Jaque's Monologue

In addition, Jacques also points out that the Duke and his men are terrorizing the natural order with their huntings of deer, “yea, and of this, our life, swearing that we / Are mere usurpers, tyrants” (2.2.63-64). According to Edward Berry, the sport of hunting was an important part of “the life of the court”, and of the aristocratic households connected with it. It exists in a variety of modes and serves a variety of purposes, whether it be as simple as informal recreation and entertainment, as complex as court ceremonies, or as standard as survival tactics. Simultaneously, the Duke of Arden has the similar impression about hunting when he suggests to “go and kill and venison” (2.1.21). Jaques’s melancholy, however, embedded an immoral connotation

His estimation that lovers sigh “like furnace, with a woeful ballad" is humorous, but ultimately “falls short of accurately describing the complexity” of Rosalind’s feeling for Orlando (Sparknotes). Of course, this is not the first setback that the melancholic Jaques has displayed. In fact, his consecutive failures to resolve inner contradictions demonstrates that Jaques, although knowledgeable from his traveling experience, can only outwit so many people. His inability to recognize that Touchstone’s “nihilistic musings” on the passage of time, “And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe/ And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,” is a bawdy mockery to Jaques’s sullenness (2.7.34). In fact, he confesses a deep affinity with Touchstone, particularly through courtly bonds, continually reiterating throughout the play that the fool "hath been a courtier" (2.7.36). Furthermore, his protesting to Touchstone's country marriage to Audrey because "a man of your breeding," shouldn't "be married under a bush like a beggar" reveals how much Jaques cares for Touchstone's future; it also reaffirms Jaques's oblivion to Touchstone's previous mockery