Shakespears "As you like it" Begins with the Senoir Duke living in exile in the Forest, his daughter Rosalyn Living yet in the City protected by her friend and Cousin Daughter of the the upstart Duke (Rosalyn's Uncle) Where is the FOOL, with Rosalyn and her cousin. Soon it becomes clear that the City is no safe place for Rosalyn and she and her cousin head for the Forest, where thier Fool Touchstone accompanies them. In the play it is clear that this royal fools place is with the Royal daughters, his royalty to Rosalyn and the old Duke is clear, but even more significant is that he freely give Celia her due as a princess although he seems to give her father only the due needed to avoid condemnation.
At the same time we seem in "King Lear" That the Fool will defend and cherish Cordelia even in the face of the Kings anger. While the Fool stays in court and with the King, he acts as her representative and serogate, even more he seems to create her presence within her absence so that the fool/actor is actually responcible for the character development of the Princess' role. In both cases the Loyalty and devotion of the Fool is at least as strong for the Princess/Royal daughter as it is for the King her father. This is not without reason as what is the fool to the king?, His one companion, his brother, his alter-ego, at one time his Rival or his scapegoat, then his mascot and good luck charm, advisor and reality check? And as such to the Fool the King, although looked on as a master is and must be looked on as a peer. But the Princess, the Royal daughter is more to the fool than the King ever can be, for while the father may ritually and magically be his peer the daughter unquestionably unattainable, She is Goddess and Muse to him and within the Fools relationship to the princess we see his courtly love influences, a side of the fool eloquiently discribed by Yeats in "Cap and Bells" but perhaps even more eloquiently by Charles Chaplain in the closing scene of "City Light". But even this is only one side of the fool/princess relationship, for as his muse the princess is attainable and in a fashion beyond the scope of non-fools (including whatever prince may in time be her lover) The fool may at least reach that perfect state of Arlecchino, as Discribed by Thelma Niklaus in her book "Harlequin or the rise and fall of a Bergamask Rogue".... " He lived among a multitude of enchanting women, brillant and beautiful, exacting and rewarding, filled with zest of loving and living, offering between them every facet of feminine temperment, character, and charm. He could worship an ideal, in the person of La Cantarina; persue, in Isabella, the all but unattainable; and console himself with Colombina, the charmingly accessible. No man could ask for more: few men enjoy as much..."