Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me? And prays, that will hie you home to dinner. you 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. [Erit. ACT II. SCENE I.-A public Place. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. [Exit. 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, Time is their master; and, when they see time, Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more? 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 Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. [sway. Adr. How if your husband start some other where? Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear. Adr. Patience, unmov'd, no marvel though she They can be meek, that have no other cause. [pause; A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity, We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry; But were we burden'd with like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should ourselves complain: 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, 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. [his mind? Adr. Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou 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? [stark mad: Dro. E. I mean not cuckold-mad; but, sure, he's 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: 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? Dro. E. Quoth my master : I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress; I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; 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. [beating: Adr. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. Dro. E. And he will bless that cross with other Between you I shall have a holy head. Adr. Hence, prating peasant; fetch thy master home. Dro. E. Am I so 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, bear it hence. Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense. I know his eye doth homage otherwhere; Or else, what lets it but he would be here? Sister, you know, he promised 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, SCENE II.-The same. Dro. S. I am 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. But Dro. S. Hold, sir, for God's sake: now your jest is Upon what bargain do you give it me? [earnest : 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, in crannies, when he hides his beams. creep 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. Dro. S. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for, they say, every why hath a wherefore. Ant. S. Why, first, for flouting me; and then, For urging it a second time to me. [wherefore, Dro. S. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season? When, in the why, and the wherefore, is neither rhyme Well, sir, I thank you. [nor reason? Ant. S. Thank me, sir? for what? Dro. S. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. Ant. S. I'll make you amends next, to give you no. Ant. S. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. 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 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. he loseth it in a kind of jollity. Dro. S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: Yet Ant. S. For what reason? Dro. S. For two; and sound ones too. Ant. S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. 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. I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. And that this body, consecrate to thee, I know thou canst; and therefore, see, thou do it. Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; 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. [man? Ant. S. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoWhat 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. [theme: Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her 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. 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, Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Dro. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? ACT III. SCENE I.-The same. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR. Ant. E. Good signior Angelo, you must excuse us My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours: [all. 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. E. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know : [shew: That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink, affords. Ant. E. O, signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish, A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish. Bal. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl [nothing but words. Ant. E. And welcome more common; for that's Bal. Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry feast. [guest. Ant. E. Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing But though my cates be mean, take them in good part; Better cheer you may 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, Jen'! Dro. S. [Within.] Mome, malt-horse, capon, cox comb, idiot, patch! Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for [door. When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the Dro. E. What patch is made our porter? My such store, master stays in the street. Dro. S. Let him walk from whence he came, les he catch cold on's feet. |