As You Like It Love Quotes
How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to The Norton Shakespeare, second edition, published in 2008.
Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl? (1.3.102-104)
Cousins Celia and Rosalind are super-close and they're always professing how much they love each other, which prompts some audiences to wonder if there's something steamy going on here. Some literary critics just see a very close-knit female friendship here. Others describe the relationship as being "homoerotic" ("homoerotic" just refers to erotic emotions and desires that are directed toward a person of the same sex).
O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!
I partly guess; for I have loved ere now.
No, Corin, being old thou canst not guess, (2.4.22-24)
Young Silvius assumes that, because Corin is old, he can't possibly understand what it feels like to be in love. Of course, Silvius is being silly and overly dramatic here, but this concept surfaces throughout Shakespeare's work. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, Juliet declares that her Nurse's old age prevents her from understanding the youthful urgency of her passion for Romeo:
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me. (2.5.1)
And I mine. I remember when I was
in love I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him
take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I
remember the kissing of her batler and the cow's
dugs that her pretty chopped hands had milked; (2.4.45-49)
In case you hadn't noticed, Touchstone has a sense of humor about his past experiences with country-style love, which apparently involved making out with Jane Smile, a girl whose hands were chapped from milking cows.