The unviolated honour of your wife. Once this 2,-Your long experience of herb wisdom, Plead on her part some cause to you unknown; Why at this time the doors are made against you. And let us to the Tiger all to dinner: And dwell upon your grave when you are dead: For ever housed, where it gets possession. ANT. E. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet, 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. [Exeunt. d 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 ruinous a? 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; Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; And let her read it in thy looks at board: 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 vaina, When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife. ANT. S. Sweet mistress, (what your name is else, I know not, Less, in your knowledge, and your grace, you show not, 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. 4 Vain. Johnson interprets this light of tongue. But if that I am I, then well I know, Far more, far more, to you do I decline. Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And, in that glorious supposition, think Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink! ANT. S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by. 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; 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. u know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides myself. woman's man? and how besides thyself? ', sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, unts me, one that will have me. claim lays she to thee? y, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. is she? y reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, say, sir reverencea: I have but lean luck in the match, and yet ndrous fat marriage. lost thou mean a fat marriage? ', sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know not o put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland she lives till doomsday, she 'll burn a week longer than the whole complexion is she of? , like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept. For sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. s a fault that water will mend. ir, 't is in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. 's her name? sir; but her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three ill not measure her from hip to hip. she bears some breadth? nger from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, e. I could find out countries in her1. at part of her body stands Ireland? v, sir, in her buttocks. I found it out by the bogs. e Scotland 5? ad it in the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand ⇒ France? r forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir. England? ed for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them: = it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France 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 a 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, ANG. Master Antipholus? ANT. S. Ay, that's my name. Enter ANGELO. ANG. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain ; Assured-affianced. [Exit. 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. |