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, e’en 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 OF SYRACUSE.
Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore, to the world’s end
will have bald followers.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
I knew ’twould be a bald conclusion.
But soft! who wafts us yonder?
Enter Adriana and Luciana.
ADRIANA.
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-savour’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,
Should’st 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,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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