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Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 5fact that it rarely coincides with constancy (1.2.37–39, 1.2.43–44). Touchstonelater echoes this point in his comment on the court ladies, reported by Jaques,that if they “be but young and fair, they have the gift to know it” (2.7.37–38).The hallmark of Rosalind’s love is fidelity rather than intense desire, as isimplied by her prolonged testing of Orlando, although the fact that she identifieswith Silvius’s desperation reminds us that it is physical passion whichgives romantic love its initial impetus (2.4.60–61).As the conversation between Touchstone and the two women in act1, scene 2 might have led us to anticipate, the third issue that Shakespeareraises is the crucial one of the relationship between “wit” and The Good Life.Jaques’s account of the ages of man is triggered by Duke Senior’s typicallycompassionate reflections on Orlando’s plight:We are not all alone unhappy:The wide and universal theatrePresents more useful pageants than the sceneWherein we play in.(2.7.136–39)Whereas the duke uses the theatrical image to reflect sympathetically on thesuffering of others, Jaques hijacks it to express a radical detachment. Theexperience of a lover, for instance, is reduced to a series of clichéd, externalsymptoms (2.7.147–49). The famous speech is undermined, as many criticshave realized, by the entrance of Adam, whose fierce loyalty makes him somuch more vividly alive than the senile, decrepit relic who represents old agein Jaques’s account. One is not surprised to see Jaques begging to becomethe duke’s fool, since this position would allow him to remain a detachedspectator; he would be in the company, but not of it, and would commentgenerally on pride without concerning himself with any specific individual(2.7.42–87). When he overhears the fool philosophizing, he merely begins to“crow” with laughter “that fools should be so deep contemplative,” managingto maintain his superiority even as he relishes Touchstone’s meditations onthe insignificance and ephemerality of human life (2.7.28–33).The difference between Touchstone’s speech and Jaques’s reflections onthe ages of man is that the fool sees human life as a process of “ripening” aswell as “rotting” (2.7.24–27). Shakespeare hints that Touchstone is not exploringthe brevity of human life for its own sake, but as part of a larger desireto lead a thoroughly mature life, which possibly culminates in his humblemarriage with Audrey. In contrast, in his purely negative view of human society,in which pride is seen as universal, “flow[ing] hugely as the sea,” Jaques