Summary: Act 5: Scene 4
Your ‘if’ is the only peacemaker; much virtue in ‘if’.
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On the following day, Duke Senior asks Orlando if he believes that Ganymede can do all that he has promised. With them, Oliver, Celia disguised as Aliena, Amiens, and Jaques have gathered to see whether the miracle of multiple marriages will be performed. Rosalind enters in her customary disguise, followed by Silvius and Phoebe. She reminds all parties of their agreements: the duke will allow Orlando to marry Rosalind, if she appears, and Phoebe will marry Ganymede unless unforeseen circumstances make her refuse, in which case she will marry Silvius. Everyone agrees, and Rosalind and Celia disappear into the forest.
While they are gone, Duke Senior notes the remarkable resemblance of Ganymede to his own daughter—an opinion that Orlando seconds. Touchstone and Audrey join the party. Touchstone entertains the company with the description of a quarrel he had. As he finishes, Rosalind and Celia return, dressed as themselves and accompanied by Hymen, the god of marriage. Phoebe, realizing that the young man she loves is, in fact, a woman, agrees to marry Silvius. Hymen marries the happy couples: Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Phoebe and Silvius, and Touchstone and Audrey. A great wedding feast begins.
Halfway through the festivities, Jaques de Bois, the middle brother of Oliver and Orlando, arrives with the information that Duke Frederick mounted an army to seek out Duke Senior and destroy him. As he rode toward the Forest of Ardenne, Duke Frederick met a priest who converted him to a peace-loving life. Jaques de Bois goes on to report that Frederick has abdicated his throne to his brother and has moved to a monastery. All rejoice, happy in the knowledge that they can return to the royal court. Only Jaques decides that he will not return to court. He determines to follow Duke Frederick’s example and live a solitary and contemplative existence in a monastery. The wedding feast continues, and the revelers dance as everyone except Rosalind exits the stage.
Read a translation of Act 5: Scene 4.
Summary: Epilogue
It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue.
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Rosalind steps forward and admits that the play is breaking theatrical customs by allowing a female character to perform the epilogue. But the play, she says, improves with the Epilogue, and so she asks the audience’s indulgence. She will not beg for the audience’s approval, for she is not dressed like a beggar. Instead, she will “conjure” them (Epilogue,
Analysis: Act V, scene iv & Epilogue
In the play’s final act, Rosalind makes good on her promise to “make all this matter even,” that is, to smooth out the remaining romantic entanglements (5.4.
Rosalind’s love for Orlando requires the blessing of marriage in order to have currency in the world beyond the forest. Hymen, by his own declaration, is a god not of the forest but “of every town,” and it is to town that the lovers will now return (5.4.
Read more about the motif of homoeroticism.
The Epilogue, in which one of the actors remains onstage after the play has ended, was a standard part of many plays in Elizabethan times. An epilogue proves a convenient way to tie up loose ends, to distill the thematic concerns of the play into a neat speech, and to ask the audience for applause. But Shakespeare explodes the conventions of the form when he allows Rosalind to take the stage. Not only has Rosalind dropped her disguise as Ganymede, but the boy actor playing Rosalind lets slip the mask of Rosalind. When he solicits the approval of the men in the audience, he says, “If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me” (Epilogue,