The Duke recognizes Orlando because of his lineage and assumes to know his identity based on this lineage. These lines reinforce the theme of expecting lineage to determine one’s identity and story arc.

The manner in which Jaques lays out the seven stages of a human life mirrors an episode in the story of the Greek hero Oedipus. When Oedipus encounters the Sphinx outside Thebes, the Sphinx offers a riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? Oedipus answers correctly: Man. Shakespeare mimics this gesture of the stages of life as a cycle which returns to its start.

Shakespeare ends Act II in his typical fashion: with a conclusive, rhyming couplet that prepares the audience for the next act. The final lines here encapsulate the major event of the scene: the uniting of the forces of Duke Senior and Orlando. In the case of this couplet, the rhyme—with its pairing quality—imitates the event it describes: the pairing of the Duke and Orlando.

Notice that Duke Senior does not address Jaques’ philosophical musings on the stages of life. He moves on as if Jaques has not spoken, further demonstrating Jaques’ position on the border outside of the courtly space the Duke occupies.

In a beautiful yet chilling image, the Duke sees the “effigies”—the burning funeral pyres of Sir Rowland—in Orlando’s face. The word “limn’d” means “lit,” suggesting that in Orlando’s eyes the Duke sees the aforementioned fire of Sir Rowland. The symbol of fire in the context of the father-son relationship brings to mind the mythical Phoenix, whose fiery death brings forth a new generation.

These lines create a metaphor that compares real life to the theatrical world. On one level, these lines are self-consciously about the theater and speaking explicitly to the audience watching the play. This theater, meaning the theater in which they sit, will display “more woeful pageants” than the ones in which audience members will “play.” In other words, the theater displays how much worse life could be and therefore no one in the theater should feel self-pity.

This metaphor that "all the world's a stage" touches on the theme of wearing costumes and “playing parts” in order to shape the way in which one is perceived. To “play many parts” is to put on multiple costumes and have multiple identities, much like an actor within a play.

Amiens is the melancholic bard. He uses song to transform the sorrows of the world into moments of great joy. Notice the progression that takes place over the course of each of his stanzas. The first stanza begins, “Blow, blow thou winter wind,/Thou art not so unkind/As man’s ingratitude.” In the seventh line, Amiens willfully shifts the song’s tone and content from the sorrowful to the joyful. With the exclamation, “Heigh-ho! Sing heigh-ho!,” Amiens pushes the song to the conclusion that “this life is most jolly.” Amiens thus consciously transforms pain into joy.

The manner in which Jaques lays out the seven stages of a human life mirrors an episode in the story of the Greek hero Oedipus. When Oedipus encounters the Sphinx outside Thebes, the Sphinx offers a riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? Oedipus answer correctly: Man. Shakespeare mimics this gesture of the stages of life as a cycle which returns to its start.

This famous line spoken by Jaques creates a metaphor that links everyday life to the events in a play. It fashions people as “merely” players, meaning each person’s purpose is no greater than playing a part. This metaphor suggests that life is ephemeral and has no greater meaning. It therefore functions as a lesson in humility that points out man’s lack of inherent purpose.

In a subtle chiasmus—a repeated, reversed phrase—Duke Senior chides Jaques for his boldness. The Duke remains unprepared for Jaques’ newfound role as Fool, and the necessary forcefulness of that role.

Orlando’s claim that he “put on the countenance” of a rogue robber invokes the recurrent theme of appearance vs. essence. Like Rosalind who can become a man by putting on his clothing, Orlando can change his identity by putting on an act: his appearance is in tension with his essence, but his identity is defined by his appearance.

Notice that the Duke immediately revokes his initial “and you shall have” a motley coat after Jaques’ speech. In his speech, Jaques suggests that the duke will “receive my medicine,” which suggests that Jaques would have insight beyond the Duke’s perception. This could anger the Duke because it suggests that he has lost the power that he wielded within the city.

Duke Senior’s characterization of Jaques portrays him as more “beast” than “man.” This depiction underscores Jaques’ embodiment of the archetypal Wild Man, a figure who exists between the worlds of humanity and nature.

This ambition is markedly different from the ambition that is usually present in Shakespeare’s plays. Typical heroes in Shakespearean drama long for wealth, power, or fame. But here, Jaques longs to be a fool and to gain the insight that comes with being a fool. This inversion of ambition signifies the inverted nature of the green world.

Jaques points to the ultimate goal of the Fool: to, through his jesting, “cleanse the foul body of the infected world.” The Fool identifies that which each person cannot see in himself. The Fool heals by bringing the unconscious into consciousness.

“Chanticleer” was a popular name for roosters in folktales at this time. Most notably, Chaucer uses the name in the Canterbury Tales to name the rooster that appears in the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” In the tale, Chanticleer is almost eaten by a fox because the fox tricks the rooster into his mouth by playing on his pride and vanity. At the end of the story, Chaunticleer saves himself by tricking the fox into boasting to the other animals, thus opening his mouth and releasing Chaunticleer.

