As You Like It - Theme

This particular play has many themes.  One of them is that love is a many splintered thing.  This theme is portrayed in relationships including Phoebe and Ganymede, Phoebe and Sylvius, Rosalind and Orlando, and Touchstone and William and Audrey.  Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede, who is really Rosalind dressed as a guy.  During this scene, Rosalind/Ganymede pleads "I pray you, don not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine" (III.v.pg 52).  Right after, Sylvius tries to convince Phoebe that he should not be in love with Ganymede but with him instead.  Sylvius says, "Whatever sorrow is, relief would be: If you do sorrow at my grief in love, by giving love your sorrow and my grief were both extermined" (III.v.pg 53).  Touchstone, Audrey, and William are involved in a love triangle.  Eventually, Touchstone tells William to leave Audrey alone by saying, "I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel" (V.i.pg 68).  Obviously, the play focuses around the relationship between Rosalind and Orlando, and Rosalind even dresses as a guy to help guide Orlando to say and do the right things when he sees her.