Student Question
In As You Like It, Act I, Scene 2, what does "mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel" mean?
Quick answer:
In Act I, Scene 2 of As You Like It, the phrase "mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel" refers to Celia's suggestion to Rosalind to imitate Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck and fate. By "mocking" Fortune, they propose to distribute her gifts equally, countering the unpredictable and erratic nature of Fortune's traditional role, symbolized by the Wheel of Fortune, which randomly dispenses good or bad luck.
The Roman goddess Fortuna was responsible for bestowing the items of luck (good or bad) on humans. She was popularly shown as being veiled and blind. She represented the capriciousness (sudden, unpredictable, erratic, changeable) of life. One of the goddess Fortuna's roles was that she was also a goddess of fate. In the Middle Ages, Fortuna came to be associated with the Wheel of Fortune, an idea inspired by the second book of Boethius' Consolation.
In As You Like It, Celia says to Rosalind in Act I, Scene 2:
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
In this quotation, Fortuna is called "Fortune." Also, "mock" is used in its sense of to imitate or to counterfeit. Celia is suggesting that to amuse themselves, they should be counterfeits of Fortune at her Wheel of Fortune so that, under their use of it, Fortune's gifts would be distributed evenly, without erratic unpredictable caprice. Fortuna, being veiled and blind, would spin her wheel and whatever gift turned up, whether good or bad, would be given to whomever it fell to. Celia proposes that she and Rosalind change that capriciousness.
[Read more about Fortuna in the article "Fortuna."]
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