As You Like It

Deer hunting appears in both Act II, Scene 1 and Act IV, Scene 2. When Duke Senior first appears on stage, he suggests to his lords that they occupy their time deer hunting. However, the subject saddens him. He says, “And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, / being native burghers of this desert city, / should in their own confines with forked heads / have their round haunches gored” (II.1.22-25). Jaques is also saddened by the prospect of hunting deer. One lord reports that Jaques is “swearing that we / are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse, / to fright the animals and to kill them up / in their assigned and native dwelling place” (II.1.63-66). In both these quotes, exiled noblemen express displeasure at the idea of killing deer, the natives of the forest. Jaques goes further by referring to hunting as a form of tyranny or usurpation. This is reminiscent of Duke Frederick’s seizing of Duke Senior throne—just as the younger brother threw the older brother out of his native and inherited court, these noblemen in the forest are removing the deer from their native land.

Later in the play, after the hunt, the exiled lords sing a song in celebration: “take thou no scorn to wear the horn. / It was a crest ere thou wast born” (IV.2.14-15). Although the song devolves into bawdy humor, here the lords associate a deer’s horns with a crest, which was a marker of nobility. The association between noblemen and deer is not unique to Shakespeare, for the custom of hunting deer was strongly associated with the noble class in Shakespeare’s time. The deer in As You Like It represent nobles who are forced from their lands contrary to the customs that granted them those lands in the first place.