Rosalind: The Cleverest Person in the Forest
First appears: Act 1, Scene 2
Rosalind is banished by her uncle Duke Frederick in Act 1 Scene 3 and arrives in the Forest of Arden disguised as a young man called Ganymede. She has fallen in love with Orlando before the banishment, and when she finds him in the forest, hanging poems about her on trees, she offers to cure him of love by making him woo her as if she were Rosalind. He agrees. She already is Rosalind.
The disguise is her freedom. As herself, she has no power and no standing. As Ganymede, she sets every rule of every encounter. She gets to be wooed by the man she wants without any of the vulnerability that admitting her feelings would bring. She also gets to test him, which she does thoroughly.
Her epilogue at the end of the play, stepping out of character to address the audience directly, breaks the frame in a way no other Shakespeare comedy ending quite does. Having spent five acts performing a man pretending to be a woman, she steps forward and asks for applause as herself. The whole play has been a version of that manoeuvre.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do.”
Rosalind — Act 3, Scene 2
“Men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.”
Rosalind — Act 4, Scene 1
Themes
Other Characters in As You Like It
Test Your Knowledge
Think you know your Shakespeare? Put it to the test with one of our free quizzes.
See all quizzes →