Abstract

In As You Like It 5.4.107-08 we receive Rosalind returning as herself”a woman”no longer in the guise of Ganymede, the boy page. Her first lines upon returning are repetitive: To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Duke Senior] / To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Orlando]. However, comparing Folio versions of these lines produces a provocative variant. In the third and fourth folios, these lines are no longer a repetitious patriarchal pledging, but a tender dialogic exchange "much like vows" between Rosalind and Orlando. While none of our modern Shakespeare editions make a note of this variant emendation, this article traces the editorial history and mystery surrounding As You Like It 5.4.107-08 from seventeenth-century editors to our modern ones with an emphasis on the shift in Shakespeare editing during the eighteenth century to suggest the variant emendation warrants consideration for text and performance. Furthermore, the article examines the plausibility of the third and fourth folios emendation in congruence with Early Modern conceptions of companionate marriage, parental consent, and marriage rites.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; English