1G0xxeB

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 1 3“men are April when they woo, December when they are wed” (4.1.94–108,4.1.116–19, 4.1.147–48, 4.1.160–69). The strength of her determination toconceal her love is shown by her repeated insistence that she is “counterfeiting”even though she has just fainted out of intense sympathy with Orlando’swounds (4.3.165–82). Rosalind cannot help her passionate attachment toOrlando, but she can prudently protect herself from excessive suffering byselecting only loyal friends. Thus Rosalind’s conversations with Orlandoagain show that the main use of “wit” is extremely practical.Having concluded his tripartite analysis of desire, Shakepeare moveson to measure the value of The Good Life more directly, using Rosalind’srelationship with Orlando to explore the balance between pleasure and painthat the true lover experiences. Rosalind is clearly hurt when Orlando islate, whereas Jaques’s sadness always seems slightly affected, even though hehimself criticizes scholars whose “melancholy…is emulation” (4.1.10–11). Inreality, Jaques too takes pride in his melancholy, claiming self-consciouslythat it stems from “the sundry contemplation of [his] travels, in which [his]often rumination wraps [him] in a most humorous sadness” (4.1.17–20). Thefact that he does not truly suffer is a sign that he is only half alive; Rosalindthinks of him as little better than a “post” (4.1.9). Conversely, the young loversare nothing if not vividly alive; Rosalind comments that time “trots hard”with a young maid about to be married—“If the interim be but a se’nnight,Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year”—whereas forscholars, who carry the “burthen of lean and wasteful learning,” and forlawyers, who “sleep between term and term,” the implication is that timedrags slowly (3.2.312–33). The potent mixture of pleasure and pain that characterizesintense love is illustrated by the way in which Rosalind breaks offabruptly from her scolding of Orlando for his tardiness to deliver a passionateplea: “Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour” (4.1.68–69). Like the maid who “trots hard,” her “thought runs before her actions,”showing that she is in an agony of excitement as she anticipates her marriageto Orlando (4.1.141). As with the maid, it is Rosalind’s intense physical attractionto Orlando that would inevitably create this mixed experience, even ifshe were not worried about his loyalty. In this early stage of their courtshipRosalind is tempted to see language as merely useful for “entreaty” and loveas culminating in the wordless intensity of a kiss (4.1.72–80).Nevertheless, Rosalind is ultimately far more aware than Jaques that noneof our actions can be truly thoughtful unless they help us to fulfill ourselves,as we can see when she tells him curtly that she would “rather have a fool to