the exiled Duke, and Celia the daughter of the usurping one. Rosalind is kept at court, despite her father's exile, because Celia loves her so.
Celia endeavors to keep her cousin cheerful and in this is helped by the court fool, who is named Touchstone. This is a particularly significant name, for a touchstone is a hard, flinty rock upon which a soft metal like gold will leave a rubbed-off mark if drawn across it. Pure gold and gold alloyed with varying amounts of copper can be used to make reference marks of different shades of yellow, orange, and red. If an unknown gold alloy is then rubbed across the touchstone, the mark it leaves, when compared with the standards, will reveal the amount of the copper content. As a result, "touchstone" has come to mean any criterion or standard against which the qualities of something may be tested.
To have a fool named Touchstone, then, is to indicate that it is by the encounter with the wit of a fool that the wisdom of a man may be judged.
Thus, when cautioned about the too great freedom of his remarks, Touchstone says to the girls:
The more pity that fools may not speak
wisely what wise men do foolishly.
- Act I, scene ii, lines 83-84
To this, Celia responds:
By my troth, thou sayest true, for since the little wit
that fools have was silenced, the little foolery
that wise men have makes a great show.
- Act I, scene ii, lines 85-87
This remark has nothing to do with anything in the play and it would seem that Shakespeare was seizing the opportunity to make a cutting reference to some contemporary event. The satiric writing of Elizabethan times had grown more and more scurrilous until those jabbed at by it managed to push the government into banning such satires on June 1, 1599. Censorship, nevertheless, is almost invariably a greater evil than those it tries to cure, and Shakespeare expresses his disapproval of it here.
... is humorous
The young ladies learn of the wrestling matches and of the apparent invincibility of Charles. Orlando is now there to take his turn at the wrestling, and both girls, but especially Rosalind, are greatly taken with his youth and good looks.
All try to persuade Orlando not to wrestle, but he insists, and to everyone's surprise throws Charles and badly hurts him. Duke Frederick wants to know the young victor's name and is put out to find he is a son of Sir Rowland de Boys, an old enemy of his.
Later a courtier comes back to warn Orlando to leave quickly:
... such is now the Duke's condition
That he misconsters [misconstrues] all that you have done.
The Duke is humorous.
- Act I, scene ii, lines 254-56
The word "humorous" refers to the humors (or body fluids) of the old Greek physicians (see page I-582), which were supposed to control the temperament. To say the Duke is "humorous" is to say that he is a creature of moods and his present mood, apparently, is a dangerous one.
... call me Ganymede
The Duke is moody indeed, for he turns against Rosalind also. Having kept her at court ever since her father was exiled, he now bids her leave at once on pain of death, and insists on it despite Celia's wild protests.
After the Duke stalks offstage, Celia insists that she will flee with Rosalind and that together they will seek Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind is disturbed at the thought of two girls wandering through the wilderness and she suggests that she, at least, dress as a man (Shakespeare's favorite device in his romances).
Rosalind even takes a name for herself in her guise as man, saying to Celia:
7'J/ have no worse a name than Jove's own page,
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
- Act I, scene iii, lines 122-23
Ganymede, in the Greek myths, was a beautiful Trojan prince (see page I-67) with whom Jupiter (Zeus) fell in love. Since Ganymede was the object of homosexual love, the name is appropriate for a young man who, being really a young lady, is bound to look and behave like an effeminate.
Celia also chooses a new name, saying to Rosalind that it will be
Something that hath a reference to my state:
No longer Celia, but Aliena.
- Act I, scene iii, lines 125-26
"Aliena" is Lathi and is a feminine form of the word meaning "stranger." Celia has become alienated from her father.
The two girls decide to take Touchstone with them, and leave.