Characters
- Jaques — A contemplative courtier in exile; melancholic and philosophical.
- Orlando — A young gentleman in love; impulsive and hopeful.
Production Notes
Melancholy meets infatuation. Jaques, the philosophizing exile, encounters Orlando, who has just hung love poems on the forest trees. One Player is grounded and reflective; the other is restless with emotion. Their contrasting energies create a scene of philosophical and romantic sparring.
Script
Enter JAQUES.
JAQUES:
I prithee, recount some of your dialogues with this forest’s denizens. Methought you were a mighty lover of discourse.
Enter ORLANDO.
ORLANDO:
Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character; That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witness’d every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she.
Exit ORLANDO.
JAQUES:
I do not like her name.
Re-enter ORLANDO.
ORLANDO:
What stanza have I heard concerning love Drawn from the lips of old philosophers?
JAQUES:
There was an old religious uncle of mine Taught me to know the differences of men By their exterior; and I have read As many false starts in a lover’s speech As there are leaves upon the trees of France. A man may rail against all women kind, As I have seen many in their affections — Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
ORLANDO:
Did you ever love?
JAQUES:
Neither rhyme nor reason can express How barbarous in love a man becomes. I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation, Nor the musician’s, which is fantastical, Nor the courtier’s, which is proud, Nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious, Nor the lawyer’s, which is politic, Nor the lady’s, which is nice; But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
ORLANDO:
A man that all his passions well combin’d Could not so mope. I fear this great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I was never so rhymed since Pythagoras’ time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.
JAQUES:
Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola. But, fare you well.
Exit JAQUES.
ORLANDO:
But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?
Exit ORLANDO.
Facilitator Notes
This scene hinges on contrasts. Jaques is settled in his melancholy; Orlando is unsettled by his love. Try it with Orlando becoming increasingly agitated as Jaques grows more serene and dismissive. The comedy comes not from mocking love or philosophy, but from watching two people at cross-purposes, each convinced of their own wisdom. Which Player’s perspective does the audience trust?