Ant. A trusty villain, sir; that very oft, When I am duil with care and melancholy, Lightens my humour with his merry jests. What, will you walk with me about the town, And then go to my inn, and dine with me? Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your 5 Reserve them till a merrier hour than this. 10 And tell me, how thou hast dispos'd thy charge. E. Dro. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart 20 Mer. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants, Ant. Stop in your wind, sir: tell me this, I pray; Ant. I am not in a sportive humour now; E. Dro. I pray you, jest sir, as you sit at dinner: For she will score your fault upon my pate. Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner; Ant. Now, as I am a christian, answer me, pate, E. Dro. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the She that doth fast, till you come home to dinner, 30 And prays, that you will hie you home to dinner, Ant. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my 40 face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. [Exit. Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more? Lur. Because their business stid lies out o' door. Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. Luc. Oh, know he is the bridle of your will. [so. Adr. There's none, but asses, will be bridled Luc. Why head-strong liberty is lash'd 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 controuls: Meo, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world, and wild watry seas, Indn'd 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. dr. But, were you wedded, you would bear ⚫ some sway. Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. Adr. How if your husband start some other where? 5 'Tis dinner-time, quoth I: My gold, quoth he: Your meut doth burn, quoth I; My gold, quoth he: Will you come? quoth I; My gold, quoth he: Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain? The pig, quoth I, is burn'd; 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? E. Dro. Quoth my master: 10I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress;So that my errand due unto my tongue, 15 20 Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear. she pause; They can be ineek, that have no other cause. 35 I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; Between you I shall have a holy head. [home. [Exit. Luc. Fye, how impatience loureth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. 30 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 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 disI know his eye doth fromage other-where; [pense, 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! 50 see, the jewel, best enamelled, Adr. Sey, is your tardy master now at hand? E. Dro. Nay, he is at two hands with me, and 40 that my two ears can witness. Ar. Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind? E. Dro. 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? E. Dro. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them2. Adr. But say, I pry'thee, is he coming home? It seems he hath great care to please his wife. E.Dro. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-| Ar. Horg-mad, thou villain? [mad. 45 E. Dro. I mean not cuckold-mad; but, sure, 55 When I desir'd him to come home to dinner, That is, plain, free in speech. Meaning, some other place. Meaning, stand under them. Meaning, my change, or alteration of features. That is, his pretence, his cover. See a preceding note in the Tempest. The sense is, 66 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 falshood and corruption. SCENE SCENE II. The Street. Enter Antipholis of Syracuse. thing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner- S. Dro. No, sir, I think the meat wants that I Ant. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. S. Dro, If it be, sir, pray you eat none of it. S. Dro. Lest it make you cholerick, and pur10 chase me another dry-basting. Ant. The gold, I gave to Dromio, is laid up 5 15 25 Ant. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: There's a time for all things. S. Dro. I durst have deny'd that, before you were so cholerick. Ant. By what rule, sir? Ant. Even now, even here, not half an hour 20 his hair, that grows bald by nature. Ant. May he not do it by fine and recovery? S. Dro. Yes, to pay a fine for a peruke, and recover the lost hair of another man. Ant. Why is time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement? S. Dro. 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. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. S. Dro. Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair'. S. Dro. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. 35 1401 S. Dro. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for, they say, 50 Ant. Why, first, for flouting me; and then, Well, sir, I thank you. Ant. Thank me, sir? for what? S. Dro. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. Ant. I'll make you amends next, to give you no Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost Yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. Ant. For what reason? S. Dro. For two; and sound ones too. Ant. Nay, not sound, I pray you. S. Dro. Sure ones then. Ant. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. Ant. Name them. S. Dro. The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they should 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 lost by nature. Ant. But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover. S. Dro. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore to the world's end, will have bald followers. Ant. I know 'twould be a bald conclusion: But soft! who wafts us vonder? Enter Adriana and Luciana. Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholis,look strange, and frown; 60 Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects, I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. Meaning, And break in, or intrude upon them when you please. of ground called commons. That is, fortify it. This alludes to the one of which, on its first appearance in Europe, was the loss of hair. loose women, have more hair than wit, and suffer for their lewdness, by The allusion is to those tracts effects of the venereal disease, Those who are entrapped by the loss of their hair. The The time was once, when thou, unurg'd, would'st As take from me thyself, and not me too. [bed: 5 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, marry'd to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate: 10If 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. [theme; Ant. To me she speaks; she moves me for her 15 What, was I marry'd 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 favour'd fallacy. 20 [dinner. Luc. Dromio, go, bid the servants spread for S.Dro. Oh, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner. This is the fairy land;-oh, spight of spights; We talk with goblins, owls', and elvish sprights; If we obey them not, this will ensue, [blue, 25 They'll suck our breath, and pinch us black and Luc. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer`st not? [sot! Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou S. Dro. I am transformed, master, am I not? Ant. I think, thou art, in mind, and so am I. S. Dro. Nay, master, both in mind, and in my Ant. Thou hast thine own shape. [shape. S. Dro. No, I am an ape. 130 I know thou canst, and therefore see, thou do it. [not: S. Dro. I, sir? I never saw her all this time. Luc. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass. S. Dro. 'Tis true, she rides me, and I long for 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be, [grass, But I should know her as well as she knows me. Adr. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, Ant. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? S. Dro. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? 1 That is, separated. That is, unfertile, and therefore useless or idle; an happy allusion to the moss which grows on fruit-trees, hastening their decay, and neither suffers the tree to bear fruit, nor does it bear any itself. The exact character of the kind of woman whom Adriana supposes to have attracted the affections of Antipho'is. S. A. 3 Dr. Warburton says, it was an old popular superstition, that the scrietch-owl sucked out the breath and blood of infants in the cradle. On this account, the Italians called witches, who were supposed to be in like manner mischievously bent against children, strega, from strix, the scrietch-owl. That is, I'll call you to confession, and make you tell all your tricks. АСТ My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours; And that to-morrow you will bring it home. to show: 5 10 15 E. Dro. Say what thou will, sir, but I know what That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand [gave were ink, 20 If the skin were parchment, and the blows you Your own hand-writing would tell you what I You would keep from my heels, and beware of Mayanswer my good-will, and your good-welcome. Bal. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear. [ish, E. Ant. Ah, signior Balthazar, either at flesh or 35 A table-full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish. [churl affords. Bal. Good meat, sir, is common, that every E. Ant. And welcome more common; for that's nothing but words. [merry feast. 40 Bal. Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a E. Ant. Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest: [part; But though my cates be mean, take them in good| Better cheer may you have, but not with better 45 [us in. heart. But soft my door is lock'd; Go bid them let E. Dro. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn! S. Dro. [Within.] Mome2, malt-horse, capon, 50 cox-comb, ideot, patch'! [hatch: Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store, III. When one is one too many? go, get thee from the door. E. Dro. What patch is made our porter? my master stays in the street. S. Dro. Let him walk from whence he came, lest he catch cold on's feet. [door. E. Ant. Who talks within there? ho, open the S. Dro. Right, sir, I'll tell you when, an you'll tell me wherefore. [not din'd to-day. E. Ant. Wherefore? for my dinner; I have S. Dro. Nor to-day here you must not; come again when you may. E. Ant. What art thou, that keep'st me out from the house I owe1? S. Dro. The porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio. E. Dro. O villain, thou hast stolen both mine office and my name: [blame. The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle If thou hadst 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? E. Dro. Let thy master in, Luce. Luce. Faith no; he comes too late; And so tell your master. : E. Dro. O Lord, I must laugh :- [staff? Have at you with a proverb.-Shall I set in my Luce. Have at you with another: that'sWhen? can you tell? S. Dro. If thy name be called Luce, Luce, thou hast answer'd him well. E. Ant. Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I trow?? Luce. I thought to have ask'd you. E. Dr. So, come, help; well struck; there was blow for blow. E. Ant. Thou baggage, let me in. E. Ant. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat 1 A carkanet is said to have been a necklace set with stones, or strung with pearls. That is, blockhead, stock, post. Sir T. Hanmer says, Mome owes its original to the French Momon, which signifies the gaming at dice in masquerade, the custom and rule of which is, that a strict silence is to be observed: whatever sum one stakes, another covers, but not a word is to be spoken: from hence also comes our word mum! for silence. 'That is, fool. That is, I own. To trow signifies to think, to imagine, to conceive, 4 Ang. |