Understanding Shakespeare: As You Like It by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

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As Orlando arrives, Jacques bids farewell to Rosalind since she and Orlando will “talk in blank verse” (28: in fact, Orlando’s greeting at line 27 is iambic pentameter). In other words, they will be speaking poetically like lovers; and the melancholy of lovers is a much different type than Jacque’s own particular brand of melancholy.

Rosalind bids farewell and adds that Jacques should look, act, and dress like a foreigner if he wants her to believe that he has actually traveled to foreign lands (lines 29-33). She is implying that his melancholy is otherwise indistinguishable from the melancholy of others.

Rosalind, in a sense, wins the witty debate regarding melancholic behavior. However, the irony of the scene is that she is a lover and has all of the emotions of a lover: thereby, she is full of melancholy