Do ufe you for my fool, and chat with you,
Your fawcinefs will jeft upon my love,

And make a common of my ferious hours.
When the fun fhines, let foolish gnats make sport;
But creep in crannies, when he hides his beams:
If you will jeft with me, know my afpect,
And fashion your demeanor to my looks;
Or I will beat this method in your fconce.

S. Dro. Sconce, call you it? fo you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head; an you use thefe blows long, I must get a fconce for my head, and infconce it too, or elfe I fhall feek my wit in my fhoulders: but, I pray, Sir, why am I beaten? Ant. Doft 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. Why, firft, for flouting me; and then wherefore, for urging it the fecond time to me.

S. Dro. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,

When, in the why, and wherefore, is neither rhime nor reafon ?

Well, Sir, I thank you.

Ant. Thank me, Sir, for what?

S. Dra. Marry, Sir, for this fomething that you gave me for nothing.

Ant. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for fomething. But fay, 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. Bafting.

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. Left it make you cholerick, and purchase me another dry-bafting.

Ant.

1

Ant. Well, Sir, learn to jeft in good time; there's a time for all things.

S. Dro. I durft have deny'd that, before you were fo cholerick.

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, fo plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a bleffing that he bestows on beafts; and what he hath fcanted 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 lofe his hair.

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

S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the fooner loft; yet he lofeth 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 mony that he spends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they fhould 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 reason was not fubftantial, 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 conclufion; but, foft! who wafts us yonder?

SCENE

NE V.

Enter Adriana, and Luciana.

Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholis, look ftrange and frown, Some other miftrefs hath thy fweet afpects:

I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou, unurg'd, wouldft vow, That never words were mufick to thine ear,

That never object pleafing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat fweet-favour'd in thy tafte,

Unless I fpake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art thus eftranged from thyfelf?
Thyfelf I call it, being ftrange to me:

That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear felf's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyfelf from me:
For know, my Love, as eafy may'ft 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 thyfelf, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Shouldft thou but hear, I were licentious?
And that this body, confecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft fhould be contaminate?
Wouldst thou not fpit at me, and fpurn at me,
And huri the name of hufband in my face,
And tear the ftain'd skin of my harlot-brow,
And from my falfe hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou can't; and therefore, fee thou do it,
I am poffefs'd with an adulterate blot:

My blood is mingled with the crime of luft+:
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digeft the poison of thy flesh,

Being ftrumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed;
I live dif-ftain'd, thou undifhoured .

Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not: In Ephefus I am but two hours old,

As ftrange unto your town as to your talk.

I am poffefs'd with an adul
terate blot;

My blood is mingled with the CRIME of luft] Both the integrity of the metaphor, and the word bt, in the preceding line, fhew that we fhould read;

with the GRIME of luft: i. e. the ftain, fmut. So again in this play,-A man may go over fboes in the GRIME of it.

WARBURTON.

-51 live diftain'd, thou undif

bonoured.] To diftaine (from the French Word, dftaindre) fignifies, to ftain, defile, pollute. But the Context requires a Senfe quite oppofite. We muft either read, unflain'd; or, by adding an Hyphen, and giving the Prepofition a privative Force, read dif-ftain'd; and then it will mean, unflain'd, undefiled.

THEOBALD.

Who,

Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fy, brother! how the world is chang'd with

you;

When were you wont to use my fifter thus ?
She fent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
Ant. By Dromio?

S. Dro. By me?

Adr. By thee; and thus thou didst return from him, That he did buffet thee; and in his blows

Deny'd my houfe for his, me for his wife,

Ant. Did you converfe, Sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the courfe and drift of your compact?

S. Dro. I, Sir? I never faw her 'till this time. Ant. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words Didit thou deliver to me on the mart.

S. Dro. I never spoke with her in all my life. Ant. How can the thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration?

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,
To counterfeit thus grofly with your flave,
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 faften on this fleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine:
Whose weakness, marry'd to thy ftronger ftate,
Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate;
If aught poffefs thee from me, it is drofs,
Ufurping ivy, brier, or idle mofs;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confusion.

Ant. To me the speaks; the moves me for her

theam:

What, was I marry'd to her in my dream?

-you are from me exempt.] the wrong of feparation, yet injure Exempt, feparated, parted. The not with contempt me who am alfenfe is, if I am doomed to fuffer, ready injured.

Or