{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/coe/coe.htm","path":"sks/coe/coe.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/coe/coe.htm","text":"THE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nSOLINUS Duke of Ephesus. (DUKE SOLINUS:)\nAEGEON a merchant of Syracuse.\nANTIPHOLUS |\nOF EPHESUS |\n| twin brothers, and sons to AEgeon and AEmilia.\nANTIPHOLUS |\nOF SYRACUSE |\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS |\n| twin brothers, and attendants on the two Antipholuses.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE |\nBALTHAZAR a merchant\nANGELO a goldsmith.\nFirst Merchant friend to Antipholus of Syracuse.\nSecond Merchant to whom Angelo is a debtor.\nPINCH a schoolmaster.\nAEMILIA wife to AEgeon, an abbess at Ephesus.\nADRIANA wife to Antipholus of Ephesus.\nLUCIANA her sister.\nLUCE servant to Adriana.\nA Courtezan.\nGaoler, Officers, and other Attendants\n(Gaoler:)\n(Officer:)\n(Servant:)\nSCENE Ephesus.\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT I\nSCENE I A hall in DUKE SOLINUS'S palace.\n[Enter DUKE SOLINUS, AEGEON, Gaoler, Officers, and other\nAttendants]\nAEGEON Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall\nAnd by the doom of death end woes and all.\nDUKE SOLINUS Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;\nI am not partial to infringe our laws:\nThe enmity and discord which of late\nSprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke\nTo merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,\nWho wanting guilders to redeem their lives\nHave seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,\nExcludes all pity from our threatening looks.\nFor, since the mortal and intestine jars\n'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,\nIt hath in solemn synods been decreed\nBoth by the Syracusians and ourselves,\nTo admit no traffic to our adverse towns Nay, more,\nIf any born at Ephesus be seen\nAt any Syracusian marts and fairs;\nAgain: if any Syracusian born\nCome to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,\nHis goods confiscate to the duke's dispose,\nUnless a thousand marks be levied,\nTo quit the penalty and to ransom him.\nThy substance, valued at the highest rate,\nCannot amount unto a hundred marks;\nTherefore by law thou art condemned to die.\nAEGEON Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,\nMy woes end likewise with the evening sun.\nDUKE SOLINUS Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause\nWhy thou departed'st from thy native home\nAnd for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.\nAEGEON A heavier task could not have been imposed\nThan I to speak my griefs unspeakable:\nYet, that the world may witness that my end\nWas wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\nI'll utter what my sorrows give me leave.\nIn Syracusa was I born, and wed\nUnto a woman, happy but for me,\nAnd by me, had not our hap been bad.\nWith her I lived in joy; our wealth increased\nBy prosperous voyages I often made\nTo Epidamnum; till my factor's death\nAnd the great care of goods at random left\nDrew me from kind embracements of my spouse:\nFrom whom my absence was not six months old\nBefore herself, almost at fainting under\nThe pleasing punishment that women bear,\nHad made provision for her following me\nAnd soon and safe arrived where I was.\nThere had she not been long, but she became\nA joyful mother of two goodly sons;\nAnd, which was strange, the one so like the other,\nAs could not be distinguish'd but by names.\nThat very hour, and in the self-same inn,\nA meaner woman was delivered\nOf such a burden, male twins, both alike:\nThose,--for their parents were exceeding poor,--\nI bought and brought up to attend my sons.\nMy wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,\nMade daily motions for our home return:\nUnwilling I agreed. Alas! too soon,\nWe came aboard.\nA league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,\nBefore the always wind-obeying deep\nGave any tragic instance of our harm:\nBut longer did we not retain much hope;\nFor what obscured light the heavens did grant\nDid but convey unto our fearful minds\nA doubtful warrant of immediate death;\nWhich though myself would gladly have embraced,\nYet the incessant weepings of my wife,\nWeeping before for what she saw must come,\nAnd piteous plainings of the pretty babes,\nThat mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,\nForced me to seek delays for them and me.\nAnd this it was, for other means was none:\nThe sailors sought for safety by our boat,\nAnd left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us:\nMy wife, more careful for the latter-born,\nHad fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,\nSuch as seafaring men provide for storms;\nTo him one of the other twins was bound,\nWhilst I had been like heedful of the other:\nThe children thus disposed, my wife and I,\nFixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,\nFasten'd ourselves at either end the mast;\nAnd floating straight, obedient to the stream,\nWas carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\nAt length the sun, gazing upon the earth,\nDispersed those vapours that offended us;\nAnd by the benefit of his wished light,\nThe seas wax'd calm, and we discovered\nTwo ships from far making amain to us,\nOf Corinth that, of Epidaurus this:\nBut ere they came,--O, let me say no more!\nGather the sequel by that went before.\nDUKE SOLINUS Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so;\nFor we may pity, though not pardon thee.\nAEGEON O, had the gods done so, I had not now\nWorthily term'd them merciless to us!