Here comes the almanack of my true date."-
What now? how chance thou art return'd so soon?
DRO. E. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd
too late.

The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit ;
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek:
She is so hot, because the meat is cold;
The meat is cold, because you come not home;
You come not home, because you have no stomach;
You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,
Are penitent for your default to-day.

ANT. S. Stop in your wind, sir: tell me this,
I pray,-

Where have you left the money that I gave you? DRO. E. O! sixpence, that I had o' Wednesday

last,

To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper,—

The almanack of my true date.] He thus denominates Dromio, because they were both born in the same hour, and therefore the date of Dromio's birth ascertains that of his master.MALONE.

Are penitent -j That is, performing penance.
-I shall be post indeed,

For she will score your fauli upon my pate.]

The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.

ANT. S. I am not in a sportive humour now: Tell me, and dally not, where is the money? We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust So great a charge from thine own custody?

DRO. E. I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner :

с

I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will score* your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your
clock,+

And strike you home without a messenger.
ANT. S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are
out of season;

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
DRO. E. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold

to me.

In former times shopkeepers kept a reckoning of their petty dealings by chalk-marks, or notches, on a post of their shop, after the manner of our modern Bonifaces. We have the same quibbling allusion in "Henry IVth," Part I. Act V. Sc. 3:"Though I could 'scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here; here's no scoring but upon the pale."

And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge. DRO. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart,

Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner; My mistress and her sister stay for you.

ANT. S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me, In what safe place you have bestow'd a my money; Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours, That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd: Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me? DRO. E. I have some marks of yours upon my

pate;

Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders;
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANT. S. Thy mistress' marks? What mistress,
slave, hast thou?

DRO. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress, at the Phoenix;

She that doth fast till you come home to dinner," And prays that you will hie you home to dinner. ANT. S. What! wilt thou flout me thus unto

my face,

Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. DRO. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands;

Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.
[Exit DRO. E.
ANT. S. Upon my life, by some device or other,
The villain is o'erraught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage; (1)
As nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches, that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like liberties of sin.
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave;
I greatly fear my money is not safe.

с

ADR. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,

That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luc. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret:

A man is master of his liberty;

Time is their master; and, when they see time,
They'll go or come: If so, be patient, sister.
ADR. Why should their liberty than ours be
more?

ADRIANA and LUCIANA.] The folio, 1623, has "Enter Adriana, wife to Antipholis Sereptus, with Luciana her Sister."

He takes it ill.] The first folio has thus, instead of ill. The latter word, which seems called for by the rhyme, was supplied in the folio of 1632.

la lash'd with woe.] It was suggested to Steevens by a lady, that we should read leash'd, i. e. coupled like a headstrong hound;

Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door. ADR. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill." Luc. O, know, he is the bridle of your will. ADR. There's none but asses will be bridled so. Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with

Are masters to their females, and their lords;
Then let your will attend on their accords.

ADR. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
Luc. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.
ADR. But, were you wedded, you would bear
some sway.

Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. ADR. How if your husband start some otherwhere?

Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear. ADR. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause;

They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry;
But, were we burden'd with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience would relieve me;
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg'de patience in thee will be left.

Luc. Well, I will marry one day, but to try. Here comes your man-now is your husband nigh.

But otherwhere occurs three or four times in these Plays; and Adriana uses it again in the present Scene :

"his eye doth homage otherwhere."

It signifies other place. The sense of the passage is, How, if your husband goes roaming after some other woman? as is shown by the rejoinder of Luciana:

"Till he come home again, I would forbear."

The word is now quite obsolete; but our elsewhere has much the same meaning.

b Helpless patience-] Helpless patience is patience which imparts no help. Thus, in the poem of "Venus and Adonis : "— "As those poor birds that helpless berries saw."

e This fool-begg'd patience-] Johnson suggested that the

ADR. Horn-mad, thou villain? DRO. E. I mean not, cuckold-mad; But sure he is stark mad.

When I desir'd him to come home to dinner, He ask'd me for a thousand* marks in gold: 'Tis dinner time, quoth I.-My gold, quoth he: Your meat doth burn, quoth I.-My gold, quoth he:

Will you come home ? quoth I.-My gold, quoth

he:

Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?

The pig, quoth I, is burn'd.-My gold, quoth he My mistress, sir, quoth I.—Hang up thy mistress; I know not thy mistress: out on thy mistress ! Luc. Quoth who?

DRO. E. Quoth my master:

I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress. So that my errand, due unto my tongue, I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; For, in conclusion, he did beat me there. ADR. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.

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

allusion was to the custom of begging an idiot to get the charge of his fortune. May not begg'd be a misprint for bagg'd, in reference to the bag which the fool usually carried? Or for badg'd? "This patience with the fool's badge," &c. (See Douce's Dissertation on the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare.)

d Will you come home?] The word home, not in the original, was supplied by Capell.

• Am I so round with you,-] Dromio plays on the word round, applying it in the ordinary sense of spherical, like a football, to himself, and in the meaning of plain spoken to his mistress' language. Thus in "Twelfth Night," Act II. Sc. 3:

"Sir Toby, I must be round with you."

So also, in" Henry V." Act IV. Sc. 1:—

"Your reproof is something too round.” You must case me in leather.] Footballs, generally bladders are covered with leather.

From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it.
Are my discourses dull ?-barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
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 fair
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,

hence!

beat it

ADR. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.

I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
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,d
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
I see the jewel best enamelled

Will lose his beauty; and, though gold 'bides still

That others touch, yet often-touching will
Wear gold; and no man that hath a name,
But 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.

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 Centaur ?-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,

Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that! [Beats Dromio. 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.

d Would that alone, alone he would detain,-] The original has:"Would that alone a loue," &c.

The received reading is from the second folio. Both appear to be corrupt. Perhaps the poet wrote

"Would that alone, alone she would detain."

She being the otherwhere.

e Wear gold;] In the old copy this passage runs thus:"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 amended reading was formed by Pope, Warburton, and Steevens; but I am not at all satisfied that it expresses the meaning of the speaker.

f And make a common of my serious hours.] Steevens says, "That is, intrude on them when you please. The allusion is to those tracts of ground destined to common use, which are thence called commons."