Response to Shakespeare's "As You Like It"

Submitted for your loving critique: my "As You Like It" pull question

Hayden Butler

Mr. Llizo

Pull Question: As You Like It

Intention: To respond to the tutor’s question as to whether Biolans should get married before leaving the “Biola Bubble” in the form of a pseudo-Shakespearean poem. It follows the ABBBA rhyme scheme to reflect the loaded nature of the question and the subsequent loaded nature of the answer. The repetition of consonance in the middle lines of each stanza are meant to reflect a lofty tone for their subject matter. It is an exaggerated poem, and is intentionally so.

Oh to be a man in such a place!
The fairer sex doth flock as doves
While fairly tempting frequent loves
And man in winter study moves
To win the lusty springtime race.

Oh man, that in the court of class
Doth speak of such sweet celibacy
And shun that fancied intimacy
And spouting ‘tis not but fantasy
That withers quickly as the grass.’

How quick thou art to drop the guise
In spring, when lovers oft do seek,
With ring in hand and count’nance meek,
That flower that to thou didst reek.
The shift, meanwhile, doth lack surmise.

One should say, why doest thou this?
Thou art, as in a wood, wherein
The sunset penetrates; therein
Thou blind find none awry; herein
Rests the truth of thou fancied bliss.

Why, O man, enterest the wood of eros?
Is it likely that thou shalt never find
A dame and thus be left behind
While colleagues go forth flying blind,
Struck by the son of Venus’ arrows?

Wise art thou though thou knowest not why.
For thou the swaying woods deceive
And drifting leaves do grant reprieve
From humanity that oft does grieve.
Would thou love when thou knowest thou die?

Oh but love in the merciful wood,
Where sprights recall that fantasy,
That savors of true reality,
Though to the world is mere frivolity.
Oh but love in the merciful wood.