That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,
To tell sad stories of my own mishaps. 121
Duke. And for the sake of them thou sor-
rowest for,

Do me the favor to dilate at full

What hath befall'n of them and thee till now. Ege. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest

care,

131

At eighteen years became inquisitive
After his brother: and importuned me
That his attendant-so his case was like,
Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-
Might bear him company in the quest of him:
Whom whilst I labor'd of a love to see,
I hazarded the loss of whom I loved.
Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece,
Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,
And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;
Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought
Or that or any place that harbors men,
But here must end the story of my life;
And happy were I in my timely death,
Could all my travels warrant me they live. 140
Duke. Hapless Egeon, whom the fates
have mark'd

To bear the extremity of dire mishap!
Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,
Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,
Which princes, would they, may not disannul,
My soul should sue as advocate for thee.
But, though thou art adjudged to the death
And passed sentence may not be recall'd
But to our honor's great disparagement,
Yet I will favor thee in what I can.
Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day
To seek thy life by beneficial help:
Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;
Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,
And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.
Gaoler, take him to thy custody.

Gaol. I will, my lord.

150

Eye. Hopeless and helpless doth Egeon wend,

But to procrastinate his lifeless end. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Mart.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, DROMIO of Syracuse, and First Merchant.

First Mer. Therefore give out you are of
Epidamnum,

Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
This very day a Syracusian merchant
Is apprehended for arrival here;
And not being able to buy out his life
According to the statute of the town,
Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.
There is your money that I had to keep.

Ant. S. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host,

And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. 10
Within this hour it will be dinner-time :
Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,
Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
And then return and sleep within mine inn,
For with long travel I am stiff and weary.
Get thee away.

nesday last

To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper? The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.

Ant. S. I am not in a sportive humor now: Tell me, and dally not, where is the money? We being strangers here, how darest thou trust So great a charge from thine own custody? 61 Dro. E. I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner:

I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will score your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your

clock,

And strike you home without a messenger

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' subjects and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these, 20
Lords of the wide world and wild watery 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 marriagebed.

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 ? 30 Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear.

Adr. Patience unmoved! no marvel though

40

But, if thon 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's 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

If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [Exit.

Luc. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!

Adr. His company must do his minions grace,

Whilst 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? 91
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 100
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 ?
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; yet the gold bides still,
That others touch, and often touching will 111
†Wear gold and no man that hath a name,
By falsehood and 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 jeal-
ousy!
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A public place.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.

Ant. 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 humor 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,

11

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, [Beating him.

and that.

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, Your sauciness will jest upon my love And make a common of my serious hours.

When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,

30

But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
And fashion your demeanor to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
Dr. S. Sconce call you it? so you would
leave battering, I had rather have it a head:

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. Bat, I pray, sir, why am I beaten ? Ant. S. Dost thou not know? Dr. S.

40

Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. Ant. S. Shall I tell you why? Dro. S.

Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they ay every why hath a wherefore. Ant. S. Why, first,-for flouting me; and then, wherefore,

For urging it the second time to me.

Dr. 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.

Aut. S. Thank me, sir, for what?

50

covery?

Dr. 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 one, to save the money that he spends in trimming; 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.

101

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 : 110

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 unurged 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 never meat sweet-savor'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved
to thee.

120

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,

That thou art thus estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,

130

Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf
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
Shouldst thou but hear I w. re licentions
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
Wouldst 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
And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow? 14C
I know thou canst; and therefere see thoa de
it.

I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we too be one and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

180

Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her 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.

190

This is the fairy land: O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black
and blue.

Luc. Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?

Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

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. 210
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-advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I'll say as they say and persever 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. 220 Luc. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine tos late. [Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of
Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR.
Ant. E. Good Signior Angelo, you must
excuse us all;

My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours:
Say that I linger'd with you at your shop
To see the making of her carcanet,

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 charged 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? 10

Dro. E. 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.