S.Dro. Hold, Sir, for God's fake, now your jeft is earneft; Upon what bargain do you give it me?

Ant. Because that I familiarly fometimes
Do ufe you for my fool, and chat with you,
Your fawcinefs will jeft upon my love,
And make a comedy of my ferious hours.
When the fun fhines let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams:
If you will jeft with me, know my aspect,
And fashion your demeanour to my looks;
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
But foft; who wafts us yonder? *

wafts us yonder?

S. Dro. Sconce, call you it? fo you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head; an you ufe thefe bows long, I muft get a fconce for my head, and infconce it too, or else i fhall feek my wit in my fhoulders; but 1 pray, Slr, why am I beaten ?

Ant. Doft thou not know?

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

Ant. Shall I tell you why?

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

Ant. Why firft, for flouting me; and then wherefore, for urging it the fecond time to me.

S. Dro. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of fealon, When in the why and wherefore is neither rhime nor reafon? Well, Sir, I thank yon.

Ant. Thank me, Sir, for what?

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

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

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

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

S. Dro. Bafting.

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

S. Dro. If it be, Sir, I pray you, eat not of it.

Ant. Your reafon ?

S. Dro. Left it make you cholerick, and purchase me another dry bafting.

Ant. Well, Sir, learn to jest in good time; there's a time for all things.

S. Dro. I durft have deny'd that, before you were to cholerick. Ant. By what rule, Sir?

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

Ant. Let's hear it.

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

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

S. Dre.

SCENE V. Enter Adriana and Luciana. Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholis, look ftrange and frown; Some other mistress hath some sweet aspects,

I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou unurg'd wouldst vow,
That never words were mufick to thine ear,
That never object pleafing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-favour'd in thy tafte,
Unless I fpake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art thus eftranged from thy felf?
Thy felf I call it, being ftrange to me :
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear felf 's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thy felf from me;

E S. Dro Yes, to pay a fine for a peruke, and recover the loft hair

of another man

Ant. Why is Time fuch a niggard of hair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a bleffing that he beftows on beafts; and what he hath fcanted them in hair, he hath given them in wit. Ant Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. S. Dro. Not a man of thofe but he hath the wit to lofe his hair. Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the fooner loft; yet he lofeth it in a kind of jollity.

Ant. For what reason ?

S. Dro. For two, and found ones too.

Ant. Nay, not found ones, I pray you.
S. Dro. Sure ones then.

Ant. Nay, not fure in a thing falfing.
S. Dro. Certain ones then.

Ant. Name them.

3. Dro. The one to fave the money that he fpends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they fhould not drop in his porridge.

Ant. You would all this time have prov'd, there is no time for all things.

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

Ant. But your reafon was not fubftantial, why there is no time

to recover.

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

Ant. 1 knew 'twould be a bald conclufion.
SCENE V. &c.

For

For know, my love, as eafie may'ft thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulph,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thy felf, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Should't thou but hear I were licentious?
And that this body, confecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft fhould be contaminate?
Would'ft thou not spit at me, and fpurn at me,
And hurl the name of hufband in my face,
And tear the ftain'd fkin off my harlot-brow,
And from my falfe hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou would'ft; and therefore fee thou do it.
I am poffefs'd with an adulterate blot ;.
My blood is mingled with the crime of luft:
For if we two be one and thou play false,
I do digeft the poison of thy flesh,
Being ftrumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unftain'd, thou undishonoured.

Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephefus I am but two hours old,

As ftrange unto your town as to your talk *.

Luc. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you! When were you wont to use my fifter thus ?

She fent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Ant. By Dromio?

S. Dro. By me?

Adr. By thee; and thus thou didst return from him, That he did buffet thee, and in his blows

Deny'd my houfe for his, me for his wife.

Ant. Did you converfe, Sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the courfe and drift of your compact? S. Dro. I, Sir? I never faw her 'till this time. Ant. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words

as to your talk.

Who, ev y word by all my wit being feann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to underft nd.

Lus. Fie, brother, &c.

1

The Comedy of Errors.

Didit thou deliver to me on the mart.

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

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,
To counterfeit thus grofly with your flave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt,

But

wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will faften on this fleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine:
Whose weakness marry'd to thy ftronger state,
Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate
If ought poffefs thee from me, it is drofs,
Ulurping ivy, brier, or idle mofs,

Which all for want of pruning, with intrufion,
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confusion.

97

Ant. To me the speaks; the moves me for her theam What, was I marry'd to her in my dream;

Or fleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss ?
Until I know this fure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the favour'd fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the fervants spread for dinner Adr. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, To put the finger in the eye, and weep,

Whilft man and mafter laugh my woes to fcorn.

..... fervants fpread for dinner.

S. Dro. Oh for my beads! I crofs me for a finner.
This is the Fairy land: oh fpight of fpights!

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

They'll fuck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.
Lue. Why prat'it thou to thy felf,

Dromio, thou Drónio, fnail, thou flug, thou fot?

S. Dro. I am transformed, mafter, am I not?
Ant I think thou art in mind, and fo am I.

S Dro. Nay, matter, both in mind and in my shape.
Ant. Thou hast thine own form.

S. Dro. No; I am an ape,

Luc. If thou art chang'd to ought, 'tis to an afs.

S. Dre. 'Tis true, the rides me, and I long for grafs.

'Tis fo, I am an afs; elle it could never be,

But I should know her as well as fhe knows me.

A. Come, come, &

VOL. II.

Come, Sir, to dinner; Dromio, keep the gate;
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
And fhrive you of a thousand idle pranks;
Sirrah, if any afk you for your master,
Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter :
Come, fifter; Dromio, play the porter well.

Ant. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking, mad or well advis'd ?
Known unto these, and to my self disguis'd?
I'll fay as they fay, and perfever fo;
And in this mift at all adventures go.

S. Dro. Mafter, fhall I be porter at the gate?
Adr. Ay, let none enter, left I break your pate.
Luc. Come, come, Antipholis, we dine too late.
[Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE I.
The Street before Antipholis's Houfe.

Enter Antipholis of Ephefus, Dromio of Ephefus, Angelo, and Balthazar.

E. Ant. My wife is fhrewith when I keep not hours;

Ood Signior Angelo, you must excufe us;

Say, that I linger'd with you at your shop
To fee the making of her carkanet,

And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
But here's a villain that would face me down
He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,
And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold;
And that I did deny my wife and house:

Thou drunkard thou, what didit thou mean by this ? *
I think thou art an ass.

E. Dio. Marry, doth it fo appear

By the wrongs I fuffer, and the blows I bear?
Jfhould kick being kickt; and being at that pafs,
You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.

* ... d'dft thou mean by this?

E Dre. Say what you will, Sr but I know what I know,
That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to fhow;
the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
You hand-waiting would tell you what I think.

E. Ant. I think, St.

E. Ant.