SOURCE: Smith, Irwin. “Dramatic Time versus Clock Time in Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Quarterly 20, no. 1 (Winter 1969): 65-69.

In the following essay, Smith directs attention to the compression and acceleration of dramatic time in several of Shakespeare's plays, discussing in particular the three different time schemes in Act IV, scene iii of Richard III.

Wishing to scrape up a renewed acquaintance with Orlando, who fails to recognize her in her masculine attire, Rosalind asks him a question that still occasionally serves as an opening gambit when girl wants to meet boy. She asks him what time it is; and having thus introduced the subject of time, she keeps the conversational ball rolling by discussing the varying rates of speed at which time seems to pass: “Time travels in divers paces, with divers persons: Ile tel you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he...