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Luc. Gaze where you fhould, and that will clear your fight.

S. Ant. As good to wink, fweet love, as look on night.

Luc. Why call you me, love? call my fifter fo. 8. Ant. Thy fifter's fifter.

Luc. That's my

S. Ant. No;

fifter.

It is thyfelf, mine own felf's better part:
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my fweet hope's aim,
My fole earth's heav'n, and my heaven's claim *.
Luc. All this my fifter is, or elfe fhould be.

S. Ant. Call thyfelf fifter, fweet; for I mean thee:
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no hufband yet, nor I no wife.

Give me thy hand.

Luc. Oh, foft, Sir, hold you ftill;

I'll fetch my fifter, to get her good will. [Ex. Luciana. SCENE III.

Enter Dromio of Syracufe.

S. Ant. Why, how now, Dromio, where run'ft thou fo fast?

S. Dro. Do you know me, Sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?

S. Ant. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

S. Dro. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and befides myself.

S. Ant. What woman's man? and how besides thyself? S. Dro Marry, Sir, befides myfelf, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

My fole earth's heav'n, and my heaven's claim.] When he calls the girl his only heaven on earth, he utters the common

cant of lovers. When he calls her his heaven's claim, I cannot understand him. Perhaps he means that which he afks of heaven. K 3

S. Ant.

S. Ant. What claim lays fhe to thee?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fuch a claim as you would lay to your horfe; and fhe would have me as a beaft: not that, I being a beaft, fhe would have me; but that fhe, being a very beaftly creature, lays claim to me. S. Ant. What is fhe?

S. Dro. A very reverent body; ay, fuch a one as a man may not speak of, without he lay, Sir reverence; I have but lean luck in the match; and yet is she a wond'rous fat marriage.

S. Ant. How doft thou mean, a fat marriage?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fhe's the kitchen wench, and all grease; and I know not what ufe to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Lapland winter if the lives 'till doomsday, fhe'll burn a week longer than the whole world.

S. Ant. What complexion is fhe of?

S. Dro. Swatt, like my fhoe, but her face nothing like fo clean kept; for why? fhe fweats, a man may go over fhoes in the grime of it.

S. Ant. That's a fault, that water will mend.

S. Dro. No, Sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.

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S. Dro. Nell, Sir ;-but her name and three quarters (that is, an ell and three quarters) will not measure her from hip to hip.

7 S. Ant. What's her name? S. Dro. Nell, Sir; but her Name is three Quarters; that is, an Ell and three Quarters, &c.] This Paffage has hitherto lain as perplext and unintelligible, as it is now eaf, and truly humorous. If a Conundrum be reftor'd, in fetting it right, who can help it? There are enough befides in

our Author, and Ben Johnson, to countenance that current Vice of the Times when this Play appear'd. Nor is Mr. Pope, in the Chastity of his Tafte, to briftle up at me for the Revival of this Witticifm, fince I owe the Correction to the Sagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby.

THEOBALD.
S. Ant.

S. Ant. Then fhe bears fome breadth?

S. Dro. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip; fhe is spherical, like a globe: I could find out countries in her.

S. Ant. In what part of her body ftands Ireland?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, in her buttocks, I found it out by the bogs.

S. Ant. Where Scotland?

S. Dro. I found it out by the barrenness, hard in the palm of her hand.

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8 S. Ant. Where France? S. Dro. In her forehead: arm'd and reverted, making War against ber Hair.] All the other Countries, mention'd in this Defcription, are in Dromio's Replies fatirically characteriz'd but here, as the Editors have order'd it, no Remark is made upon France; nor any Reafon given, why it fhould be in her Forehead: but only the Kitchin-wench's high Forehead is rallied, as pufhing back her Hair. Thus all the modern Editions; but the firft Folio reads- making War against her Heir And I am very apt to think, this laft is the true Reading; and that an Equivoque, as the French call it, a double Meaning, is defign'd in the Poet's Allufion: and therefore I have replaced it in the Text. In 1589, Henry III. of France being ftab'd, and dying of his Wound, was fucceeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he appointed his Succeffor; but whole Claim the States of France refifted, on accont of his being a Proteftant. This, I take it, is

S. Dro.

what he means, by France making War against her Heir. Now as, in 1591, Queen Elizabeth fent over 4000 Men, under the Conduct of the Earl of Efex, to the Affiftance of this Henry of Navarre; it feems to me very probable, that during this Expedition being on foot, this Comedy made its Appearance. And it it was the fineft Addrefs imaginable in the Poet to throw fuch an oblique Sneer at France, for oppofing the Succeffion of that Heir, whofe Claim his Royal Miftrefs, the Queen, had fent over a Force to eftablish, and oblige them to acknowledge.

THEOBALD.

With this correction and explication Dr. Warburton concurs, and Sir T. Hanmer thinks an equivocation intended, though he retains hair in the text. Yet furely they all have loft the fense by looking beyond it. Our authour, in my opinion, only sports with an allufion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offenfive, K 4

to

S. Dro. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair.

S. Ant. Where England?

S. Dro. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them'; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the falt rheum that ran between France and it. S. Ant. Where Spain?

S. Dro. Faith, I faw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath.

S. Ant. Where America, the Indies?

S. Dro. Oh, Sir, upon her nofe, all o'er embellifh'd with rubies, carbuncles, fapphires; declining their rich afpect to the hot breath of Spain, who fent whole armadoes of carracts to be ballaft at her nofe. S. Ant. Where ftood Belgia, the Netherlands? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, I did not look fo low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio, fwore I was affur'd to her, told me what privy marks I had about me, as the marks of my fhoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amaz'd, ran from her as a witch, And, I think, if my breaft had not been made of faith,

I

be dilated. By a forehead armed, he means covered with incrufted eruptions; by reverted, he means having the hair turning backward. An equivocal word mufthave fenfes applicable toboth the subjects to which it is applied. Both Forehead and France might in fome fort make war against their hair, but how did the forehead make war against its heir? The fenfe which I have given immediately occurred to me, and will, I believe, arife to every reader, who is contented with the meaning that lies before him, without fending our conjecture in fearch of refinements.

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faith, and my heart of steel, fhe had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i'th' wheel.

S. Ant. Go, hie thee prefently; poft to the road; And if the wind blow any way from shore, I will not harbour in this town to night. If any bark put forth, come to the mart; Where I will walk, 'till thou return to me: If every one know us, and we know none, 'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.

S. Dro. As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit.

SCENE IV.

S. Ant. There's none but witches do inhabit here; And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence : She, that doth call me hufband, even my foul Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair fifter, Poffeft with such a gentle fovereign grace, Of fuch inchanting prefence and difcourfe, Hath almost made me traitor to myself: But left myself be guilty of felf-wrong, I'll ftop mine ears against the mermaid's fong.

Enter Angelo, with a Chain.

Ang. Mafter Antipholis,

S. Ant. Ay, that's my name.

Ang. I know it well, Sir; lo, here is the chain; I thought t' have ta'en you at the Porcupine; The chain, unfinish'd, made me ftay thus long.

S. Ant. What is your will, that I fhall do with this? Ang. What pleafe yourfelf, Sir; I have made it for

you.

St. Ant. Made it for me, Sir! I bespoke it not.

however the Oxford Editor thinks curity, and has therefore put it a breast made of fint, better fe

in.

WARBURTON.

Ang.

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