Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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?

Dromio
of Syracuse	What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Even now, even here, not half an hour since.

Dromio
of Syracuse	I did not see you since you sent me hence,
	Home to the Centaur with the gold you gave me.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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.

Dromio
of Syracuse	I am glad to see you in this merry vein.
	What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
	Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
												[Beats DROMIO.
Dromio
of Syracuse	Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is earnest.
	Upon what bargain do you give it me?

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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.

Dromio
of Syracuse	'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?

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Dost thou not know?

Dromio
of Syracuse	Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Shall I tell you why?

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Why first: for flouting me; and then wherefore:
	For urging it the second time to me.

Dromio
of Syracuse	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.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Thank me, sir, for what?

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for 
	something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time?

Dromio
of Syracuse	No, sir, I think the meat wants that I have.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	In good time, sir, what's that?

Dromio
of Syracuse	Basting.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Your reason?

Dromio
of Syracuse	Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry 
	basting.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Well, sir, learn to jest in good time. There's a time for 
	all things.

Dromio
of Syracuse	I durst have denied that before you were so choleric.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	By what rule, sir?

Dromio
of Syracuse	Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of 
	Father Time himself.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Let's hear it.

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	May he not do it by fine and recovery?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	For what reason?

Dromio
of Syracuse	For two, and sound ones too.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Nay, not sound, I pray you.

Dromio
of Syracuse	Sure ones, then.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Nay, not sure in a thing falsing.

Dromio
of Syracuse	Certain ones, then.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Name them.

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

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

Dromio
of Syracuse	Marry, and did, sir: namely, e'en no time to recover hair 
	lost by nature.

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

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

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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 estrangd 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 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 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 unstained, thou undishonourd.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	By Dromio?

Dromio
of Syracuse	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.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
	What is the course and drift of your compact?

Dromio
of Syracuse	I, sir? I never saw her till this time.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
	Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

Dromio
of Syracuse	I never spake with her in all my life.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	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, briar, or idle moss,
	Who all for want of pruning, with intrusion,
	Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	[Aside.] 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.

Dromio
of Syracuse	[Aside.] 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 prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?
	Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

Dromio
of Syracuse	I am transformd, master, am I not?

Antipholus
of Syracuse	I think thou art in mind, and so am I.

Dromio
of Syracuse	Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	Thou hast thine own form.

Dromio
of Syracuse								No, I am an ape.

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

Dromio
of Syracuse	'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 today,
	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.

Antipholus
of Syracuse	[Aside.] 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.

Dromio
of Syracuse	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.
