AS YOU LIKE IT
Page: 33

You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in the
forest.

ROSALIND.
Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing
every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot
of time as well as a clock.

ORLANDO.
And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

ROSALIND.
By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers
persons. I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots
withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

ORLANDO.
I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal?

ROSALIND.
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized; if the
interim be but a se'nnight, time's pace is so hard that it
seems the length of seven year.

ORLANDO.
Who ambles time withal?

ROSALIND.
With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath
not the gout: for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study,
and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain; the one
lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other
knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These time ambles
withal.

ORLANDO.
Who doth he gallop withal?

ROSALIND.
With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly
as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ORLANDO.
Who stays it still withal?

ROSALIND.
With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term
and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

ORLANDO.
Where dwell you, pretty youth?

ROSALIND.
With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of
the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

ORLANDO.
Are you native of this place?

ROSALIND.
As the coney, that you see dwell where she is kindled.

ORLANDO.
Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in
so removed a dwelling.

ROSALIND.
I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious
uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland
man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love.
I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I
am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he