The unviolated honour of your wife.

Once this,-Your long experience of herb wisdom,
Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,

Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;

And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse

Why at this time the doors are made against you.
Be rul'd by me; depart in patience,

And let us to the Tiger all to dinner:
And, about evening, come yourself alone,
To know the reason of this strange restraint.
If by strong hand you offer to break in,
Now in the stirring passage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it;
And that supposed by the common rout,
Against your yet ungalled estimation,
That may with foul intrusion enter in,
And dwell upon your grave when you are dead:
For slander lives upon succession;

For ever housed, where it gets possession.
ANT. E. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet,
And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry.
I know a wench of excellent discourse;
Pretty and witty: wild, and, yet too, gentle ;-
There will we dine; this woman that I mean,
My wife (but, I protest, without desert)
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;
To her will we to dinner. Get you home,

And fetch the chain; by this, I know, 't is made:
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentined;
For there's the house; that chain will I bestow
(Be it for nothing but to spite my wife)
Upon mine hostess there: good sir, make haste:
Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.
ANG. I'll meet you at that place, some hour hence.
ANT. E. Do so. This jest shall cost me some expense.

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.

Luc. And may it be that you have quite forgot

A husband's office? shall, Antipholus,

• Once this-once for all.

Her. The original has your; and the same mistake occurs in the next line but one.

• To make the door is still a provincial expression.

[Exeunt.

Porpentine. This word is invariably used throughout the early editions of Shakspere for porcupine. It was, no doubt, the familiar word in Shakspere's time, and ought not to be changed.

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinousa?

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then, for her wealth's sake, use her with more kindness:

Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:

Let not my sister read it in your eye;

Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;

Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger:

Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
Be secret-false: What need she be acquainted?
What simple thief brags of his own attaint?

'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed,

And let her read it in thy looks at board: Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed; Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. Alas, poor women! make us but believe,

Being compact of credit, that you love us; Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve; We in your motion turn, and you may move us.

Then, gentle brother, get you in again;

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife;

"Tis holy sport, to be a little vain d,

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

ANT. S. Sweet mistress, (what your name is else, I know not,
Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,)

Less, in your knowledge, and your grace, you show not,
Than our earth's wonder; more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
Against my soul's pure truth why labour you,

To make it wander in an unknown field? Are you a god? would you create me new?

Transform me then, and to your power I ll yield.

Ruinate, instead of ruinous, is the reading of the folio. To make a rhyme to ruinate, Theobald inserted the word hate in the second line-" Shall, Antipholus, hate,"-shall hate rot thy lovesprings? The correction of ruinate to ruinous, suggested by Steevens, though not adopted by him, is much more satisfactory.

But. The original has not, which is contrary to the sense.

Compact of credit-credulous.

Vain. Johnson interprets this light of tongue.

But if that I am I, then well I know,
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;

Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister flood of tears;
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote:

Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take thee, and there lie;

And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death, that hath such means to die :-
Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink!
Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reason so ?
ANT. S. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.

Luc. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

ANT. S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

Luc. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.

ANT. S. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

Luc. Why call you me love? call my sister so.

ANT. S. Thy sister's sister.
Luc.

ANT. S.

That 's my sister.

No;

It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart;
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.

Luc. All this my sister is, or else should be.
ANT. S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee;
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife:
Give me thy hand.

Luc.

O, soft, sir, hold you still;

I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.

[Exit Luc

Enter, from the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Syracuse.

ANT. S. Why, how now, Dromio? where runn'st thou so fast?

• Sister is the reading of the first folio; sister's is that of the second folio, which is ordinarily received: sister is more elegant, using the noun adjectively, which is frequent with Shakspere.

Bed. The folio reads bud. There can be no doubt, we think, of the propriety of the correction. "The golden hairs" which are "spread o'er the silver waves" will form the bed of the lover.

It has been suggested that we should read, “And as a bed I'll take them."

• Love is here used as the queen of love. In the 'Venus and Adonis,' Venus, speaking of herself, says

"Love is a spirit, all compact of fire,

Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire."

To mate—to amate—is to make senseless,—to stupify, as in a dream. Mætan (A. S.) is to dream. • Where. The original has when.

DRO. S. Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? ANT. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

DRO. S. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides myself.

ANT. S. What woman's man? and how besides thyself?

DRO. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

ANT. S. What claim lays she to thee?

DRO. S. Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

ANT. S. What is she?

DRO. S. A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say, sir reverence: I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.

ANT. S. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?

DRO. S. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she 'll burn a week longer than the whole world.

ANT. S. What complexion is she of?

DRO. S. Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept. For why? she sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it.

ANT. S. That's a fault that water will mend.

DRO. S. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.

ANT. S. What's her name?

DRO. S. Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.

ANT. S. Then she bears some breadth?

DRO. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her.

ANT. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland?

DRO. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks. I found it out by the bogs.

ANT. S. Where Scotland 5?

DRO. S. I found it in the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand.

ANT. S. Where France?

DRO. S. In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir. ANT. S. Where England?

DRO. S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them:

but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

ANT. S. Where Spain?

DRO. S. Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it, hot in her breath.

. When anything offensive was spoken of, this form of apology was used.

And. In the original, is—an evident error.

ANT. S. Where America, the Indies??

DRO. S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadas of carracks to be ballast at her nose.

ANT. S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

DRO. S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me; called me Dromio; swore, I was assured to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch:

And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel, She had transform'd me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i' the wheel". ANT. S. Go, hie thee presently, post to the road;

And if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town to-night.

If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk, till thou return to me.
If every one knows us, and we know none,
"Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.
DRO. S. As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
ANT. S. There's none but witches do inhabit here;
And therefore 't is high time that I were hence.
She, that doth call me husband, even my soul
Doth for a wife abhor: but her fair sister,
Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
Hath almost made me traitor to myself:
But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

Enter ANGELO.

[Exit.

I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine:
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

ANT. S. What is your will that I shall do with this?

ANG. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.

ANT. S. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.

We have printed these two lines as verse. The doggrel, like some of Swift's similar attempts, contains a superabundance of syllables; but we have little doubt that Dromio's description of the kitchen-maid was intended to conclude emphatically with rhyme.

• Guilty to-not of-was the phraseology of Shakspere's time.