Are their males' subjects, and at their controls. 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 sway. Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. Adr. How if your husband start some other where? Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear. Adr. Patience, unmoved, no marvel though she pause; They can be meek that have no other cause. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry; But were we burdened 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 wouldst relieve me. But, if thou live to see like right bereft, This fool-begged patience in thee will be left. Luc. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.- Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? 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 desired him to come home to dinner, He asked me for a thousand marks in gold. 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. Adr. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. Dro. E. 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. 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. Fie, how impatience low'reth 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 marred, 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 ruined? 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!-fie, beat 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? VOL. II.-11 Sister, you know he promised me a chain; Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still, Wear gold; and so no man, that hath a name, SCENE II. The same. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse. Ant. S. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up By computation, and mine host's report, I could not speak with Dromio, since at first Enter DROMIO of Syracuse. How now, sir? is your merry humor altered? Dro. S. What answer, sir? when spake I such a word? 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. 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 sometimes Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, And make a common of my serious hours. When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport, 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 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? Dro. S. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. Ant. S. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time? Dro. S. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have. Dro. S. Basting. Ant. S. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. Dro. S. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it. Ant. S. Your reason ? Dro. S. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry basting. Ant. S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time. There's a time for all things. Dro. S. I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. Ant. S. By what rule, sir? Dro. S. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain, bald pate of father Time himself. 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 periwig, 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? Dro. S. For two; and sound ones too. Ant. S. Nay, not sound, I pray you. 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, e'en 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 aspécts; I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. The time was once, when thou unurged wouldst vow, |