Readers should also note that Charles mentions that Duke Senior and his followers “live like the old Robin Hood of England” in the forest (lines 100-01). The old Robin Hood ballads date back to the late Middle Ages, and the legendary hero was thus familiar to Shakespeare’s audience. In those ballads Robin Hood is a figure of justice: he takes from the rich and gives to the poor. Robin Hood lived in Sherwood Forest, and Duke Senior is now living in Ardenne Forest. In both stories the forest symbolizes nature and natural order, and in both stories the forest takes on a mystical or almost magical quality.