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 fair3
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 other where,

Or else, what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know, he promis'd 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 though gold 'bides still,
That others touch, an often touching will
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 jealousy!

[Exeunt.

3 My decayed FAIR,] Nothing would be easier than to accumulate instances where "fair" is used for fairness by the writers of Shakespeare's time and earlier.

4 Poor I am but his STALE.] Stale here means, as Steevens remarks, a pretended wife the stalking horse, or pretended horse, behind which sportsmen formerly shot, was sometimes called "a stale." In the Menæchmi of Plautus, translated by W. W. 1595, Shakespeare might have met with the same word used on a similar occasion: "He makes me a stale, and a laughing stock."

5 Would that alone, ALONE he would detain,] The meaning is, "I wish he would only detain from me the chain alone." The first folio has it, " Would that alone a love he would detain," which the second folio corrected.

6-it shame.] In the folio of 1623, this passage stands literatim as follows:"I see the lewell best enamaled

Will loose his beautie: yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and often touching will,
Where gold and no man that hath a name,
By falshood and corruption doth it shame."

[The

SCENE II.

The Same.

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 humour alter'd?
As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
You know no Centaurs? You receiv'd 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?

Dro. S. What answer, sir? when spake I such a word?

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 displeas'd.

The folio of 1632 omits entirely the last two lines. Sense may be made of this difficult passage if we convert "yet the," in the second line, into yet tho', or though, a very small change, omit the last letter of "and" in the third line, and read wear for "where" in the fourth line, an easy corruption: the meaning will then be," I see that the jewel best enamelled will lose his beauty: yet though gold that others touch remains gold, an often touching will wear gold; no man with a name willingly shames it by falsehood and corruption."

7 Enter Antipholus of Syracuse.] Here called Antipholis Errotis.

You know no Centaur ?] Dromio of Ephesus did not say that he knew no Centaur: the question was not put to him by Antipholus of Syracuse.

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,
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.

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.
Ant. S. Shall I tell you why?

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?

9 I must get a SCONCE for my head, and INSCONCE it too ;] Dromio's joke depends upon the double meaning of "sconce," a head, and a small fortification. The verb "to insconce" is derived from " sconce."

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. 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.

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.

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 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.

1 Scanted MEN in hair,] The original reading, as well as that of the second folio, is "scanted them in hair." The meaning can hardly be, that what Time has scanted beasts in hair, he has made up to them in wit. To take them as a misprint for men, is to make the next observation of Antipholus more consequential. VOL. II.

K

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 falsing2.

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 aspects, I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou unurg'd would'st vow That never words were music to thine ear,

2 In a thing FALSING.] It may be reasonably doubted whether falling were not the word written by Shakespeare: though "to false," as Steevens states, be used by Chaucer and Spenser, they do not employ the participle.

3

'tiring ;] i. e. attiring. The old copies have trying: the correction was by Pope.