But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.

Luc. Well, I will marry one day, but to try;
Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.

Enter DROMIO of Ephesus.

Adr. Say is your tardy master now at hand?

Dro. E. Nay, he is at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness.

Adr. Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind? Dro. E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear: Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

Luc. Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning?

Dro. E. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand* them.

Adr. But say, I pr'ythee, is he coming home? It seems, he hath great care to please his wife.

Dro. E. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.

Adr. Horn-mad, thou villain?

Dro. E. I mean not cuckold-mad; but, sure, he's stark mad: When I desired him to come home to dinner, He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold: 'Tis dinner-time, quoth I; My gold, quoth he: Your meat doth burn, quoth I: My gold, quoth he: Will you come home? quoth I; My gold, quoth he: Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain? The pig, quoth I, is burn'd; My gold, quoth he: My mistress, Sir, quoth I; Hang up thy mistress ; I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress! Luc. Quoth who?

Dro. E. Quoth my master:

I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress ;—
So that my errand, due unto my tongue,

I thank him, I bear home upon my shoulders;
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

Adr. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. Dro. E. Go back again, and be new beaten home? For God's sake, send some other messenger.

Adr. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.

Dro. E. And he will bless that cross with other beating:
Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adr. Hence, prating peasant; fetch thy master home.
Dro. E. Am I so round with you, as you with me,
That like a football do you spurn me thus?
You spurn me nence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.
Luc. Fie, how impatience lowereth in your face.
Adr. His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.

* I. e. stand under,

[Exit.

Hath homely age the alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it:
Are my discourses dull? barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Unkindness blunts it, more than marble hard.
Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
That's not my fault, he's master of my state:
What ruins are in me, that can be found
By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground
Of my defeatures:* My decayed fairt
A sunny look of his would soon repair:
But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.

Luc. Self-arming jealousy !—fie, beat it hence.
Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
Or else, what lets it but he would be here ?
Sister, you know, he promised me a chain ;-
Would that alone alone he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
I see the jewel, best enamelled,

Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still,
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold: and so no man, that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.
Luc. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy

SCENE II-The same.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.

Ant. S. The gold I gave to Dromio, is laid up
Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave
Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out.
By computation, and mine host's report,
I could not speak with Dromio, since at first
I sent him from the mart: See here he comes.

[Exeunt.

Enter DROMIO of Syracuse.

How now, Sir, is your merry humour alter'd?
As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
You know no Centaur? you received no gold?
Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?
My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad,
That thus so madly thou didst answer me ?

Dro. S. What answer, Sir? when spake I such a word ?
Ant. S. Even now, even here, not half an hour since.

* Alteration of features.

† Fairness.

+ Hinders.

Dro. S. I did not see you since you sent me hence,
Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.

Ant. S. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt;
And told'st me of a mistress, and a dinner;
For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeased.

Dro. S. I am glad to see you in this merry vein:
What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.

Ant. S. Yea, dost thou jeer, and flout me in the teeth? Think'st thou, I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.

[Beating him.

Dro. S. Hold, Sir, for God's sake: now your jest is earnest : Upon what bargain do you give it me?

Ant. S. Because that I familiarly sometimes
Do use you for my fool, and chat with you,
Your sauciness will jest upon my love,
And make a common of my serious hours.*
When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies, when he hides his beams.
If you will jest with me, know my aspect,t
And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.

Dro. S. Sconce, call you it ? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and insconce‡ it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, Sir, why am I beaten ?

Ant. S. Dost thou not know?

Dro. S. Nothing, Sir; but that I am beaten.

Ant. S. Shall I tell you why?

Dro. S. Ay, Sir, and wherefore; for, they say, cvery why hath a wherefore.

Ant. S. Why, first,-for flouting me; and then, wherefore,For urging it the second time to me.

Dro. S. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season? When, in the why, and the wherefore, is neither rhyme nor reason ?

Well, Sir, I thank you.

Ant. S. Thank me, Sir! for what?

Dro. S. Marry, Sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

Ant. S. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, Sir, is it dinner-time?

Dro. S. No, Sir; I think, the meat wants that I have.

Ant. S. In good time, Sir, what's that?

Dro. S. Basting.

Ant. S. Well, Sir, then 'twill be dry.

Dro. S. If it be, Sir, I pray you eat none of it.

Ant. S. Your reason?

Dro. S. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry basting.

*I. e. intrude on them when you please.
† Study my countenance.

Fortify.

Ant. S. Well, Sir, learn to jest in good time;

There's a time for all things.

Dro. S. I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric.
Ant. S. By what rule, Sir?

Dro. S. Marry, Sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself.

Ant. S. Let's hear it.

Dro. S. There's no time for a man to recover his hair, that grows bald by nature.

Ant. S. May he not do it by fine and recovery?

Dro. S. Yes, to pay a fine

a peruke, and recover the lost

hair of another man.
Ant. S. Why is time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so
plentiful an excrement ?

Dro. S. Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts: and what he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit. Ant. S. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. Dro. S. Not a man of those, but he hath the wit to lose his hair.

Ant. S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

Dro. S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: Yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity

Ant. S. For what reason?

Dro. S. For two; and sound ones too.

Ant. S. Nay, not sound, I pray you.

Dro. S. Sure ones then.

Ant. S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
Dro. S. Certain ones then.

Ant. S. Name them.

Dro. S. The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.

Ant. S. You would all this time have proved, there is no time for all things.

Dro. S. Marry, and did, Sir; namely, no time to recover hair lost by nature.

Ant. S. But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover.

Dro. S. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore, to the world's end, will have bald followers.

Ant. S. I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion⚫ But soft! who wafts* us yonder ?

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange, and frown;
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects,
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,

*Beckons.

That never touch well-welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, look'd, touch'd, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall*
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyself, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious?
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate?
Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot brow,
And from my false hand cut the wedding ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou canst; and therefore, see, thou do it.
I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For, if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion
Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain'd, thou undishonour'd.

Ant. S. Plead you to me, fair dame?
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town, as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

I know you not:

Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you: When were you wont to use my sister thus? She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Ant. S. By Dromio?

Dro. S. By me?

Adr. By thee: and this thou didst return from him,— That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows Denied my house for his, me for his wife.

Ant. S. Did you converse, Sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course and drift of your compact?

Dro. S. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.

Ant. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

Dro. S. I never spake with her in all my life. Ant. S. How can she thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration ?

* Let fall.