COMEDY

GENDER AND SEXUALITY 61usurper Duke Frederick to follow her father into exile in the Forest ofArden. Aware of the danger facing lone women travellers as ‘Beautyprovoketh thieves sooner than gold’ (Shakespeare, 1989:1.3.109),Rosalind decides to disguise herself as a man:Because that I am more than common tall,That I did suit me all points like a man,A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart,Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will.(Shakespeare, 1989:1.3.114–118)Taking up the props of masculinity, and burying ‘female’ traits such asapprehension, Rosalind completes her transformation and takes thename ‘Ganymede’. The Shakespearean stage used boy actors in femaleroles exclusively, as women were forbidden from performing in publicand did not take parts in plays until the Restoration. That all ofShakespeare’s female roles, even the most demanding tragic ones, wereplayed by boys without reducing drama to farce, tells us that thisconvention makes Rosalind’s gender swap utterly convincing within thecontext of the play. But As You Like It is complicated by an additionallayer of transformation. Rosalind’s male disguise reminds us of theinitial gender of the performer, highlighting the fact that his femalenessis only theatrical, with the effect of blurring gender distinctions whileaccentuating them thematically. This gender ambiguity appears to be atthe centre of sexual fascination in the play, and instead of protecting herfrom unwanted attention, Rosalind’s disguise makes the apparentyouthful maleness of her character its central sexual object. The crossdressingof As You Like It therefore encourages the boy actor to assumea heightened erotic presence by placing him in the playful andindeterminate world of comic identities. The key to this is the choice ofthe name ‘Ganymede’ with which Rosalind completes her disguise. InGreek mythology, Ganymede was a beautiful Trojan youth, so admiredby Zeus he was taken as his lover. There is a deliberateness in Rosalindnaming herself after ‘Jove’s Own page’ (Shakespeare, 1989:1.3.124);the choice introduces the idea of men as compelling sexual objects,usurping women in the traditional role of the desired one (underlinedperhaps by the un-cross-dressed Celia’s choice of name, ‘Aliena’,pushing women further to the margins). The naming of Ganymedeensures that Rosalind will be at the heart of a series of crossed andinteracting desiring relationships that centre specifically on the strange