That stands on tricks, when I am undispos'd:
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 Dro. E.
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 be gone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave;
I greatly fear, my money is not safe.

АСТ II.

SCENE I.A public place.

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience would'st relieve me:
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg'd 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'ythee, 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 desir'd him to come home to dinner,
He ask'd 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:
[Exit. Will you come home? 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?

Adr. Neither my husband, nor the slave return'd,
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 goue 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 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 controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild watry 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 some

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 head across. Dro. E. And he will bless that cross with other beat*ing:

Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adr. Hence,prating peasant; fetch thy master home!
Dro. E. Am Iso 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. Fye, how impatience lowreth 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 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 kuow 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 aud 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!

SCENE II. The same.
Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.

[Exeunt.

And. 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 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 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 didst 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. Iam 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 sometime
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, an in Sconce 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?

gave me for nothing.

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 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?
Ant. S. Nay, not sound, I pray you.
Dro. S. Fortwo; and sound ones too.
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, 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,
Unless I spake, look'd, touch'd, or carv'd to thee.
That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,
That thou art then estranged from thyself?
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better, than thy dear self's bet er part.

Dro. S. Marry, sir, for this something, that you 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,
Aud 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 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.Fye,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 nie?

Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form.
Dro. S. No, I am an ape.

Luc. If thou art chang'd to anght, '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,
Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter! -
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 perséver 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.

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

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

Adr. By thee; and this thou didst return from him,- My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours:
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 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, bríar, or idle moss;

Whe, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.

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 didst thou mean by this?
Dro. L. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I
know;

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

If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave,
were ink,

Your own handwriting would tell you, what I think.
Ant. E. I think, thou art an ass.

Dro. E. Marry, so it doth appear

By the wrongs, I suffer, and the blows, I bear.

I should kick, being kicked; and being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
Ant. E. You are sad, signior Balthazar: 'pray God,
our cheer

Mayanswer my good will, and your good welcome here.

Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her Bal. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your wel

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

1

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 hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,
Thou wouldst 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; And so tell your master.

Dro. E. O Lord, I must laugh:

Have at you with a proverb.- Shall I set in my staff? Luce. Have at you with another: that's, -When? can you tell?

Dro. S. If thy name be called Luce, Luce, thou hast
answer'd him well.

Ant. E. Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in,
I hope?

Luce. I thought to have ask'd you.

Dro. S. And you said, no.

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

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

Dro. E. Amau 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 wantest 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 a 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;
Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compass of suspect
The 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;
Aud 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 on it;
And that supposed by the common rout
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;

Dro. E. So, come, help; well struck; there was For ever hous'd, where it once gets possession.

blow for blow.

Ant. E. Thou baggage, let me in!

Luce. Can you tell, for whose sake?
Dro. E. Master, knock the door hard!

Luce. Let him knock till it ache!

Ant. E. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.

Luce. What needs all this, 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.

Ant. E. You have prevail'd; I will depart in quiet, And, in despight 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 expence.
[Exeunt,

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, hate,
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinate?
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then, for her wealth's sake, use her with more kind

Dro. S. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides
myself.

If

W

T

D

Ant. S. What woman's man? and how besides thy-
self?

Dro. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a
woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one
that will have me.

Ant. S. What claim lays she to thee?

Dro. S. Marry, sir, such claim, as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

Ant. S. What is she?

Dro. S. A very reverent body; ay, such a one, as a man may not speak of, without he say, sir-reverence: I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.

Ant. S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage?
Dro. S. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all
grease; and I know not, what use to put her to, but to
make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light.
I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn
a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll buru
a week longer, than the whole world.
Ant. S. What complexion is she of?

Dro. S. Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing
like so clean kept; for why? she sweats, a man may go
over shoes in the grime of it.

Ant. S. That's a fault, that water will mend.
Dro. S. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not
do it.

Ant. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

Ant. S. Then she bears some breadth?

Dro. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out

countries in her.