The Complete Works of William ShakespeareShakespeare, William
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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
ORLANDO.
I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
JAQUES.
Rosalind is your love’s name?
ORLANDO.
Yes, just.
JAQUES.
I do not like her name.
ORLANDO.
There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
JAQUES.
What stature is she of?
ORLANDO.
Just as high as my heart.
JAQUES.
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with
goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?
ORLANDO.
Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have
studied your questions.
JAQUES.
You have a nimble wit. I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you
sit down with me? And we two will rail against our mistress the world
and all our misery.
ORLANDO.
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know
most faults.
JAQUES.
The worst fault you have is to be in love.
ORLANDO.
’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.
JAQUES.
By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
ORLANDO.
He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.
JAQUES.
There I shall see mine own figure.
ORLANDO.
Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
JAQUES.
I’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.
ORLANDO.
I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.
[_Exit Jaques.—Celia and Rosalind come forward._]
ROSALIND.
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 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?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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