Orlando (As You Like It) forest of Arden. At the start of the play Orlando complains about the harsh treatment given to him by his brother, Oliver, and says that Oliver will not even give him the paltry sum of 1000 crowns left to him in their father's will. He is portrayed as exceptionally strong in both body and in his devotion to love. It is these qualities that make Rosalind fall for him as well. After angering Oliver's crony Duke Frederick, Orlando flees his familiar surroundings to live in exile in the Forest of Arden. There, he is accepted into the circle of the
As You Like It verbal sketches, culminating in "second childishness and mere oblivion,/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything". The main theme of pastoral comedy is love in all its guises in a rustic setting, the genuine love embodied by Rosalind contrasted with the sentimentalised affectations of Orlando, and the improbable happenings that set the urban courtiers wandering to find exile, solace or freedom in a woodland setting are no more unrealistic than the string of chance encounters in the forest which provoke witty banter and which require no subtleties of plotting and character development. The main action of the first act is