E. Dro. Go back again, and be new beaten home? For God's fake, fend fome other messenger.

Adr. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. E. Dro. And he will bless that cross with other

beating:

Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adr. Hence, prating peasant, fetch thy master home. E. Dro. Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a foot-ball you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither: If I last in this service, you must cafe me in leather.

Luc.

SCENE III.

[Exit.

FIE, how impatience lowreth in your face!

Adr. His company must do his minions

grace,
Whilft I at home starve for a merry look:
Hath homely age th`alluring beauty took
From my poor check? then, he hath wafted it.
Are my difcourses dull? barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Unkindness blunts it, more than marble hard.
Do their gray 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 funny look of his would foon repair.
But, too unruly dear, he breaks the pale,
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.

Luc. Self harming jealousy! -fie, beat it hence.
Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense:
I know, his eye doth homage other-where;
Or elfe what lets it, but he would be here?
Sifter, you know he promis'd me a chain;
Would that alone, alone, he would detain,

So

So he would keep fair quarter with his bed.
* I see, the jewel, best enameled,

Will lofe his beauty; and the gold bides still,
That others touch; yet often touching will
Wear gold: and so no man, that hath a name,
But falfhood, and corruption, doth it shame.
Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.

[Exeunt.

Luc. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

Ant.

S

T

SCENE IV.
Changes to the Street.

Enter Antipholis of Syracufe.
HE gold I gave to Dromio is laid up

Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful flave

Is wander'd forth in care to seek me out.

By computation, and mine hoft's report,
I could not speak with Dromio, since at first

I fent him from the mart. See, here he comes.

Enter Dromio of Syracufe.

- How now, Sir! is your merry humour alter'd? As you love strokes, so jest with me again.

*I fee, the jewel, best enameled,

Will lofe his beauty; yet the gold bides ftill,

That others touch, and often touching will :

Where gold and no man, that hath a name,

By falshood and corruption doth it shame.] In this miferable Con

dition is this Passage given us. It should be read thus,

I fee, the jewel, best enameled,

Will lofe his beauty; and the gold bides ftill,

That others touch; yet often touching will
Wear gold: and so no man, that hath a name,
But falfhood, and corruption, doth it shame.

The Sense is this, Gold, indeed, will long bear the handling; how-
ever, often touching, will wear even Gold; just so the greatest Cha-
racter, tho' as pure as Gold itself, may, in Time, be injured, by
the repeated Attacks of Falfhood and Corruption.

My

You know no Centaur? you receiv'd no gold?
Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?

S. Dro. What answer, Sir? when spake I such a

word?

My house was at the Phenix? wast thou mad,
That thus so madly thou didst answer me?

Ant. Even now, even here, not half an hour fince.
S. Dro. I did not see you fince you fent me hence
Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.
Ant. 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.

S. Dro I'm glad to see you in this merzy vein : What means this jest, I pray you, master, tell me? Ant. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth? Think'st thou, I jest? hold, take thou that, and that. [Beats Dro.

S. Dro. Hold, Sir, for God's fake, now your jeft is

earneft;

Upon what bargain do you give it me?

Ant. Because that I familiarly sometimes Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, Your fauciness will jest upon my love, And make a common of my ferious hours. When the fun shines, let foolish grats 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.

S. Dro. 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 feek my wit in my shoulders: but, I pray, Sir, why am I beaten ? Ant. Dost thou not know?

S. Dro. Nothing, Sir, but that I am beaten.

Ant. Shall I tell you why?

S. Dro. Ay, Sir, and wherefore; for, they say,

every why hath a wherefore.

Ant.

:

Ant. Why, first, for flouting me; and then wher fore, for urging it the second time to me.

日 S. Dro. Was there ever any man thus beaten out

of season,

When, in the why, and wherefore, is neither rhime

nor reason ?

- Well, Sir, I thank you.

5

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 nothing forsomething. But say, Sir, is it dinner-time? S. Dro. No, Sir, I think, the meat wants that I have. Ant. In good time, Sir, what's that?

S. Dro. Basting.

Ant. Well, Sir, then 'twill be dry.

S. Dro. If it be, Sir, I pray you eat none of it.
Ant. Your reafon?

S. Dro. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry-basting.

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 choleric.

Ant. By what rule, Sir?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, by a rule as plain as the plain

bald pate of father Time himself.

Ant. Let's hear it.

S. Dro. There's no time for a man to recover 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 loft hair of another man.

Ant. Why is Time fuch 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.

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 lofe his hair.

Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

S. Dro. The plain dealer, the fooner loft; yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.

Ant. For what reason?

S. Dro. For two, and found ones too.

Ant. Nay, not found, I pray you.

S. Dro. Sure ones then.

Ant. Nay, not fure in a thing falfing.

S. Dro. Certain ones then.

Ant. Name them.

S. Dro. The one to fave the money that he spends in tyring; 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 loft by nature.

Ant. But your reafon was not fubstantial, 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 knew, 'twould be a bald conclusion: but, foft! who wafts us yonder?

Adri.

SCENE V.

Enter Adriana, and Luciana.

AY, ay, Antipholis, look ftrange and frown.
Some mistress hath thy sweet aspects:

I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
The time was once, when thou, unurg'd, wouldst 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