As You Like It Celia (Aliena) Quotes

Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl? (1.3.102-104)

Cousins Celia and Rosalind are super-close and they're <em>always</em> professing how much they love each other, which prompts some audiences to wonder if there's something steamy going on here.  Some literary critics just see a very close-knit female friendship here.  Others describe the relationship as being "homoerotic" ("homoerotic" just refers to erotic emotions and desires that are directed toward a person of the same sex).  

CELIA
What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
ROSALIND
I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page,
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
But what will you be called? (1.3.130-133)

The name "Ganymede" would have been particularly significant to an Elizabethan audience because, in the 16th century, "Ganymede" was a slang term for a boy in a sexual relationship with another (older) man. This alerts us to the possibility that Orlando may be attracted to "Ganymede" as well as Rosalind.  

Celia (Aliena)

Quote 3

CELIA [reading Orlando's love poem to Rosalind]
Therefore heaven Nature charged
   That one body should be filled
With all graces wide-enlarged.
   Nature presently distilled
Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
   Cleopatra's majesty,
Atalanta's better part,
   Sad Lucretia's modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
   By heavenly synod was devised,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts
   To have the touches dearest prized.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have
And I to live and die her slave.
(3.2.143-156)

Celia says that lovers tend to make idealized pictures of their mates, and women in particular fall victim to being put on a pedestal.  Orlando is guilty of the same thing; all the women he cites here have had some great tragedy befall them.