ADR. 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 vine2;
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger b 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.

ANT. S. 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 offer'da fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.
DRO. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
This is the fairy land3;-O, spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites;
If we obey them not, this will ensue,

They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.
Luc. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?

Dromio, thou Dromio &, 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 idle 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

"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.

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.
DRO. S. "T is 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.
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.
Come, sir, to dinner; Dromio, keep the gate :-
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
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.
ANT. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping, or waking? mad, or well advis'd?
Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!
I'll say as they say, and persever so,

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.
Luc. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

No, I am an ape.

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,
To see the making of her carcaneta,
And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
But here's a villain, that would face me down
He met me on the mart; and that I beat him,

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 have66 About his neck a carknet rich he ware."

DRO. E. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know:
That
you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show:
If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
ANT. E. I think thou art an ass.

DRO. E.

Marry, so it doth appear

By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.

I should kick, being kick'd; and, being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
ANT. E. You are sad, signior Balthazar: 'Pray God, our cheer
May answer my good will, and your good welcome here.
BAL. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.
ANT. E. O, signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,

A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
BAL. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.
ANT. E. And welcome more common; for that 's nothing but words.
BAL. Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry feast.
ANT. E. Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest:

But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;
Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.
But, soft; my door is lock'd. Go bid them let us in.
DRO. E. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Jen'!
DRO. S. [Within.] Mome3, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch"!
Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch:

Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,
When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.

DRO. E. What patch is made our porter? My master stays in the street.
DRO. S. Let him walk from whence he came, lest he catch cold on 's feet.
ANT. E. Who talks within there? ho! open the door.

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.
DRO. S. Nor to-day here you must not; come again when you may.
ANT. E. What art thou, that keep'st me out from the house I owe?
DRO. S. The porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio.
DRO. E. O villain, thou hast stolen both mine office and my name;
The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.

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.

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.
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?

DRO. S. If thy name be called Luce, Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.
ANT. E. Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I hope?

And you said, no.

LUCE. I thought to have ask'd you.
DRO. S.
DRO. E. So, come, help; well struck;
ANT. E. Thou baggage, let me in.
LUCE.

there was blow for blow.

Can you tell for whose sake?

Dro. E. Master, knock the door hard.
LUCE.

Let him knock till it ake.

ANT. E. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.
LUCE. What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?
ADR. [Within.] Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?
DRO. S. By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.
ANT. E. Are you there, wife? you might have come before.
ADR. Your wife, sir knave! go, get you from the door.

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.
BAL. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DRO. E. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.
ANT. E. There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.
DRO. E. You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.

Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold:
It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.
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. E. A man may break a word with you, sir; and words are but wind:
Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.

DRO. S. It seems, thou want'st breaking: Out upon thee, hind!
DRO. E. Here's too much, out upon thee! I pray thee, let me in.
DRO. S. Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin.
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:
If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.
ANT. E. Go, get thee gone, fetch me an iron crow.
BAL. Have patience, sir, O let it not be so.

Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compass of suspect

Part with-depart with.