So he would keep fair quarter with his bed.

I see the jewel best enamelled

Will lose her beauty. Yet the gold bides still

That others touch; and often touching will

Wear gold, and yet 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.

LUCIANA

How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

⌈Exeunt into the Phoenix⌉

2.2 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.

He 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 ensconce 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. 51

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. 56

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? 61

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. 65

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 a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man.

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

DROMIO or 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. 82

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. 96

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.

Enter ⌈from the Phoenix⌉ Adriana and Luciana

But soft—who wafts us yonder?

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,