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?

Dro. E. I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner :
I from my mistress come to you in post ;11

If I return, I shall be post indeed,

For she will score 12 your fault upon my pate.

Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,

And strike you home without a messenger.

Ant. S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of sea

son;

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.

Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

Dro. E. To me, sir! why, you gave no gold to me.
Ant. S. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,

And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.

Dro. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner :

My mistress and her sister stay for you.

Ant. S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me,
In what safe place you have bestow'd my money;
Or I shall break that merry sconce
13 of yours,
That stands on tricks when I am undisposed:

Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?

Dro. E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,

Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders ;

But not a thousand marks 14 between you both.

11 "In post" is in haste; going with the speed of a postman.

12 To score, as the word is here used, is to mark; as accounts were formerly kept by marking the items on a board or a post, or by cutting notches in a stick. Maw, in the next line, is stomach.

13 Sconce is properly a round fortification; and, from the shape of the thing, the word came to be used of the head.

14 A quibble between mark as a denomination of value, and mark in the ordinary sense. The English mark was equal to 13 s. 8 d., or about $3.25.

If I should pay your Worship 15 those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Ant. S. Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dro. E. Your Worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix; She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,

And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.

Ant. S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.

[Beating him. Dro. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your

hands!

Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.

Ant. S. Upon my life, by some device or other
The villain is o'er-raught 16 of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage;
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin :

17

If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave:
I greatly fear my money is not safe.

[Exit.

15 "Your Worship" was in common use as a phrase of deference, meaning somewhat less than "your Honour."

16 O'er-raught is an old form of o'er-reached; here meaning cheated or defrauded. To cozen had the same meaning; hence cozenage.-Villain and knave are used here in the old English sense of servant or thrall.

17" Such-like liberties of sin" probably means "such-like persons of sin ful liberty," or of wicked license.—A mountebank is what we call a quaci literally one who mounts a bank or a bench, and brags of his wares or skill.

ACT II.

SCENE I. — Before the House of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

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, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret:

A man is master of his liberty:

Time is their master; and when they see time,
They'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.

Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door.
Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
Luc. O, know he is the bridle of your will.
Adr. There's none but asses will be bridled so.
Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
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,
Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,

1 His for its, the latter not being then an admitted word. Continually so in the Bible; as, "if the salt have lost his savour," and, "giveth to every ed his own body." In fact, its does not once occur in the Bible as printed

*611.

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 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 hare ?2
Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear.

Adr. Patience unmoved, no marvel though she pause; 3 They can be meek that have no other cause.4

A wretched soul, bruised 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 5 patience wouldst relieve me;
But, if thou 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?

2 Meaning, probably, "fly off after some other woman." So in As You Like It, iv. 3: "Her love is not the hare that I do hunt." Also in 1 King Henry the Fourth, i. 3: "The blood more stirs, to rouse a lion than to start a hare."

3 Meaning, I suppose, that it is no wonder if patience keeps quiet when she has nothing to fret or disturb her.

4 "No other cause " here means, apparently, "no cause to be otherwise." 5 Helpless for unhelping. The Poet has it repeatedly thus. So in Lucrece: "This helpless smoke of words doth me no right."

6 A fool-begged patience is a patience so nearly idiotic as to cause the subject of it to be "begged for a fool"; alluding to the old custom of soliciting the guardianship of fools or idiots with a view to get the management of their funds.

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 ear: Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.7

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:

But, sure, he is stark mad.

I mean not cuckold-mad;

When I desired 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 e;
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.

So that my errand, due unto my tongue,

I thank him, I bear home upon my shoulders;

So, in The Two

7 A quibble between understand and stand under. Gentlemen, ii. 5, Launce says, "Why, stand-under and understand is all one."