The Comedy of Errors | Page 7

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?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
What answer, sir? when spake I such a
word?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Even now, even here, not
half-an-hour since.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I did not see you since you sent me
hence,
Home to the Centaur with the gold you gave me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
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 displeas'd.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I am glad to see you in this merry vein:

What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me
in the teeth?
Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.

[Beating him.]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Hold, sir, for God's sake: now your jest
is earnest:
Upon what bargain do you give it me?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
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.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
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 ensconce it too; or else I shall seek
my wit in my shoulders.--But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Dost thou not know?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Shall I tell you why?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Ay, sir, and wherefore; for, they say,
every why hath a
wherefore.--

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Why, first,--for flouting me; and
then wherefore,
For urging it the second time to me.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
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.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Thank me, sir! for what?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Marry, sir, for this something that you
gave me for nothing.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
I'll make you amends next, to
give you nothing for something.-- But say, sir, is it dinner-time?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
No, sir; I think the meat wants that I
have.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
In good time, sir, what's that?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Your reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Lest it make you choleric, and purchase
me another dry basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Well, sir, learn to jest in good
time:
There's a time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I durst have denied that before you
were so choleric.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
By what rule, sir?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the
plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Let's hear it.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
There's no time for a man to recover
his hair, that grows bald by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
May he not do it by fine and
recovery?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Yes, to pay a fine for a peruke, and
recover the lost hair of another man.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Why is Time such a niggard of
hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Because it is a blessing that he bestows
on beasts: and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in
wit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Why, but there's many a man hath
more hair than wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Not a man of those but he hath the wit
to lose his hair.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Why, thou didst conclude hairy
men plain dealers without wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet
he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
For what reason?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
For two; and sound ones too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Nay, not sound, I pray you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Sure ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Certain ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Name them.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
The one, to save the money that he
spends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his
porridge.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
You would all this time have
proved there is no time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to
recover hair lost by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
But your reason was not
substantial why there is no time to recover.
DROMIO