having exiled themselves from court. Silvius is in love with Phebe, but she rebuffs him. When they first meet Rosalind, they are having an argument, which Rosalind overhears. Because Rosalind is dressed as a young man and is playing at being a sort of expert in love for the benefit ofOrlando (who is in love with Rosalind but fails to recognize her in disguise as Ganymede), she steps in to advise these two troubled lovers. In acting as their advisor, Rosalind is able to keep up the pretense that she is Ganymede, and continue to gain Orlando's confidence, but of course, she also wants to be near Orlando since she is in love with him. Rosalind feels sympathy for Silvius, and, as Ganymede, gently scolds Phebe for her harsh words. Phebe then becomes instantly infatuated with Ganymede, which complicates matters.

All of these lovers want to be with someone who is being kept from them in some way, and this leads to a very comical scene where they all declare their love forthrightly, with Silvius describing his feelings for Phebe, ending each sentence with "And so am I for Phebe." Phebe responds with "And I for Ganymede," followed by Orlando who says "And I for Rosalind," (remember he has been trying to convince Ganymede he is truly in love), forcing Rosalind/Ganymede to declare, "And I, for no woman." Eventually Rosalind decides that she must reveal who she is in order to resolve everything, saying to Silvius "I will help you if I can," and to Phebe, "I would love you, if I could."

One romantic comedy scene in As You Like It, which is pivotal in that it leads the primary comedic romantic situation, is in Act III, Scene II, wherein Rosalind reads aloud the very poor verses of love that Orlando has written and attached to the trees in the forest, an allusion to Martin Luther's posting of his Ninety-Five Theses on the wooden door of Wittenberg Cathedral. Rosalind reads the verses, as does Touchstone and Celia, leading to an exchange of witticisms on the "feet" in the poems, with the general consensus that the feet ought to have carried the poems off.

Later in the same scene, Rosalind and Orlando meet, she is still in disguise as Ganymede and decides to have a little fun with toying with him. The end result is that they make the ridiculous pledge, which forms the heart of the romantic comedy, to meet daily so that Ganymede/Rosalind might pretend to be Rosalind and teach Orlando the remedy for being "loved-shaked": "I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy."