How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (29 page)

’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair
,

Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream

That can entame my spirits to your worship.…

But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love
,

For I must tell you friendly in your ear
,

Sell when you can; you are not for all markets
.

(
As You Like It
, Act III, Scene 5, lines 46ff.)

R
osalind is another one of those Shakespeare characters whom your children simply have to know. Like her female counterparts in other Shakespeare comedies—Katherine in
The Taming of the Shrew
, Helena in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Viola and Olivia in
Twelfth Night
, Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing
, and Imogen in
Cymbeline
—she is smart, sassy, witty, resilient, good-natured, and full of life. And she might just be the best talker of all of them.

The play that Rosalind prances through like a colt is
As You Like It
, a comedy that celebrates simple country life over the scheming, political
life at court. While the play is verbally sophisticated, it’s also perfect for introducing children to Shakespeare because the story is so dramatic and the characters so vivid. These include two doughty heroines, a band of Robin Hood–like nobles, romantic shepherds, a funny parson, a country wench, and a wisecracking jester. The plot has equally strong dramatic scenes, including a wrestling match, a lion on the prowl, and a quadruple wedding.

Toward the beginning of the play, which opens at the court of France, Rosalind attends a wrestling match and falls in love with one of the contenders, a young nobleman named Orlando. Orlando’s jealous brother has rigged the match so that Orlando will be killed. (Brothers rarely get along in Shakespeare.) Orlando, however, wins the match but then, fearing for his life, flees to the Forest of Arden with his faithful old servant Adam, a role that Shakespeare himself was reputed to have played. (There was a real Forest of Arden in England in Shakespeare’s day, and it’s still there, but the one in the play is an idealized forest supposedly in France.) To everyone’s surprise, Rosalind is soon banished from court by her uncle, the Duke, who fears her popularity with his people. She too flees to the Forest of Arden, where her father lives in exile. Her cousin Celia, who is her best friend, insists on going with her, and they decide to disguise themselves for purposes of safety. Rosalind dresses up as a boy and calls herself “Ganymede,” and Celia dresses up as Ganymede’s sister, calling herself “Aliena.” Along with them comes the court jester, Touchstone, who is certainly the funniest of all the jesters in Shakespeare.

What an image Shakespeare creates! Two high-spirited young women in disguise, wandering into the romantic Forest of Arden with a city-wise jester by their side.
Now am I in Arden, the more fool I
, declares Touchstone with skepticism.

When I was at home I was in a better place, but travelers must be content
.

Touchstone is like a modern stand-up comedian with a cynical outlook. But in the course of the play, he falls for a country wench and marries her (with lecherous intentions, to be sure), and in the end, even he is affected by the spirit of Arden.

As You Like It
at the Old Vic with Juliet Rylance as Rosalind and Thomas Sadoski as Touchstone
(photo credit 26.1)

The Passage at Hand

One of the adventures that Rosalind experiences in the forest brings us to the passage at hand. Rosalind and Celia overhear a young shepherd, Silvius, declaring his love for a pretty shepherdess, Phebe, who scorns his love. Silvius is so ardent and Phebe so disdainful that Rosalind simply cannot watch them without interfering. To the surprise of the two shepherds, she strides out of the trees and starts lecturing Phebe on good manners and good sense:
ROSALIND
(as Ganymede, coming forward)

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother

[Are you really such a great lady]

That you insult, exult, and all at once
,

Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty…,

Must you therefore be proud and pitiless?

Rosalind then continues with the lines that we’re about to memorize:

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

Evidently, Phebe is looking at Rosalind in a strange way. As usual, Shakespeare is telling us right in the text how to play the scene.

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

I see no more in you

than in the ordinary

Of nature’s sale-work
.

Meaning “I see nothing more in you than in the ordinary products made by nature for general sale”—for example, fruit from a farmer. Highlight for your children that Rosalind uses a commercial image here—which will double back in a few verses in a very funny way. Also point out how Shakespeare leaves out the word
products
in order to make the verse scan so beautifully. Not:

I see no more in you than in the ordinary products

Of nature’s sale-work.

But rather:

I see no more in you than in the ordinary

Of nature’s sale-work
.

And now comes the funniest moment in the speech. Rosalind suddenly understands why the shepherdess Phebe is looking at her so strangely:
Because Rosalind is dressed as a boy
,

and Phebe just fell in love with her!

Shakespeare pulled the same trick in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
. He’ll pull it again in
Twelfth Night
and yet again in
Cymbeline
. If you’re Shakespeare and you’re having your female lead dress up as a boy, you’re going to do something wonderful with it in the course of the plot.

Playacting

If you’re working with your daughter on this passage, she should now put on a cap, dress up as a boy, and play Rosalind. I can’t imagine any girl from five to fifteen not having fun with this passage. My daughter used to love it.

If you’re working on this passage with your son, all the better. Tell him to think of himself as a boy actor pretending to be a female character who is dressing up as a boy for purposes of the plot. As we’ll discuss in a moment, that is exactly the way it was done in Shakespeare’s day.

Back to the Passage

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

I see no more in you than in the ordinary

Of nature’s sale-work
.

And this is the precise moment when Rosalind sees Phebe falling in love with her:

’Od’s my little life
,

[an expression of surprise]

I think she means to tangle my eyes, too!

What a phrase:
she means to tangle my eyes, too
. Could there possibly be a lovelier, cleverer, more poetic way of saying “she means to get my heart entangled through her pretty glance, just the way she entangled the heart of Silvius”?

’Od’s
my little life
,

I think she means to tangle my eyes, too!

Rosalind then tells Phebe how far that will get her:

No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it
.

We now come to three transitional lines that are beautiful and witty and have such a strong rhythm underneath that they’re easy to learn:

’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair
,

Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream

That can entame my spirits to your worship
.

Once again we have a list of qualities, something that your children have now become good at memorizing:

inky brows
[eyebrows]

black silk hair

bugle
[shiny black, like a bead]
eyeballs
,

cheek of cream

brows, hair, eyeballs, cheek

Like the exercise we practiced when Bottom described his dream in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, have your child touch each part of his or her face in rhythm with the sounds of each phrase:
brows, hair, eyeballs, cheek
.

’Tis not your
inky brows
,

your
black silk hair
,

Your
bugle eyeballs
,

nor your
cheek of cream

That can entame my spirits to your worship
.

Rosalind is right. She’s not the sort of man who can be “entamed” by anybody. She’s not a man at all, and so she definitely can’t be tamed by this snooty and headstrong albeit beautiful girl.

The Ultimate Put-down

And now we come to the cleverest part of the whole speech. Rosalind returns to the commercial imagery that she set up earlier (
the ordinary of nature’s sale-work
) and plays on it:

But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love
,

For I must tell you friendly in your ear
,

Sell when you can; you are not for all markets
.

In our household, this last has become another one of those signature lines that we use whenever we can squeeze it in.

MOM

I think I look rather good in this new bathing suit. What do you think, dear?

OLIVIA

Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.

DAD

How’s my haircut?

JACK

Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.

Cruel, but funny.

Now let’s teach your children these last four lines:

But, mistress, know yourself
.

Down on your knees

And thank heaven, fasting
,