I’ll Tell You Who Time Gallops Withal
ROSALIND: Marry,* he trots hard* with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnised: 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.*
An archaic interjection, an exclamation of surprise or emphasis. It it a polite modification of ‘Mary’, that is, an invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has no connection with marriage, despite the context here.
A hard trot is a gait above a walk which jolts the rider and can be difficult to master; ‘hard’ in this context means jarring rather than fast. It is not so much that time passes too slowly for the bride, but that the bumpy ride makes it seem interminable.
‘As You Like It’ was written in 1599, fifty years after the Church of England began to read her services in English (translations of psalms, prayers and the Gospels had been around for centuries). Latin was however still essential for theological and historical study.
The legal year is divided into four terms: Hilary (January-April), Easter (April-May), Trinity (June-July), and Michaelmas (October-December).