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 them".

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? 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 bear home upon my shoulders;
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

Adr. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.

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

'My staff under stands me."

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 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 lowreth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look9. 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 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 10: My decayed fair11

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.

9 So in Shakespeare'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."

40 Defeat and defeature were used for disfigurement or alteration of features. Cotgrave has "Un visage desfaict: Growne very leane,

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 1o.
Luc. Self-harming jealousy!-fie, beat it hence.
Adr. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dis-
pense.

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

Will lose his beauty; yet though gold 'bides still
The triers' touch, an often touching will
Wear gold and no man, that hath a name,

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 Shakespeare in this sense; though defeature is used for discomfiture, defeat, overthrow, by others.

11 Fair, strictly speaking, is not used here for fairness, as Steevens supposed; but for beauty. Shakespeare 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."

12 Though Shakespeare sometimes uses stale for a decoy or stalking-horse, I do not think 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. Imogen, in Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 4, says, "Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion." The wife's complaint in the Menæchmi, "ludibrio habeas," is translated by Warner (1595), “He makes me a stale and a laughing stock to all the world."

13

But falsehood and corruption doth it shame 13.
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 Phoenix? Wast thou mad,
That thus so madly thou didst answer me?

Dro. S. What answer, sir? when spake I such a word?

13 In the folio of 1623, the passage stands thus:-
"I see the Jewell best enameled

Will loose his beautie: yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and often touching will,
Where gold and no man that hath a name,

By falsehood and corruption doth it shame."

In the second folio, the last two of these lines are omitted.' Much of this has been corrected, but one important corruption has escaped all editors. I read the triers' for that others; omit the d in and; read wear for where, and but for by. The sense will then be: I see the best enamelled jewel will lose its beauty, yet though gold still abides the touch of the triers, yet often touching will wear gold: and no man that has a name but falsehood and corrupt manners shame it.

Ant. S. Even now, ever 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 are of a mistress, and a dinner;

For which, I hope, thou 'felt'st' I was displeas'd.

Dro. S. I am glad to see you in this merry tein: What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me. Ant. S. Yea, dost thou jeer, and flout me in the

teeth?

Think'st thou, I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. [Beating him. 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. Dro. S. 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 insconce1 it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, sir, why am I beaten? Ant. S. Dost thou not know?

Dro. S. Nothing, sir; but that I am beaten.
Ant. S. Shall I tell you why?

1 A sconce was a fortification; to insconce was to hide, to protect as with a fort.

EDWARDS

COLLECTION