Note 38c — IV—ON THE LONDON STAGE

Shakespeare alludes to the appearance of men or boys in women’s parts when he makes Rosalind say laughingly to the men of the audience in the epilogue to As you like it, ‘If I were a woman, I would kiss as many,’ etc. Similarly, Cleopatra on her downfall in Antony and Cleopatra, V. ii. 220 seq., laments: