Comedy plays; Exiles -- Drama; Fathers and daughters -- Drama; Pastoral drama
ROSALIND. [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him like a saucy
lackey,
and under that habit play the knave with him.- Do you hear,
forester?
ORLANDO. Very well; what would you?
ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock?
ORLANDO. 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 prithee, 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 solemniz'd; 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 touch'd with so many giddy offences as
he
hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.
ORLANDO. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he
laid
to the charge of women?
ROSALIND. There were none principal; they were all like one
another
as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his
fellow-fault came to match it.
ORLANDO. I prithee recount some of them.
ROSALIND. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that
are
sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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