ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave
Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out
By computation and mine host's report.
I could not speak with Dromio since at first
I sent him 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 received 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 displeased. |
| 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 demeanor 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
periwig 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
trimming; 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 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 unurged 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-savor'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus 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 mayest thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled that same drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch me to the quick,
Shouldst 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 too be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand. |
| LUCIANA
|
Fie, brother! how the
world is changed with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
By Dromio? |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
By me? |
| ADRIANA
|
By thee; and this thou
didst return from him,
That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows,
Denied my house for his, me for his wife. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact? |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
I, sir? I never saw her
till this time. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
I never spake with her in
all my life. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
How can she thus then call us by our names,
Unless it be by inspiration. |
| ADRIANA
|
How ill agrees it with
your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
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 fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this sure uncertainty,
I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy. |
| LUCIANA
|
Dromio, go bid the
servants spread for dinner. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
O, for my beads! I cross
me for a sinner.
This is the fairy land: O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. |
| LUCIANA
|
Why pratest thou to
thyself and answer'st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
I am transformed, master,
am I not? |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
I think thou art in mind, and so am I. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
Nay, master, both in mind
and in my shape. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
Thou hast thine own form. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
No, I am an ape.
|
| LUCIANA
|
If thou art changed to
aught, 'tis to an ass. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
'Tis true; she rides me
and I long for grass.
'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be
But I should know her as well as she knows me. |
| ADRIANA
|
Come, come, no longer will
I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn.
Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.
Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well. |
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE |
Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I'll say as they say and persever so,
And in this mist at all adventures go. |
| DROMIO OF
SYRACUSE |
Master, shall I be porter
at the gate? |
| ADRIANA
|
Ay; and let none enter,
lest I break your pate. |
| LUCIANA
|
Come, come, Antipholus, we
dine too late. |
| |
[Exeunt] |
