Ant. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

S. Dro. Not a man of those, but he hath the wit to lofe his hair. 3

Ant. Why, thou didft conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the fooner loft: Yet he lofeth it in a kind of jollity.

Ant. For what reafon?

S. Dro. For two; and found ones too.
Ant. Nay, not found, I pray you.
S. Dro. Sure ones then,

Ant. Nay, not fure, in a thing falfing.
S. Dro. Certain ones then.

Ant. Name them.

S. Dro. The one, to fave the money that he spends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they fhould not drop in his porridge.

Ant. You would all this time have prov'd, there is no time for all things.

S. Dro. Marry, and did, fir; namely, no time to recover hair loft by nature.

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. Ant. I knew, 'twould be a bald conclufion: But, foft! who wafts us yonder?

Enter Adriana and Luciana.

Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholis, look ftrange and frown; Some other miftrefs hath thy fweet afpects,

4 Not a man of theft, but he bath the wit to lose his hair.] That is, Those who have more hair than wit, are eafily entrapped by loose women, and fuffer the confequences of lewdnefs, one of which, in the first appearance of the difeafe in Europe, was the Jofs of hair. JOHNSON.

I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou, unurg'd, wouldst

Vow,

That never words were mufick to thine ear,
That never object pleafing in thine eye,
That never touch well-welcome to thy hand,
That never meat fweet-favour'd in thy tafte,
Unless I fpake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to

thee.

How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art then eftranged from thyself?
Thyfelf I call it, being strange to me;
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear felf's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyfelf from me:
For know, my love, as eafy may'st thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulph,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyfelf, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Shouldft thou but hear, I were licentious?
And that this body, confecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft fhould be contaminate?
Wouldst thou not fpit at me, and fpurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the ftain'd fkin off my harlot-brow,
And from my falfe hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou can'ft; and therefore, fee, thou do it.
I am poffefs'd with an adulterate blot;

My blood is mingled with the crime of luft; +

4 I am poffefs'd with an adulterate blot ;
My blood is mingled with the CRIME of luft :]

For,

Both the integrity of the metaphor, and the word blot, in the pre

ceding line, fhew that we fhould read,

M 4

-with

For, if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digeft the poison of thy flesh,
Being trumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed,
I live dif-ftain'd, thou undishonoured,

Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not: In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

As ftrange unto your town as to your talk:

Who, every word by all my wit being fcann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fy, brother! how the world is chang'd with you;

When were you wont to use my fifter thus?
She fent for you by Dromio home to dinner,
Ant. By Dromio?

S. Dro. By me?

Adr. By thee; and thus thou didst return from him,

That he did buffet thee; and, in his blows
Deny'd my house for his, me for his wife.

Ant. Did you converse, fir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the courfe and drift of your compact?
S. Dro. I, fir? I never faw her 'till this time.
Ant. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words

with the GRIME of luft:

i. e. the ftain, fmut. So again in this play,-A man may go over fbees in the GRIME of it.

WARBURTON.

s I live diftain'd, thou undishonoured.] To diflaine (from the French word, deftaindre) fignifies, to flain, defile, pollute. But the context requires a fenfe quite oppofite. We muft either read, anfain'd; or, by adding an hyphen, and giving the prepofition a privative force, read dif-ftain'd; and then it will mean, unfair'd, undefiled. THEOBALD.

I would read,

I live diftained, thou dishonoured.

That is, As long as thou continueft to dishonour thyself, I alfo live diftained.

REVISAL

Didft thou deliver to me on the mart.

S. Dro. I never spoke with her in all my life.
Ant. How can the thus then call us by our names
Unless it be by inspiration?

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,
To counterfeit thus grofly with your flave,
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 faften on this fleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whofe weakness, marry'd to thy ftronger state,
Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate:
If aught poffefs thee from me, it is drofs,
Ufurping ivy, briar, or idle mofs;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confufion.

Ant. To me the fpeaks; the moves me for her

theme.

What, was I marry'd to her in my dream?
Or fleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amifs?
Until I know this fure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the favour'd fallacy.7

Luc Dromio, go bid the fervants fpread for dinner. S. Dro. Oh, for my beads! I crois me for a finner.

you are from me exempt] Exempt, feparated, parted. The fenfe is, If I am doomed to suffer the wrong of separation, yet injure not with contempt me who am already injured. JOHNSON.. -the favour'd fallary.

Thus the modern editors. The old copy reads,

-the free'd fallacy.

Which perhaps was only, by miftake, for

the offer'd fallacy.

This conjecture is from an anonymous correfpondent.

STEEVENS.

This is the fairy land: oh, fpight of spights!-
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprights;
If we obey them not, this will enfue,

They'll fuck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why prat'ft thou to thyfelf, and anfwer'st not? 9

Dromio, thou drone, thou fnail, thou flug, thou fot!
S. Dro. I am transformed, master, am I not?
Ant. I think, thou art in mind, and fo am I.

We talk with gollins, owls, and clvifh Sprights;] Here Mr. Theobald calls out in the name of Nonfenfe, the first time he had formally invoked her, to tell him how owls could fuck their breath, and pinch them black and blue. He therefore alters owls to cuphs, and dares fay, that his readers will acquiefce in the juftness of his emendation. But, for all this, we muft not part with the old reading. He did not know it to be an old popular fuperftition, that the fcretch-owl fucked out the breath and blood of infants in the cradle. On this account, the Italians called witches, who were fuppofed to be in like manner mischievoufly bent against children, frega, from firix, the feretch-owl. This fuperftition they had derived from their pagan ancestors, as appears from this paffage of Ovid,

Sunt avida volucres; non quæ

Phineïa menfis
Guttura fraudabant: fed genus inde trahunt.
Grande caput: ftantes oculi: roftra apta rapina;
Canities pennis, unguibus hamus ineft.

Note volant, PUEROSQUE PETUNT nutricis egentes;
Et vitiant CUNIS corpora rapta fuis.

Carpere dicuntur luctantia vifcera roftris ;

Et plenum poto fanguine guttur babent.

Eft illis ftrigibus nomen:

Why prai'ft thou to thyself?

Lib. 6. Faft.

WARBURTON.

Dramio, thou Dromio, jnail, thou flug, thou fot!]

In the first of thefe lines, Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope have both, for what reason I cannot tell, curtailed the meafure, and dismounted the doggrel rhyme, which I have replaced from the first folio. The fecond verfe is there likewife read;

Dromio, thou Dromio, thou fnail, thou flug, thou fot. The verfe is thus half a foot too long; my correction cures that fault: befides drone correfponds with the other appellations of reproach. TнLOBALD.

S. Dra.