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 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 !—fye, 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 promis'd 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.

t Of my defeatures:] By defeatures is here meant alteration of features for the At the end of this play the same word is used with a somewhat different signification.-STEEVENS.

worse.

My decayed fair-] Fair for fairness.

stale.] i. e. Any thing used as a pretence to hide the truth.-NARES'S

y 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.] The sense is this: " Gold, indeed, will long bear the handling; however, often touching will wear even gold; just so the greatest character, though as pure as gold itself, may, in time, be injured, by the repeated attacks of falsehood and corruption."WARBURTON.

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.

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 receiv'd 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.
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 did'st deny the gold's receipt;
And told'st me of a mistress, and a dinner;
For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.

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."

And make a common of my serious hours.] i. e. Intrude on them when you please. The allusion is to those tracts of ground destined to common use, which are thence called commons.-STEEVENS..

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,a
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 batterring, 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, every 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 cholerick, and purchase me

another dry basting.

Ant. S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time; There's a time for all things.

a

b

know my aspect,] i. e. Study my countenance.

and insconce it too ;] A sconce was a petty fortification.

Dro. S. I durst have denied that, before you were so cholerick.

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 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.d

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.

C

by fine and recovery?] This attempt at pleasantry must have originated from our author's clerkship to an attorney. He has other jokes of the same school. STEEVENS.

d

-falsing.] This word is now obsolete. Spenser and Chaucer often use the verb to false. Mr. Heath would read falling.-STEEVENS.

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 use 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 unurg'd would'st vow
That never words were musick 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, look'd, touch'd, or carv'd 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 may'st 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 thyself, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Should'st thou but hear I were licentious?
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate?
Would'st 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?