\nFor, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,\nWe were encounterd by a mighty rock;\nWhich being violently borne upon,\nOur helpful ship was splitted in the midst;\nSo that, in this unjust divorce of us,\nFortune had left to both of us alike\nWhat to delight in, what to sorrow for.\nHer part, poor soul! seeming as burdened\nWith lesser weight but not with lesser woe,\nWas carried with more speed before the wind;\nAnd in our sight they three were taken up\nBy fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\nAt length, another ship had seized on us;\nAnd, knowing whom it was their hap to save,\nGave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests;\nAnd would have reft the fishers of their prey,\nHad not their bark been very slow of sail;\nAnd therefore homeward did they bend their course.\nThus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss;\nThat by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\nTo tell sad stories of my own mishaps.\nDUKE SOLINUS And for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\nDo me the favour to dilate at full\nWhat hath befall'n of them and thee till now.\nAEGEON My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,\nAt eighteen years became inquisitive\nAfter his brother: and importuned me\nThat his attendant--so his case was like,\nReft of his brother, but retain'd his name--\nMight bear him company in the quest of him:\nWhom whilst I labour'd of a love to see,\nI hazarded the loss of whom I loved.\nFive summers have I spent in furthest Greece,\nRoaming clean through the bounds of Asia,\nAnd, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;\nHopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought\nOr that or any place that harbours men.\nBut here must end the story of my life;\nAnd happy were I in my timely death,\nCould all my travels warrant me they live.\nDUKE SOLINUS Hapless AEgeon, whom the fates have mark'd\nTo bear the extremity of dire mishap!\nNow, trust me, were it not against our laws,\nAgainst my crown, my oath, my dignity,\nWhich princes, would they, may not disannul,\nMy soul would sue as advocate for thee.\nBut, though thou art adjudged to the death\nAnd passed sentence may not be recall'd\nBut to our honour's great disparagement,\nYet I will favour thee in what I can.\nTherefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day\nTo seek thy life by beneficial help:\nTry all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;\nBeg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,\nAnd live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.\nGaoler, take him to thy custody.\nGaoler I will, my lord.\nAEGEON Hopeless and helpless doth AEgeon wend,\nBut to procrastinate his lifeless end.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT I\nSCENE II The Mart.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, DROMIO of Syracuse,\nand First Merchant]\nFirst Merchant Therefore give out you are of Epidamnum,\nLest that your goods too soon be confiscate.\nThis very day a Syracusian merchant\nIs apprehended for arrival here;\nAnd not being able to buy out his life\nAccording to the statute of the town,\nDies ere the weary sun set in the west.\nThere is your money that I had to keep.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host,\nAnd stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.\nWithin this hour it will be dinner-time:\nTill that, I'll view the manners of the town,\nPeruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,\nAnd then return and sleep within mine inn,\nFor with long travel I am stiff and weary.\nGet thee away.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Many a man would take you at your word,\nAnd go indeed, having so good a mean.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,\nWhen I am dull with care and melancholy,\nLightens my humour with his merry jests.\nWhat, will you walk with me about the town,\nAnd then go to my inn and dine with me?\nFirst Merchant I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,\nOf whom I hope to make much benefit;\nI crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,\nPlease you, I'll meet with you upon the mart\nAnd afterward consort you till bed-time:\nMy present business calls me from you now.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Farewell till then: I will go lose myself\nAnd wander up and down to view the city.\nFirst Merchant Sir, I commend you to your own content.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE He that commends me to mine own content\nCommends me to the thing I cannot get.\nI to the world am like a drop of water\nThat in the ocean seeks another drop,\nWho, falling there to find his fellow forth,\nUnseen, inquisitive, confounds himself:\nSo I, to find a mother and a brother,\nIn quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.\n[Enter DROMIO of Ephesus]\nHere comes the almanac of my true date.\nWhat now? how chance thou art return'd so soon?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late:\nThe capon burns, the pig falls from the spit,\nThe clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;\nMy mistress made it one upon my cheek:\nShe is so hot because the meat is cold;\nThe meat is cold because you come not home;\nYou come not home because you have no stomach;\nYou have no stomach having broke your fast;\nBut we that know what 'tis to fast and pray\nAre penitent for your default to-day.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Stop in your wind, sir: tell me this, I pray:\nWhere have you left the money that I gave you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS O,--sixpence, that I had o' Wednesday last\nTo pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?