S. Antipholus

The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up

Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave

Is wandered 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 humour altered?

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,

That thus so madly thou didst answer me?

S. Dromio

What answer, sir? when spake I such a word?

S. Antipholus

Even now, even here, not half an hour since.

S. Dromio

I did not see you since you sent me hence,

Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.

S. Antipholus

Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,

And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;

For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeased.

S. Dromio

I am glad to see you in this merry vein:

What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.

S. Antipholus

Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?

Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. Beating him.

S. Dromio

Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest:

Upon what bargain do you give it me?

S. Antipholus

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,

But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.

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.

S. Dromio

Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: and 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?

S. Antipholus

Dost thou not know?

S. Dromio

Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

S. Antipholus

Shall I tell you why?

S. Dromio

Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.

S. Antipholus

Why, first, — for flouting me; and then, wherefore, —

For urging it the second time to me.

S. Dromio

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.

S. Antipholus

Thank me, sir! for what?

S. Dromio

Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

S. Antipholus

I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?

S. Dromio

No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.

S. Antipholus

In good time, sir; what's that?

S. Dromio

Basting.

S. Antipholus

Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.

S. Dromio

If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it.

S. Antipholus

Your reason?

S. Dromio

Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting.

S. Antipholus

Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a time for all things.

S. Dromio

I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric.

S. Antipholus

By what rule, sir?

S. Dromio

Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself.

S. Antipholus

Let's hear it.

S. Dromio

There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.

S. Antipholus

May he not do it by fine and recovery?

S. Dromio

Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig and recover the lost hair of another man.

S. Antipholus

Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?

S. Dromio

Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit.

S. Antipholus

Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

S. Dromio

Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.

S. Antipholus

Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

S. Dromio

The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.

S. Antipholus

For what reason?

S. Dromio

For two; and sound ones too.

S. Antipholus

Nay, not sound, I pray you.

S. Dromio

Sure ones, then.

S. Antipholus

Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.

S. Dromio

Certain ones then.

S. Antipholus

Name them.

S. Dromio

The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.

S. Antipholus

You would all this time have proved there is no time for all things.

S. Dromio

Marry, and did, sir; namely, e'en no time to recover hair lost by nature.

S. Antipholus

But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover.

S. Dromio

Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.

S. Antipholus

I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion:

But, soft! who wafts us yonder? Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

Adriana

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-savoured in thy taste,

Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.

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

That thou art then estranged from thyself?

Thyself I call it, being strange to me,

That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear self's better part.

Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!

For know, my love, as easy mayest 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 were licentious

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 stained skin off my harlot brow

And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring

And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.

I am possessed with an adulterate blot;

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:

For if we two be one and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;

I live dis-stained, thou undishonoured.

S. Antipholus

Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:

In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

As strange unto your town as to your talk;

Who, every word by all my wit being scanned,

Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luciana

Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!

When were you wont to use my sister thus?

She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

S. Antipholus

By Dromio?

S. Dromio

By me?

Adriana

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.

S. Antipholus

Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?

What is the course and drift of your compact?

S. Dromio

I, sir? I never saw her till this time.

S. Antipholus

Villain, thou liest; for even her very words

Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

S. Dromio

I never spake with her in all my life.

S. Antipholus

How can she thus then call us by our names?

Unless it be by inspiration.

Adriana

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, brier, or idle moss;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion

Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

S. Antipholus

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 offered fallacy.

Luciana

Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

S. Dromio

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 sprites:

If we obey them not, this will ensue,

They'll suck our breath or pinch us black and blue.

Luciana

Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?

Dromio, thou drumble, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

S. Dromio

I am transformed, master, am not I?

S. Antipholus

I think thou art in mind, and so am I.

S. Dromio

Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.

S. Antipholus

Thou hast thine own form.

S. Dromio

No, I am an ape.

Luciana

If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.

S. Dromio

'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.

Adriana

Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,

To put the finger in the eye and weep,

Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.

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.

Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,

Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.

Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.

S. Antipholus

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.

S. Dromio

Master, shall I be porter at the gate?

Adriana

Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.

Luciana

Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. Exeunt.