Ant. S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this: Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee? Dro. E. To me, sir? why you gave no gold

to me.

Ant. S. Come on, sir knave; have done your foolishness,

And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge. Dro. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart

Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner; My mistress and her sister stay for you.

Ant. S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me, In what safe place you have bestowed my money; Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours, That stands on tricks when I am undisposed: Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me? Dro. E. I have some marks of yours upon my

pate,

Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Ant. S. Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dro. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;

She that doth fast till you come home to dinner, And prays that you will hie you home to dinner. Ant. S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,

Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. Dro. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake,

hold your hands;

Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels. [Exit.

Ant. S. Upon my life, by some device or other, The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. They say this town is full of cozenage;

As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like liberties of sin :
If it prove so, I will begone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave;
I greatly fear my money is not safe.

[Exit.

SCENE I.—A public Place.

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

Adr. Neither my husband nor the slave returned,

That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luc. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine, and never fret:
A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master; and, when they see time,
They'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.

Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more?

Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door. Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. Luc. O, know he is the bridle of your will. Adr. There's none but asses will be bridled so. Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lashed with woe. There's nothing situate under heaven's eye But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subject, and at their controls: Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords: Then let your will attend on their accords.

Adr. This servitude makes you to keep unwed. Luc. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed. Adr. But, were you wedded, you would bear

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me:
But if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begged 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'y thee, 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 asked 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 burned;" "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 bare 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 you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither: If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [Exit.

Luc. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look! 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 marred, 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 ruined? then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayéd fair 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-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence. Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs

dispense.

I know his eye doth homage other where,
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!
[Exeunt.

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 wandered 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.
Enter DROMIO of Syracuse.

How now, sir? is your merry humour altered?
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

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, 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 ensconce it too, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?

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 't will 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 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 for his 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 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, e'en 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 't would 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,
That never touch well-welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd
to thee.

How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art then estrangéd 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 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 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 dis-stain'd, thou undishonouréd.

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;
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 gen-
tlewoman?

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, 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, briar, or idle 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?
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 answer'st

not?

Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot?