“that love conquereth all things but itself, and ladies all hearts but their own”

The last line of the play is (I think )Gallathea’s justification for what happened in the play. We have two girls who are both virgins, dresses up as boys, and they begin flirting with each other. At first, I think that they are unaware that the other is also a girl. However, at some point they realize this truth and continue to flirt with each other. The one thing that stands out for me is that even after they go into the woods to “make much of one another”, Gallathea and Phillida continue to pretend that in a sense one of them is a boy. At this point they should know that they are both girls but they continue with their flirtation. One example of that is when Phillida is taking to Gallathea “I pray thee, sweet boy, flatter me not.” She is still referring to Gallathea as a boy, when I am sure that she knows otherwise.

One explanation of why they continue to refer to each other as boys is because the society does not accept such relationships and they wished that one of them was a boy so they can enjoy each other’s love.  This will support the conclusion of the play, when Venus decides to make one of them a boy and both agree to it. The only two people who are against it are their fathers.

Another explanation that came to mind is that since both of them were a virgin before this. They are unsure of what a male looks like physically. However, this explanation seems less likely because both Gallathea and Phillida know that they are girls. I think at some point they would figure out that  there is a lot of similarity between each other.

However, one can think back to Thomas Laqueur “Making Sex” and remember the one sex model. In that case Gallathea and Phillida are in the category of women and boys, which means that they are all the same. This can explain why Gallathea and Phillida continue with referring to one another as boys. They continue this because girls and boys look the same.  Moreover, the wedding is the symbol of one of them crossing to the right side and becoming a man. “The heat” can be looked as the act or feeling of love that is needed for a women or boy to cross over to the men side.

This brings me back to the last line of the play which one can look as an explanation to everything that happen. Gallathea points out that love can overcome anything, even the possibility of being the same sex. The one thing that it cannot overcome is itself, which means that Gallathea and Phillida cannot deny the love that they feel for each other.  I think that love and ones heart is presented as “the heat” needed to become a man, which at the end makes their love possible.   Diagram