Shakespeare Literacy

Thirty repetitions later, I finally understand what a single line of Shakespeare means.

It sounds funny, but it's true. There's a line in the back-and-forth between Rosaline and Berowne that I never quite understood until today:
Berowne: Your wit's too hot, it speeds to fast, twill tire.
Rosaline: Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
Maybe I'm just being slow on the uptake, or her wit is too fast for me too, but that always seemed like an awkward line to me. I didn't get what Rosaline was supposed to be saying. But after memorizing lines, running through them multiple times, and trying to assign meaning to what I was saying, I finally got the metaphor. Her wit is like a horse, and it's so quick that it will leave it's rider behind in a sticky situation long before it ever gets tired. Basically, she's saying that by the time she runs out of witty things to say, Berowne will be so far behind that it wont matter. Hooray for finally understanding. There are things about these plays that I never would have picked up on if we weren't doing this production.
-Martina