Act One: Banishment

Orlando, the youngest son of the late Sir Rowland de Boys, complained to the old family servant, Adam: his eldest brother, Oliver, had inherited everything, and was supposed to bring him up as a gentleman, but kept him like a peasant, without education, feeding him with the hinds. "The spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude." When Oliver came, they quarrelled, and Orlando seized him by the throat, and demanded his share of their father's money.

Oliver hated him — he did not know why: "he's gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved." He learned that Orlando meant to wrestle the next day before the Duke against Charles, the court's champion wrestler, a man who broke the necks and ribs of his challengers. Oliver told Charles that his brother was a villain who would poison him if he could; he would be glad if Charles broke his neck.

From Charles, too, we heard the news of the court: the old Duke, Duke Senior, had been banished by his younger brother, Duke Frederick, who had usurped his place; and the old Duke was living in the Forest of Arden with a band of loyal lords, "and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England . . . and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world." The old Duke's daughter, Rosalind, had been kept at court, because her cousin Celia, Duke Frederick's daughter, loved her so dearly that she would have followed her into exile, or died.

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Rosalind was sad for her banished father; Celia tried to cheer her. "From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see; what think you of falling in love?" The court fool, Touchstone, came in, and jested with them. Then they went to see the wrestling.

They saw the young challenger — Orlando — and tried to persuade him not to fight. He was resolute: if he were killed, there would be one dead that was willing to be so; he had no friends to lament him, and the world no injury, for in it he had nothing. He fought Charles; and threw him; and Charles was carried off senseless. Duke Frederick asked his name, and, when he heard that he was the son of Sir Rowland de Boys, who had been the old Duke's friend, turned cold and left.

Rosalind gave Orlando a chain from her neck. "Gentleman, wear this for me." He could not find a word to say. "My pride fell with my fortunes; I'll ask him what he would." When she had gone, he found his tongue: "O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown! Or Charles or something weaker masters thee." A courtier, Le Beau, kindly warned him to leave at once; the Duke was in a dangerous mood. And Rosalind was in love: "Is all this for your father?" asked Celia. "No, some of it is for my child's father."

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Duke Frederick, in a rage, banished Rosalind too. Her virtue and her patience spoke to the people, and they pitied her; she was a traitor's daughter; within ten days, if she were found within twenty miles of the court, she would die. Celia begged for her; and when her father refused, Celia decided to go with her. "Shall we be sundered? shall we part, sweet girl? No: let my father seek another heir."

They would go to the Forest of Arden, to find Rosalind's father. For safety, Rosalind, being tall, would dress as a young man, with a boar-spear in her hand and a curtle-axe on her thigh, and call herself Ganymede, after Jove's own page; Celia would dress as a poor shepherdess and call herself Aliena. And they would take Touchstone, the clown, with them for company.