The perfect women of As You Like It and Much Ado About NothingRosalind and Beatrice, the main female protagonists of As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing respectively, is the epitome of Shakespeare's ideal woman. From these two characters we can see personality traits and characteristics of what Shakespeare might have considered the perfect woman. Rosalind and Beatrice are characterized by their beauty, integrity, strength of character, intelligence, cheerfulness, seriousness and warmth. Shakespeare used Rosalind and Beatrice to represent his belief that the ideal woman is a woman of beauty. In the play As You Like It, poems were written to Rosalind by her lover Orlando praising her beauty and fairness. "All the fairest images outlined are but black to Rosalind. Bear in mind no face but Rosalind's fair."1 Phebe, another female character in this play, had a crush on Rosalind when she was disguised as Ganymede , a young boy in the forest. Obviously this love was merely physical; Phebe was simply attracted to Rosalind's good looks. Beatrice is also a beautiful lady. Men were attracted to her, including Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon, who asked her in marriage. Even Benedetto, whom she married in the last scene, must have been attracted by Beatrice's beauty, because he swore to himself that the woman he would choose would be beautiful (II, iii, 29-33). Shakespeare's ideal woman was one of integrity and strength of character as seen in Rosalind and Beatrice. Rosalind is virtuous. According to Monsieur Le Beau, a court noble in As You Like It, "...the people praise her for her virtues..." (III, 284). Rosalind is described by Stanley Wells as "the full......half of the paper......terary characters. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1963.Magill, Frank N., ed. "Much Ado Apropos of Nothing." Masterplots Vol. VII. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Salem Press, 1949. O'Connor, Evangeline M. Who's Who and What's What in Shakespeare. New York: Evangel Books, 1978. Schoenbaum, S As You Like It--A Concise Guide to the Work. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1965. Scott, Mark W., ed. "As You Like It." W., ed. "Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare Criticism, Vol. VIII Norton Facsimile. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1968. Wells, Stanley "William Shakespeare, Vol I. New York: Sons of Charles Scribner"., 1979.