Wednesday, March 14, 2018

D'Jara on Adam and Orlando



Adam and Orlando (D'Jara Culpepper)

The relationship between Adam and Orlando in As You Like It is one example of love that didn’t register upon my first reading of Acts I and II. In Act I, Scene I, Adam begins as the loyal servant of Oliver. Understandably, there is some familiarity between him and Orlando because of Adam’s service to late Sir Roland de Bois, but there is no explicit elaboration on Adam’s relationship with either of the young lords until his choosing to protect Orlando from Oliver’s schemes in Act II, Scene III. Through this scene, Adam reveals not only his disliking of Oliver’s ways but a possibly paternal if not familial affection for Orlando. Though this is not to say that lord-servant relationships are normally unaffectionate in nature, the sorrowful words Adam delivers to Orlando before explaining Oliver’s scheme displays both phileo and agape love:
            What, my young master? O my gentle master,
            O my sweet master, O you memory
            Of old Sir Roland, why, what make you here?
            Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
            And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
            . . .
            Know you not, master, to some kind of men
            Their graces serve them but as enemies?
            No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
            Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. (2.3.2-13)
Later on in Act II, Orlando displays similar love in his effort to lift Adam’s spirits and care for him before his search for food for both of their sakes:

            Live a little, comfort a little, cheer thyself a little. If this
            Uncouth forest yield anything savage I will either be food
for it or bring it for food to thee. […] Yet thou liest in the bleak air.
Come, I will bear thee to some shelter, and thou shalt not
die for lack of a dinner if there live anything in this desert.
Picture: Adam and Orlando as performed by Richard Briars (left) and David Oyelowo (right)
Picture URL: http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/as_you_like_it/AYLI_Note_1_1_3.html

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