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Act 2, Scene 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in As You Like It, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Deception, Disguise, and Gender
Romantic Love
Country vs. City
Love and Rivalry Between Relatives
Fools and Foolishness
Summary
Analysis
The scene begins with Duke Frederick asking if anyone has seen his daughter and niece. The First Lord reports that Celia’s chambermaids put Celia to bed the night before but that her bed was found empty in the morning. The Second Lord enters and informs the Duke that Touchstone, too, is missing, and that Hisperia, Celia’s gentlewoman, thinks the girls are in the company of Orlando, because she’d heard them speaking fondly of him. Duke Frederick orders the lords to retrieve Orlando’s brother and send him to find Orlando.
Duke Frederick discovers that his orders were obeyed—Rosalind has indeed left the court—but that his command has resulted as well in the undesired consequence of his own daughter’s disappearance. Hisperia’s guess that the cousins are with Orlando, while mistaken at the time, foreshadows their later meeting in the forest.
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