning in a little room.
As You Like It (3.3), Touchstone

On the surface Touchstone is saying that not to have one's wit understood by others is worse than a big bill (reckoning) in a small tavern. But, more significantly, this line is very likely an allusion to the murder of English dramatist Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's friend and only literary peer. He speaks of him again later in this act: "Dead Shepherd now I find thy saw of might" (3.5). Read on...

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All the World's a Stage

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As You Like It (2.7), Jaques

The melancholy Jaques! We all know him. He is wholly unique and individual. A song carries him out of his senses; the fool convulses him; he has neither hatred nor love, all things suggest melancholy to him; he loves himself too well to hate anybody, among the cheerful cheerless only he. Happy faces but whet his philosophic meditation; he mistakes his own self-love for compassion, and his pity does not include its object. The sufferings of others but open the fountains of his easy tears, he would inflict pain to weep over it, he has been a libertine and now pensively stands aloof from the world; he is the sauce of the entire pudding. His irony is tempered with good-nature and he is a pure sentimentalist. [F. Hyatt Smith, Shakespeare Studies]

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