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 dinnertime?

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.

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, of father Time himself.

bald

pate

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 for a periwig, 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

1 So in The Taming of the Shrew:

"I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,

And I expressly am forbid to touch it,

For it engenders choler, planteth anger."

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.

Nay, not sound, I pray you.

Dro. S. Sure ones, then.

Ant. S.

Ant. S.

Dro. S.

Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.2

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, e'en3 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.

1 The old copy reads them: the emendation is Theobald's.

2 To false, as a verb, has been long obsolete; but it was current in Shakspeare's time.

3 The old copy, by mistake, has in.

4 i. e. beckons us.

The time was once, when thou unurged wouldst vow,
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savored in thy taste,
Unless I spake, looked, touched, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, 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 fall1
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 stained 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 possessed 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 disstained, 2 thou undishonored

Ant. S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you

not.

In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

As strange unto your town, as to your talk;

1 Fall is here a verb active.

2 i. e. unstained.

Who, every word by all my wit being scanned,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

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. S. 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?

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood?
Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt,1
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine.
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle 2 moss;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion

Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.

Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her

theme.

What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?

1 i. e. separated, parted.

2 i. e. unfruitful.

Until I know this sure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the offered fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

Dro. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner. This is the fairy land;-O, spite of spites!

We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites;
If we obey them not, this will ensue,

They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answerest not?

Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am not I?
Ant. S. I think thou art, in mind, and so am I.
Dro. S. Nay, master, both in mind, and in my

shape.

Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form.

No, I am an ape.

Dro. S.
Luc. If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.
Dro. S. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.

'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be,
But I should know her as well as she knows me.
Adr. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,

Whilst man, and master, laugh my woes to scorn.—
Come, sir, to dinner; Dromio, keep the gate.-
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,

Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter.—
Come, sister.-Dromio, play the porter well.
Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad, or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
say as they say, and persever so,

I'll

And in this mist at all adventures go.

1 The old copy reads freed, which is evidently wrong; perhaps a corruption of proffered or offered.

2 The old copy reads "Dromio, thou Dromio." The emendation is Theobald's.