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Act 4, 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
Jaques addresses the First Lord, who has killed a deer, and suggests that he present his kill like a Roman conqueror, and give the deer’s horns like a victory branch. The Second Lord accompanies the presentation with a song. The song touches on cuckoldry and includes the line, “take thou no scorn to wear the horn… the horn, the horn, the lusty horn, is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”
As in Touchstone’s remark, here horns are associated with cuckoldry and cuckoldry is posited as something natural and not shameful.
Themes
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