After spinning an account of his past adventures in love, detailing the “strange capers” he found himself in, Touchstone reflects on the passing nature of it all. Through a confounding chiasmus—a repeated phrase that is reversed—Touchstone muses that “all nature in love [is] mortal in folly.” In other words, the natural silliness of love is fleeting, just as everything else in nature is.

In the tradition of pastoral love poetry, Corin was the archetypal lovesick shepherd. In the work of poet Barnaby Googe—born two decades before Shakespeare—Corin spends his days in the fields, dreaming of his beloved Phillida. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania accuses Oberon of behaving like Corin:

When thou hast stol’n away from fairy land,/And in the shape of Corin, sat all day/Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love/To amorous Phillida" (2.1.64-68).

Shakespeare draws on the archetype of Corin to bolster the connection between the pursuit of lovers and the pastoral world.

Corin does not recognize Rosalind, Touchstone, and Celia as nobility because they look “wretched.” As we have seen thus far, external appearance constructs many of these characters’ identities. Just as Rosalind can don male clothing and become a man, so can these three characters take off their noble attire and become peasants. These lines underscore a major theme in this play about identity and perception: identity is constructed outwardly because it must be validated by the society that perceives it.

Corin and Silvius are representative of the pastoral world and its culture. Silvius’ name—drawn from the Latin “silva,” which means forest—highlights this point. The fact that Corin and Silvius are talking about matters of the heart in their opening conversation establishes the forest of Arden as a place where romantic relationships unfold.

This exchange between Rosalind and Touchstone offers self-conscious commentary on the role of the archetypal Fool in Shakespearean drama. Fools often offer profound and thematically revealing pieces of wisdom to both the characters on stage and the audience. However, they often do it despite themselves; they are unaware of their own wit.

Notice that Rosalind forgets her all-consuming love for Orlando until she watches the shepherd rhapsodize about his love object. This paints Rosalind’s love as more of a pose of desire than real desire. Contemporary philosopher Rene Girard argues that this phenomenon is a type of mimetic desire, the process by which a person influences the desires of another so that the person in love is only imitating the desire of another person in love.

Fools represent the Trickster, a type of character that thwarts conventional behavior in order to reveal deeper meanings and challenge social norms. Once they enter the forest, Touchstone becomes “more the fool.” This reinforces a reading of the forest as a Green World in which social boundaries are called into question.

Notice that even though Rosalind’s claims reflect a patriarchal view of women, in which women are weak and men are courageous, she recognizes that both of these abilities exist within her. She is simultaneously the “weaker vessel” and the man who must bring comfort to this “weaker vessel.” This reflects a theme of gender fluidity in the Forest of Arden.

The “doublet” and the “hose” were male clothing items while a “petticoat” was an underskirt worn by women. In this line, Rosalind uses the doublet and hose as a symbol for a man and the petticoat as a symbol for a woman. She claims here that men have to show themselves courageous to woman in much the same way that she must show herself courageous to the “weaker vessel,” which is her female identity.

Touchstone the jester tells a ridiculous anecdote about being so in love with a milkmaid that he kissed her batlet (a wooden paddle used to beat clothes during washing) and her cow's teats. Touchstone argues, though, that true love is not the ideal we want it to be; "as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly."

Shakespeare's source for the play, Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge, was set in the Ardennes forest in northern France, and it is often assumed that Shakespeare's setting is the Ardennes.  Near Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, however, is the forest of Arden, a likelier setting.

This phrase comes from English courtship rituals.  "Pea pods" ("peascod") and their husks ("cods") were thought to be gifts of good luck.  These two words ("peascod" or just "cod") were also slang for male genitalia.

A "batlet" was a wooden paddle used to beat clothes when washing them.

Have no concerns about money.  Coins in the Elizabethan era carried the stamp of a cross.

I struck a stone as though it were my rival during my nighttime visits to Jane Stone.

Men at the time wore hose.  "Hose" referred to male attire in general, including breeches and, typically, close-fitting coats.