Contrary Notions of Identity in As You like It - Yavanika

MARK
BRACHER
239
other and a recognition of the other's intrinsic right to be other than
oneself. Thus the courtier will accommodate all degrees of opposing
points of view, right up to the Lie Direct. And even the Lie Direct
need not result in a quarrel, if both parties realize that all opinions are
ultimately relative, and allow themselves to differ, permitting each
other to remain other. Differences need not be resolved. Arguments can
end in a manner other than the victory of one party and the defeat of
the other: they can end with both parties acknowledging that they
disagree. Even Jaques shares this realization at the end, when,
instead of railing at the dancers, he simply declares, "I am for other
than for dancing measures" (V.iv. 193) and withdraws. The final word
should not be: I say this, and you are wrong to say that; but rather, as
one of the adversaries realizes: If you say that, then I say this, and
that's how we stand. Let's shake hands and be brothers (lines 96-102).
Touchstone here modifies his earlier dictum on the nature of the
self. He does not retract his assertion that "ipse is he: [and] you are not
ipse, for I am he" - that individual selves are inherently distinct and
thus in certain ways opposed. But he does deny that this opposition
must of necessity dominate human existence. Mutuality and friendship
can supersede opposition and difference if individuals will but
acknowledge and accept that very opposition and difference. The recognition
that every perspective is relative, and the willingness to
admit the conditionality of one's own position, is the basis of peace, as
Touchstone realizes: "Your If is the only peacemaker. Much virtue in
If" (V.iv. 102-103).37
The significance of Touchstone's disquisition is immediately
attested to by Duke Senior, who remarks, "He uses his folly like a
stalking horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit"
(V.iv. 106-107). The value of Touchstone's insight and its relation to
the theme of love is further indicated by Hymen, who appears and
sanctifies - almost in response to Touchstone, it seems - the notion of
inclusiveness: "Then is there mirth in heaven / When earthly things
made even / Atone together" (V.iv. 108-110). Inclusiveness, or atonement,
is seen to accord with the ultimate nature of things: it produces
mirth in heaven. And the simple juxtaposition of Touchstone's speech
with the appearance of Hymen indicates once again that a fundamental
relativism is a prerequisite to love. Before one can love, one must
be open to the loved one's otherness and allow the loved one to be
different.
37Maura Slattery Kuhn, in "Much Virtue in 'If," SQ 28 (Winter 1977):40-50,
points to another indication of the play's relativism with her observation that "an
untypically large number of If's appear in this play, more than in any other play by
Shakespeare, both in absolute frequency and in relative frequency," p. 44.
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