As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 2 Summary & Analysis

Orlando is reading what appears to be his own poetry from a piece of paper in his hand. The poem is overly sentimental and alludes to the Queen of Night, the huntress Diana, describes the moon as a pale sphere in the sky, and includes a resolve to post poems about Rosalind on every tree in the forest. Having finished reading the poem in his hand, Orlando runs off to continue posting the verses all about the forest.

Touchstone and Corin enter, with Corin asking Touchstone whether he likes the shepherd’s life. The fool answers in the affirmative, but then proceeds to equivocate, saying such things as, “in respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life.” When asked if he has any philosophy of his own, Corin responds with a list of obvious facts of the world, expressed in dull-witted fashion, such as, “the more one sickens the worse at ease he is” and “a great case of night is lack of the sun.”

Touchstone calls Corin damned for never having lived in court; he reasons that Corin has not learned good manners and must therefore have wicked manners and that wickedness is sin. Touchstone and Corin proceed to banter about the suitableness of court manners in the country and country manners in the court, and specifically about the possibility of shepherds adopting the practice of kissing each other’s hands. Corin says that he is content to lead a simple life and care for his ewes and lambs. Even this, Touchstone critiques, declaring it a sin to make a living off of the forced “copulation of cattle.”

Rosalind, dressed as Ganymede, enters, reading one of Orlando’s poems that she has pulled from a tree and is holding in her hands. Touchstone, hearing the poem, tries to compete with its rhymes and so improvises a series of six senseless and poorly metered couplets about Rosalind. Touchstone insults then insults the original poems, to which Rosalind takes offense.

Celia enters, reading another of Orlando’s tree poems, which describes Rosalind as the synthesis of all the best features of Helen, Cleopatra, Atalanta, and Lucretia. At Celia’s request, Touchstone walks away with Corin to leave Celia and Rosalind alone. Celia tells Rosalind that she knows who is behind these badly written poems. Rosalind is impatient to know, and Celia teases her, declaring the man “wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful,” and then finally revealing him to be Orlando. Rosalind is very excited by this news and asks many questions about Celia’s discovery of his identity.

Celia recounts having found Orlando under a tree, dressed like a hunter. Rosalind comments that Orlando is dressed that way because he has come to kill her heart. Then she pardons herself for her constant interruptions by explaining that she is a woman, and, like all women, must speak when she thinks.

Orlando and Jaques enter, bickering. Jaques insults Rosalind’s name, and tells Orlando that being in love is the worst fault. He says that he had been looking for a fool when he came across Orlando, and Orlando tells him to look in the brook to see the fool he was looking for, but Jaques catches on to the trick (that he will simply see himself in the brook). When the two men part, Jaques calls Orlando “Signor Love,” and Orlando calls Jaques “Monsieur Melancholy.”

Rosalind (still disguised as Ganymede) approaches Orlando and asks what time it is. When he answers that he doesn’t know because there is no clock, Rosalind quips that a lover would serve just as well to tell the time, because a true lover sighs on the minute and groans on the hour.

Orlando doubts that Rosalind, who he takes for a country shepherd, could have acquired her manner of speaking in the countryside, but she claims to have had an articulate and religious uncle. She then thanks God that she is not a woman, in light of all the womanly evils her uncle used to speak of.

Rosalind mentions the poems on the trees and expresses her desire to meet and advise the love-swept poet who’s posted them. Orlando admits to being the very poet. Though Rosalind (as Ganymede) at first pretends to express doubts that Orlando is truly in love (just to hear Orlando's declarations of love for Rosalind), she then pretends to be convinced and offers to try curing him of his lunatic love. She tells Orlando that he must imagine her (or him, rather, as she is dressed as Ganymede) as his mistress and woo her, while she acts moody, shallow, and undesirable. This method, she claims, has succeeded before in driving a man in a similar position out of mad love into pure madness, and finally into monastic retreat.

Orlando agrees to try her method, which begins with calling her by the name Rosalind.