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 fure, in a thing falfing. 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, thee. How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it, Am better than thy dear felf's better part. As take from me thyfelf, and not me too. I know thou can'ft; and therefore, fee, thou do it. My blood is mingled with the crime of luft; + 4 I am poffefs'd with an adulterate blot ; 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, Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed, 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, Luc. Fy, brother! how the world is chang'd with you; When were you wont to use my fifter thus? S. Dro. By me? Adr. By thee; and thus thou didst return from him, That he did buffet thee; and, in his blows Ant. Did you converse, fir, with this gentlewoman? 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. Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity, Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion Ant. To me the fpeaks; the moves me for her theme. What, was I marry'd to her in my dream? 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!- 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! 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 Note volant, PUEROSQUE PETUNT nutricis egentes; 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. |