Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Duke Senior and other lords are looking for Jacques. Jacques, however, finds them first; and Duke Senior is surprised that the usually melancholy Jacques has a merry or cheerful expression on his face.
Jacques explains that he met a Fool (Touchstone), and the Fool’s words made him laugh. According to Jacques, the Fool “railed” on (criticized) Lady Fortune; and Jacques found both truth and amusement in the words:
It is ten o’clock. Thus we may see … how the world wags. ‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one more hour ‘twill be eleven.
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale. (22-28)
The words are humorous because the entire passage is a complex series of puns. On a strictly literal level, the words are a commentary on aging: people grow up (become ripe) and then begin to become old and decay (rot). That is the story or tale of life.
On the humorous (or symbolic) level, the passage refers to sexual activity. The word hour was pronounced during the Renaissance in a manner similar to the word whore; the word ripe means to reach the age when one reaches puberty and thus can become sexually active; the word rot was pronounced