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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 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

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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 a 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

Dro. S. No, sir: I think, the meat wants that I hair than wit. 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. 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, 'twould 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 unurg'd would'st
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, O! 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?

I know thou can'st; 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 disstain'd, thou undishonoured.

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 scann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fie, brother: how the world is chang'd 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.

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Ant. S. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?

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.

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 Dromio, thou snail, thou slug, thou
sot!

Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am I not?
Ant. S. I think thou art, in mind, and so am I.
Dro. S. Nay, master, both in mind and in my
shape.

Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form.
Dro. S.
No, I am an ape.
Luc. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.
Dro. S. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for

grass.

'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be,
But I should know her, as well as she knows me.
Adr. Come, come; no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn.
Come, sir, to dinner.-Dromio, keep the gate.-
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.-
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,

Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter.

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 offer'd fallacy,

Luc. Dromio, go bid the servant 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.

Come, sister.-Dromio, play the porter well.

Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad, or well-advis’d?
Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd?
I'll say as they say, and persever so,
And in this mist, at all adventures, go.

Dro. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?
Adr. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.
Luc. Come, come, Antipholus; we dine too late.
[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-The Same.

ACT ||| 3mm

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus,
ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR.

Ant. E. Good signior Angelo, you must excuse
us all;

My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours.
Say, that I linger'd with you at your shop
To see 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 did'st thou mean by
this?

Dro. E. Say what you will, sir; but I know what
I know.

That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to

show:

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every churl

Bal. Good meat, sir, is common; that affords. Ant. E. And welcome more common, for that's nothing but words.

Bal. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

Ant. E. Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest:

But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;

Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.

But soft! my door is lock'd. Go bid them let us in. Dro. E. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Gin'!.

Dro. S. [Within.] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch!

Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.

Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,

When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.

Dro. E. What patch is made our porter?-My master stays in the street.

Dro. S. Let him walk from whence he came, lest he catch cold on 's feet.

Ant. E. Who talks within there? ho! open the door.

Dro. S. Right, sir: I'll tell you when, an you'll tell me wherefore.

Ant. E. Wherefore? for my dinner: I have not din'd to-day

Dro. S. Nor to-day here you must not, come again when you may.

Ant. E. What art thou that keep'st me out from the house I owe?

Dro. S. The porter for this time, sir; and my name is Dromio.

Dro. E. O villain! thou hast stolen both mine office and my name:

The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.

If thou had'st been Dromio to-day in my place, Thou would'st have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass.

Luce. [Within.] What a coil is there Dromio:
who are those at the gate?
Dro. E. Let my master in, Luce.
Luce.

Faith no; he comes too late;

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Luce. What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Adr. [Within.] Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?

Dro. S. By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.

Ant. E. Are you there, wife? you might have come before.

Adr. Your wife, sir knave? go, get you from the door.

Dro. E. If you went in pain, master, this knave would go sore.

Ang. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome: we would fain have either.

Bal. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.

Dro. E. They stand at the door, master: bid them welcome hither.

Ant. E. There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.

Dro. E. You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.

Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold:

It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.

Ant. E. Go, fetch me something: I'll break ope the gate.

Dro. S. Break any breaking here, and I'll break your knave's pate.

Dro. E. A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind;

Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.

Dro. S. It seems, thou want'st breaking. Out upon thee, hind!

Dro. E. Here's too much out upon thee! I pray thee, let me in.

Dro. S. Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin.

Ant. E. Well, I'll break in. Go, borrow me a

crow.

Dro. E. A crow without feather? master, mean you so?

For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather.

If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.

Ant. E. Go, get thee gone: fetch me an iron

crow.

Bal. Have patience, sir; O! let it not be so:

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Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compass of suspect
Th' unviolated honour of your wife.
Once this,-Your long experience of her 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 route,
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, 'tis made:
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine;

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.

[Exeunt.

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