As You Like It
Act 4 scene 3
[This is the answer to the question.]
[This is the answer to the question.]
[This is the answer to the question.]
This important scene--the lioness and snake story-- must be told to us for it to avoid looking ridiculous. It is Oliver's confession scene and the beginning of the Oliver/Celia love plot. An oak tree stands for antiquity. Oliver describes himself in the third person because he is not that person any more. Orlando eventuallys saves Oliver because his nature is stronger than his hatred and desire for revenge. Orlando wrestles the highest form of animal, the lioness. Why does he wrestle a female lioness? Orlando has been too feminine himself, so though this incident, he can reassert his masculinity. And Orlando is also wrestling with himself and his dislike for Oliver, so it is a moral wrestling as well as a physical one. Orlando passes not only Rosalind's test by worrying about missing his appointment with Rosalind, but also an independent test, made by noone but "fate" or perhaps it is part of some plan.
The irony here, of course, is that we know she doesn't. Does this mean Oliver is more perceptive than Orlando? He may be, or he may just believe that her appearance is her reality; if she seems to swoon, she does swoon.
He is basing his judgment on other indicators as well, her complexion. His last comment to Rosalind as Ganymede is for her to counterfeit to be a man, which she has been doing since Act 1. Both those comments remind us of the real/counterfeit theme. Ultimately Rosalind's real nature is both the masculine realism/cynicism she has portrayed as Ganymede and the romantic emotional character she is as Rosalind when she can be her true self with Celia.