Touchstone (As You Like It)

• 1. Introduction

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  Touchstone, the jester in Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It, once warns a rival that he will kill him "a hundred and fifty ways". The rival is a clumsy country boy, and the threat comes from a man paid to make people laugh. That mix of menace, mockery and mischief runs through the whole role. Touchstone is a fool who jokes crudely one moment and speaks wisdom the next. Why does a court clown follow a runaway noblewoman into a forest? Who is he really in love with, and why does his marriage come with a warning? What does his odd name have to do with an ancient Roman poem? And which real actor may have changed the way Shakespeare wrote fools?

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• 2. Wit And Folly

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  Rosalind and Celia, two of the play's leading women, cannot decide whether Touchstone is clever or simply foolish. They joke that he is a "natural" fool. One of them says "Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit". Another line describes how fortune "hath sent this natural for our whetstone". A whetstone sharpens blades, so the joke fits his role as a sharpener of other people's wit. Yet the text also treats him as a witty fool, and he often tries to show off his intelligence with learned remarks and references. This is the classic Shakespearean fool. His vulgar humor provides comic relief, while his observations carry real insight. He acts as a foil to everyone around him, watching the characters and events of the play and mocking them. Those running comments help the audience understand what is happening on stage. His employer is Duke Frederick, who took power by force, so the court he serves is already a place of unfair rule.

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• 3. Audrey And Arden

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  In the forest of Arden, Touchstone falls for Audrey, a dull-witted goat girl. She is a rustic countrywoman, and her feelings are not what they seem. The play suggests she does not love him in the true sense. She wants to become a courtly lady, and marrying a court jester is her route there. Touchstone does marry her, but a prediction is made that the marriage will not last. His journey to the forest also says something kinder about him. He is not selfish or self-centered. He goes with Celia for a simple reason, to comfort her on the road and to give her some security. Someone who looks like a mere joker proves a loyal companion. That quiet loyalty sits oddly beside the jokes that fill the rest of his scenes.

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• 4. Ovid And The Name

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  Touchstone compares himself to Ovid, the Roman poet, and the melancholy Jaques likens him to Jove in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The same poem may explain his name. In the second 1575 edition of Arthur Golding's translation, Book II uses the word "touchstone". In that story Mercury has stolen the cattle of Apollo. A man named Battus is tricked by Mercury into revealing where the cattle are hidden. Mercury punishes Battus by turning him into a touchstone. The fool who shares that name is a character who exposes the truth in others, much as Mercury's trick exposed Battus. The word itself names a stone used to test the quality of metal, which suits a jester who tests everyone he meets.

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• 5. Armin's Fool

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  The scholar David Wiles suggests that Robert Armin played Touchstone in the first productions of As You Like It. Armin joined the Chamberlain's Men in 1599, and the arrival of both actor and character marked a turning point. Touchstone began a series of court fool roles that differed greatly from earlier fools. Those earlier parts were typically played by William Kempe. Their humor was often little more than being the stooge in someone else's joke. The new fools drew their comedy from their own wit and intellect. That change makes Touchstone more than a clown in a forest. He is an early example of a type of fool who was smarter than the people laughing at him.

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