ADR. How ill agrees it with your gravity, moss; Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion ANT. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme: I'll entertain the offer'dd fallacy. Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. Dromio, thou Dromio 8, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! DRO. S. I am transformed, master, am not I h? ANT. S. I think thou art, in mind, and so am I. DRO. S. Nay, master, both in mind, and in my shape. Exempt. Johnson says the word here means separated. But surely Adriana intends to say that she must bear the wrong; that Antipholus, being her husband, is released, acquitted, exempt, from any consequences of this wrong. Stronger. The original has stranger. Idle-useless, fruitless-as in "desarts idle." An addle egg is an ille egg. Shakspere plays upon the words in Troilus and Cressida :'-" If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell." Offer'd. In the first folio, freed. • Owls. Theobald changed owls to ouphes, upon the plea that owls could not suck breath and pinch. Warburton maintains that the owl here is the strix of the ancients-the destroyer of the cradled infant f "Nocte volant, puerosque petunt nutricis egentes, Et vitiant cunis corpora rapta suis."-OVID. Fasti, lib. vi. Elvish is wanting in the first folio, but is found in the second. Dromio. So the original, which distinctly gives Dromio with a capital D, and in italic, as a proper name. Theobald altered it to drone. The verse, he says, "is half a foot too long." This is a reason against the alteration. b Am not I? In the original" am I not?" ANT. S. Thou hast thine own form. DRO. S. Luc. If thou art chang'd to aught, 't is to an ass. 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be, But I should know her as well as she knows me. ADR. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, To put the finger in the eye and weep, Whilst man, and master, laugh my woes to scorn. Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter. And in this mist at all adventures go. DRO. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? ADR. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. No, I am an ape. [Exeunt. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR. ANT. E. Good signior Angelo, you must excuse us all. My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours: Say, that I linger'd with you at your shop, And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold; And that I did deny my wife and house: Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this? Carcanet-a chain, or necklace. In Harrington's Orlando Furioso' we have"About his neck a carknet rich he ware." DRO. E. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know: ANT. E. I think thou art an ass. DRO. E. Marry, so it doth appear I should kick, being kick'd; and, being at that pass, A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish. DRO. S. [Within.] Momea, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch ! Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store, DRO. E. What patch is made our porter? My master stays in the street. DRO. S. Right, sir, I'll tell you when, and you'll tell me wherefore. ANT. E. Wherefore? for my dinner; I have not din'd to-day. If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place, Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass. LUCE. [Within.] What a coil is there! Dromio, who are those at the gate? ■ Mome is the French word for a buffoon;-momer is to go in disguise; hence mummery. But mome here means a blockhead,—something foolish. Mumchance expresses the behaviour of one who has nothing to say for himself. 6 Patch is a pretender, a deceitful fellow, one who is patched up. Shakspere, in Troilus and Cressida,' uses patchery in the sense of roguery: "Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery." • Owe-own. DRO. E. Let my master in, Luce. And so tell your master. DRO. E. Faith, no; he comes too late, O Lord, I must laugh ; Have at you with a proverb.-Shall I set in my staff? LUCE. Have at you with another: that's,-When? can you tell? LUCE. I thought to have ask'd you. DRO. S. And you said, no. DRO. E. So, come, help; well struck; there was blow for blow. ANT. E. Thou baggage, let me in. Can you tell for whose sake? Dro. E. Master, knock the door hard. Let him knock till it ake. ANT. E. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down. DRO. E. If you went in pain, master, this knave would go sore. ANG. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have either. DRO. E. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither. ANT. E. Go fetch me something, I'll break ope the gate. DRO. S. Break any breaking here, and I'll break your knave's pate. DRO. S. It seems, thou want'st breaking: Out upon thee, hind! ANT. E. Well, I'll break in: Go, borrow me a crow. DRO. E. A crow without feather; master, mean you so? For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather: a Part with-depart with. |