Need help getting a date for Valentine's Day? Take some advice from the characters in As You Like It to spice up your love life.
Show off your physical strength
Impress your beloved with your toughness by challenging someone much bigger and much stronger to a fight.
In the play, Rosalind first sees Orlando when he challenges Charles the wrestler to a fight. Orlando wins the fight, and the sparks fly with Rosalind.
Make a public show of it
If flowers and chocolate don't work, why not try tying love notes to trees where the object of your affection is bound to stumble across them? Kind gestures will only get you so far; peer pressure and public humiliation are the truest way to steal their heart.
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Orlando leaves poems about Rosalind on the trees in the forest as a way to tell the world about her beauty and virtue: Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love (Orlando, 3.2).
Be something you're not
Want to test the mettle of someone's love? Think about disguising yourself and challenging your beloved to woo your disguised self. It's definitely not weird and will only cement their desire for you. It can't possibly fail.
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Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) tests Orlando's love, saying that his affliction can be easily cured: I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me (Rosalind, 3.2).
Try to be on time
If you set a date to meet your sweetheart, it's probably best to be on time, although true love can surely overlook such indiscretions...
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In the play, Orlando is late twice for meetings he has made with Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede). Luckily, Rosalind is soon able to forgive him. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had as lief be wooed of a snail (Rosalind, 4.1).
Money isn't everything
You've already saved money by wooing your love through tree poetry; now take the sting out of wedding costs by having a quadruple wedding in a forest. Spread the cost, avoid expensive venues and get back in touch with nature.
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At the end of the play, Rosalind and Orlando marry alongside Celia and Oliver, Silvius and Phoebe, and Touchstone and Audrey.
