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"As You Like It"
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The following is a passage from William Shakespeare's As You Like It. Rosalind and Celia, having been banished from the kingdom, discuss how they will then survive: via disguise. There is therefore a double layer of performing as an Other inherent in this play: the actors disguised as their characters who in turn disguise themselves. There is also the layering of gender, in that Rosalind will disguise herself as a man- Rosalind who is, in the first place, played by a male actor. The metatheatricality of the characters of Ganymede and Aliena (Rosalind and Celia's assumed personnages, respectively) is exemplary of the performativity of the time.
CELIA
Prithee, be cheerful. Know’st thou not the Duke
Hath banished me, his daughter
ROSALIND
That he hath not.
CELIA
No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl?
No, let my father seek another heir.
Therefore, devise that we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us.
And do not seek to take your change upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.
ROSALIND
Why, whither shall we go?
CELIA
To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
ROSALIND
Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
CELIA
I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
And with a kind of umber smirch
my face;
The like do you. So shall we pass along
And never stir assailants.
ROSALIND
Were it not better
Because I more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtal ax upon my thigh,
A boar spear in my hand, and – in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will –
We’ll have a swashing and a martial
outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.
CELIA
What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
ROSALIND
I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s
own page,
And therefore look you to call me Ganymede.
But what will you be called?
CELIA
Something that hath a reference to my state:
No longer Celia, but Aliena.
As You Like It, I.iii.92-126
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