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There's nothing, situate under Heaven's eye,
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subjects, and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild watry seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
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 other where?
Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear.
Adr. Patience, unmov'd, no marvel though she

pause3;

They can be meek, that have no other cause 4.
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'st relieve me :
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.

2 Elsewhere, other where; in another place, alibi,' says Baret. The sense is, 'How if your husband fly off in pursuit of some other woman?'

3 To pause is to rest, to be quiet.

4 i. e. no cause to be otherwise.

5 That is, by urging me to patience which affords no help. So in Venus and Adonis:

' As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.'

6 Fool-begg'd patience' is that patience which is so near to idiotical simplicity, that you might be represented to be a fool, and your guardianship begg'd accordingly.

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

Enter DROMIO of Ephesus.

Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? Dro. E. Nay, he is at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness.

Adr. Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind?

Dro. E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear: Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it. Luc. Spake he so doubtfully, thou could'st not feel his meaning?

Dro. E. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them7.

Adr. But say, I pr'ythee, is he coming home? It seems he hath great care to please his wife. Dro.E. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad. Adr. Horn-mad, thou villain?

Dro. E. I mean not cuckold-mad; but, sure, he's 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!

7 i. e. scarce stand under them. This quibble is repeated in the Two Gentlemen of Verona:

- My staff understands me.'

8 Home is not in the old copy: it was supplied to complete the verse by Capell.

9 We have an equally unmetrical line in the first Act:Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day.'

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 bear 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 across. Dro. E. And he will bless that cross with other

beating:

Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adr. Hence, prating peasant; fetch thy master home.

Dro. E. Am I so round 10 with you, as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither : If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [Exit.

Luc. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look 11. Hath homely age the alluring beauty took 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.

10 He plays upon the word round, which signifies spherical, as applied to himself; and unrestrained, or free in speech or action, as regards his mistress. The King in Hamlet desires the Queen to be round with her son.

11 So in Shakspeare's Sonnets, the forty-seventh and seventyfifth:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look.'
Sometimes all full with feeding on his sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look.'

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 12: My decayed fair 13
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 14.
Luc. Self-harming jealousy ! -fie, beat it hence.
Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dis-
pense.

I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
Or else, what lets 15 it but he would be here?
Sister, you know, he promis'd me a chain ;-
'Would, that alone aloné he would detain,

12 Defeat and defeature were used for disfigurement or alteration of features. Cotgrave has Un visage desfaict: Growne very leane, pale, wan, or decayed in feature and colour.'

It occurs again in the last act; and is also used by the poet in his Venus and Adonis :

'To mingle beauty with deformity,

And pure perfection with impure defeature.'

The word is so expressive, that it is surprising that it has fallen into disuse. It is, I believe, peculiar to Shakspeare in this sense; though defeature is used for discomfiture, defeat, overthrow, by others.

13 Fair, strictly speaking, is not used here for fairness, as Steevens supposed; but for beauty. Shakspeare has often employed it in this sense, without any relation to whiteness of skin or complexion. The use of the substantive instead of the adjective, in this instance, is not peculiar to him; but the common practice of his contemporaries. Marston, in one of his Satires, says:

'As the greene meads, whose native outward faire
Breathes sweet perfumes into the neighbour air.'

14 Though Shakspeare sometimes uses stale for a decoy or bait, I do not think that he meant it here; or that Adriana can mean to call herself his stalking horse. Probably she means she is thrown aside, forgotten, cast off, become stale to him. The dictionaries, in voce Exoletus, countenance this explanation. 15 Hinders.

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!

SCENE II. The same.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.

[Exeunt.

Ant. S. The gold, I gave to Dromio, is laid up Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave Is wander'd 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 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 Phenix? 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; And told'st me of a mistress, and a dinner; For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.

VOL. IV.

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