Jaques further details the Fool’s role, using a metaphor of the Fool as the wind, “blow[ing] on whom I please.” The purpose of this metaphor is to describe how the Fool, like the wind, serves as an equalizing force. Peasants and kings,lords and servants, men and women: all are subject to ridicule by the Fool.

The Celestial Spheres were a medieval cosmological understanding of how the planets and stars were positioned and moved. In this ideology, the planets were fixed in crystalline concentric circles that rotated around each other. Because many believed that one’s destiny and disposition were largely influenced by astrology, the position of the Celestial Spheres was important, as was “discord” ominous and potentially life threatening.

Jaques claims that putting on the “motley coat” of the Fool is his “only suit.” The word “suit” serves as a double entendre, used to refer to both clothing and a formal request (as in “lawsuit.”) His pun-based reply to the Duke indicates that he has already stepped into the role of the Fool.

Remember that Jaques referenced King Midas, who was transformed into a donkey after judging a contest between two gods, in his pastoral song from Act II, scene iv. Here, “beastliness” is equated with melancholy rather than actual physical transformation. Jaques is a beast because he does not fit in with the attitudes and behaviors of the other men in camp.

This scene begins in the middle of a conversation between Duke Senior and Amiens about a mysterious “he.” While the audience will come to find out that this “he” is Jaques, Shakespeare suspends the audience’s imagination by not directly referencing him by name. This is a literary device used to make theatrical life appear more like real life: the conversation begins in the scene as if it has been going on between two characters who are not speaking lines but rather having an actual conversation.

When Orlando chances upon the Duke and his men in the Forest of Arden, he initially mistakes them for savages or criminals. The Duke, even in his exile, has not forgotten his manners; after delivering the pitiful speech about his men having seen better days, he complies with Orlando's demands.

Nature, though certainly harsh, is not as unkind as "man's ingratitude" because it is not evil or intentionally cruel. Though Duke Senior and his men have been banished to the woods, they are at least safe from the wretchedness of humankind.

The idea that "all the world's a stage" was already a cliché by the time Shakespeare wrote As You Like It. Jacques, the slightly pretentious pessimist in the Forest of Arden, deploys the metaphor of life's stage for his famous speech on the Seven Ages of Man.

This gets to the heart of the fool's role in the play: if the fool can speak the truth, and his advice be accepted by his listeners, he can make the world a better place.

That is, he has a lot of information (a retentive memory), but he shows that information in confused ways (his understanding is slow).

In Shakespeare's time, a man with a particularly good memory is a man with a *dry *brain, but a dry brain also leads to slowness of understanding.  Shakespeare uses the simile of the last, and driest, biscuit after a sea voyage to convey the image of a dry brain.

A wonderful example of Shakespeare's rhetorical skill--he uses *antitheses, *the yoking of contrasting ideas (growing/rotting) to encompass man's lifespan.  In addition, this is an example of compar, the balancing of two clauses of equal length, and parison, the parallel construction of phrases with words of similar sounds (the repetition of r sounds) in similar places.

That is, don't assume I am a fool until the gods have sent me fortune, and I still prove to be a fool.

The implication of Jacques' comment is that the motley fool belongs with the court in a civilized setting, not in the miserable world of nature in Arden.  From Jacques' perspective, his proper world has been flipped upside down.

This is a thought-provoking idea. It is true that from each individual's perspective, all the other people in the world, even including his closest relatives, can be seen as actors and actresses. We can only know ourselves from the inside, but we know everyone else only from the outside. We can't see others the way we see ourselves. We are inside looking out. We may think we know what is going on inside other people--but we can be dead wrong about them.

This concept was used very effectively in the movie *The Truman Show *(1998), starring Jim Carrey. The young man named Truman had grown up in an artificial environment in which all the other people in his life, even including his wife, were paid professional actors and actresses. Truman's entire life was the subject matter of a highly successful television show which was watched all over the world of the future. Everybody in our own world does a certain amount of acting, and we do a certain amount of acting too. 

"In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought: in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities."—Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

A character from Italian popular comedies ("Commedia del'arte): a foolish old man. 

A capon is a castrated rooster, fattened as a delicacy.  It also has a slang meaning as a bribe for officials, especially judges.

Crying (newborns cries often sound like small kittens mewing.)

*Chanticleer *is a generic name for a rooster (from the French, "sings clearly") but its most likely source, which would have been familiar to Shakespeare, is Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale in The Canterbury Tales.

"Motley" means "multicolored.  Multicolored costumes were often worn by court jesters and clowns. 

Pythagoras believed that the earth was at the center of eight concentric spheres. As the other planets moved within these spheres, they created a harmony, inaudible to humans. This harmony was called the "music of the spheres."  

Some editions note that these characters are dressed like outlaws.