Jaques (As You Like It) Jaques (As You Like It) Jaques () is one of the main characters in Shakespeare's "As You Like It". The 'Melancholy Jaques', as he is known, is one of Duke Senior's noblemen who lives with him in the Forest of Arden (or Ardennes). The role has long been a favourite for famous Shakespearean actors. Jaques' distinguishing characteristic is his unmitigated cynicism. He is the only purely contemplative character in Shakespeare. He thinks, and does nothing. His whole occupation is to amuse his mind, and he is totally regardless of his body and his fortunes. Hazlitt describes him as "the prince
As You Like It a boy, whereupon the rustic Phebe, also played by a boy, becomes infatuated with this "Ganymede", a name with homoerotic overtones. In fact, the epilogue, spoken by Rosalind to the audience, states rather explicitly that she (or at least the actor playing her) is not a woman. In several scenes, "Ganymede" impersonates Rosalind' so a boy actor would have been playing a girl disguised as a boy impersonating a girl. Arden is the name of a forest located close to Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, but Shakespeare probably had in mind the French Arden Wood, featured in Orlando Innamorato, especially