As You Like It

Act 4 scene 1

Table of Contents

1. I had rather have a fool to make me merry
2. Break an hour's promise in love?
3. Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love
4. Pray thee marry us.
5. We must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head

I had rather have a fool to make me merry

[This is the answer to the question.]

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Break an hour's promise in love?

Rosalind is warning Orlando that if he continues to break his word to her, she may be unfaithful to him (the reference to horns, a traditional symbol for cuckoldry).   Rosalind asks him to speak (he was first tongue-tied, then his utterances were limited to the bad poetry he tacked on the trees).  When he wants to kiss, she says he wants this because he doesn't have anything to say.  Rosalind wants Orlando to find the right words to express himself; this is part of her test for him.

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Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Rosalind voices the cynical view of love.  The idea that someone could die for love is just a fiction in literature.  She makes fun of the romantic cliches.

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Pray thee marry us

Rosalind proposes a mock marriage much like Touchstone's fake marriage to Audrey.   She is still teaching Orlando what to say, when she tells him what to say.   Orlando's responses are still romantic cliches.  Orlando is not acknowledging the physical side to love (trying to keep it to a romantic unrequited love); Rosalind wants him to want all aspects of the relationship, including the physical union.

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We must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head

[This is the answer to the question.]

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