many a man hath more hair than wit.
S. Dro. Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
S. Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.
S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost; yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
S. Ant. For what reason?
S. Dro. For two—and sound ones too.
S. Ant. Nay, not sound, I pray you.
S. Dro. Sure ones then.
S. Ant. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
S. Dro. Certain ones then.
S. Ant. Name them.
S. Dro. The one, to save the money that he spends in [tiring]; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.
S. Ant. You would all this time have prov’d there is no time for all things.
S. Dro. Marry, and did, sir: namely, [e’en] no time to recover hair lost by nature.
S. Ant. But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover.
S. Dro. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore, to the world’s end, will have bald followers.
S. Ant. I knew ’twould be a bald conclusion. But soft, who wafts us yonder?
Enter Adriana and Luciana.
Adr.
Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown,
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects:
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
The time was once, when thou unurg’d wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savor’d in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look’d, or touch’d, or carv’d to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self’s better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate?
Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the stain’d skin [off] my harlot brow,
And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.
I am possess’d with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed,
I live dis-stain’d, thou undishonored.
S. Ant.
Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk,
Who, every word by all my wit being scann’d,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.
Luc.
Fie, brother, how the world is chang’d with you:
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
S. Ant.
By Dromio?
S. Dro.
By me?
Adr.
By thee, and this thou didst return from him,
That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
S. Ant.
Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?
S. Dro.
I, sir? I never saw her till this time.
S. Ant.
Villain, thou liest, for even her very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
S. Dro.
I never spake with her in all my life.
S. Ant.
