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 round1 with you, as you with me, A sunny look of his would soon repair. And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.1 1 He plays upon the word round, which signifies spherical, as applied to himself; and unrestrained, or free in speech or action, as regards his mistress. The King, in Hamlet, desires the Queen to be round with her son. 2 Defeat and defeature were used for disfigurement or alteration of features. Cotgrave has "Un visage desfaict: Growne very leane, pale, wan, or decayed in feature and color." 3 Fair, strictly speaking, is not used here for fairness, as Steevens supposed; but for beauty. Shakspeare has often employed it in this sense, without any relation to whiteness of skin or complexion. The use of the adjective for the substantive, as in this instance, is not peculiar to him, but is the common practice of his contemporaries. 4 Adriana probably means she is thrown aside, forgotten, cast off, become stale to him. Luc. Self-harming jealousy!-fie, beat it hence. Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dis pense. I know his eye doth homage otherwhere; Or else, what lets it but he would be here? Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still, SCENE II. The same. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse. Ant. S. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up 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? 1 Hinders. Ant. S. Even now, even here, not half an hour since. Dro. S. I did not see you since you sent me hence, Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me. Ant. S. 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. 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 Dro. S. Hold, sir, for God's sake. is earnest; Upon what bargain do you give it me? that, and that. [Beating him. Now your jest 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.1 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. 1 i. e. intrude on them when you please. 2 To insconce was to hide, to protect as with a fort. 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 dinnertime? Dro. S. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have. Ant. S. In good time, sir, what's that? Dro. S. Basting. Ant. S. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. Dro. S. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it. Dro. S. Lest it make you choleric,1 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. Ant. S. Let's hear it. 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 1 So in The Taming of the Shrew: "I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away, And I expressly am forbid to touch it, For it engenders choler, planteth anger." 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. Dro. S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.2 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'en3 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 wafts1 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. 1 The old copy reads them: the emendation is Theobald's. 2 To false, as a verb, has been long obsolete; but it was current in Shakspeare's time. 3 The old copy, by mistake, has in. 4 i. e. beckons us. |