Jaques (As You Like It)

The "melancholy" Jaques was a character in William Shakespeare's play As You Like It. He was among those banished from court to the Forest of Arden with Duke Senior after he was usurped by his brother Frederick.

In a version of a play staged in the early 17th century which was speculated by The Shakespeare Notebooks to have been unique to a single performance or "perhaps" an extreme example of improvisation by the actors involved, Jaques encountered "a fool" elsewhere in the forest. He greeted the fool who proceeded to ask if Jaques had seen "a press abandoned in [the] woods", further explaining that he "set up the HADS to move the girl upon this very plot" but "the course co-ordinates hath slipped and sent her to a place that [he knew] not". Jaques later spoke to Duke Senior about this meeting, declaring "he was ambitious for a motley coat" similar to the one the fool wore, with Duke Senior telling him he could have one. (PROSE: As You Like It)