The Comedy of Errors Part 4

_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? 10 My house was at the Phnix? 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, 15 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 displeased.

_Dro. S._ I am glad to see you in this merry vein: 20 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 G.o.d's sake! now your jest is earnest: Upon what bargain do you give it me? 25

_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 s.h.i.+nes let foolish gnats make sport, 30 But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.

If you will jest with me, know my aspect, And fas.h.i.+on 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, 35 I had rather have it a head: an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and insconce 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? 40

_Dro. S._ Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

_Ant. S._ Shall I tell you why?

_Dro. S._ Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.

_Ant. S._ Why, first,--for flouting me; and then, wherefore,-- 45 For urging it the second time to me.

_Dro. S._ Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?

Well, sir, I thank you.

_Ant. S._ Thank me, sir! for what? 50

_Dro. S._ Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

_Ant. S._ I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time?

_Dro. S._ No, sir: I think the meat wants that I have. 55

_Ant. S._ In good time, sir; what's that?

_Dro. S._ Basting.

_Ant. S._ Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.

_Dro. S._ If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it.

_Ant. S._ Your reason? 60

_Dro. S._ Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry basting.

_Ant. S._ Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a time for all things.

_Dro. S._ I durst have denied that, before you were so 65 choleric.

_Ant. S._ By what rule, sir?

_Dro. S._ Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself.

_Ant. S._ Let's hear it. 70

_Dro. S._ There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.

_Ant. S._ May he not do it by fine and recovery?

_Dro. S._ Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man. 75

_Ant. S._ Why is Time such a n.i.g.g.ard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?

_Dro. S._ Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts: and what he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit. 80

_Ant. S._ Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

_Dro. S._ Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.

_Ant. S._ Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain 85 dealers without wit.

_Dro. S._ The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.

_Ant. S._ For what reason?

_Dro. S._ For two; and sound ones too. 90

_Ant. S._ Nay, not sound, I pray you.

_Dro. S._ Sure ones, then.

_Ant. S._ Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.