\nThe saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I am not in a sportive humour now:\nTell me, and dally not, where is the money?\nWe being strangers here, how darest thou trust\nSo great a charge from thine own custody?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I pray you, air, as you sit at dinner:\nI from my mistress come to you in post;\nIf I return, I shall be post indeed,\nFor she will score your fault upon my pate.\nMethinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,\nAnd strike you home without a messenger.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;\nReserve them till a merrier hour than this.\nWhere is the gold I gave in charge to thee?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,\nAnd tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS My charge was but to fetch you from the mart\nHome to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner:\nMy mistress and her sister stays for you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,\nOr I shall break that merry sconce of yours\nThat stands on tricks when I am undisposed:\nWhere is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I have some marks of yours upon my pate,\nSome of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,\nBut not a thousand marks between you both.\nIf I should pay your worship those again,\nPerchance you will not bear them patiently.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thy mistress' marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;\nShe that doth fast till you come home to dinner,\nAnd prays that you will hie you home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,\nBeing forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands!\nNay, and you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Upon my life, by some device or other\nThe villain is o'er-raught of all my money.\nThey say this town is full of cozenage,\nAs, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,\nDark-working sorcerers that change the mind,\nSoul-killing witches that deform the body,\nDisguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,\nAnd many such-like liberties of sin:\nIf it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.\nI'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave:\nI greatly fear my money is not safe.\n[Exit]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT II\nSCENE I The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.\n[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA]\nADRIANA Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,\nThat in such haste I sent to seek his master!\nSure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.\nLUCIANA Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,\nAnd from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner.\nGood sister, let us dine and never fret:\nA man is master of his liberty:\nTime is their master, and, when they see time,\nThey'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.\nADRIANA Why should their liberty than ours be more?\nLUCIANA Because their business still lies out o' door.\nADRIANA Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.\nLUCIANA O, know he is the bridle of your will.\nADRIANA There's none but asses will be bridled so.\nLUCIANA Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.\nThere's nothing situate under heaven's eye\nBut hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:\nThe beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,\nAre their males' subjects and at their controls:\nMen, more divine, the masters of all these,\nLords of the wide world and wild watery seas,\nIndued with intellectual sense and souls,\nOf more preeminence than fish and fowls,\nAre masters to their females, and their lords:\nThen let your will attend on their accords.\nADRIANA This servitude makes you to keep unwed.\nLUCIANA Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.\nADRIANA But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.\nLUCIANA Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.\nADRIANA How if your husband start some other where?\nLUCIANA Till he come home again, I would forbear.\nADRIANA Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause;\nThey can be meek that have no other cause.\nA wretched soul, bruised with adversity,\nWe bid be quiet when we hear it cry;\nBut were we burdened with like weight of pain,\nAs much or more would we ourselves complain:\nSo thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,\nWith urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me,\nBut, if thou live to see like right bereft,\nThis fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.\nLUCIANA Well, I will marry one day, but to try.\nHere comes your man; now is your husband nigh.\n[Enter DROMIO of Ephesus]\nADRIANA Say, is your tardy master now at hand?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two ears\ncan witness.\nADRIANA Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear:\nBeshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.\nLUCIANA Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his\nblows; and withal so doubtfully that I could scarce\nunderstand them.\nADRIANA But say, I prithee, is he coming home? It seems he\nhath great care to please his wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\nADRIANA Horn-mad, thou villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I mean not cuckold-mad;\nBut, sure, he is stark mad.\nWhen I desired him to come home to dinner,\nHe ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold:\n''Tis dinner-time,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he;\n'Your meat doth burn,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he:\n'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'\n'The pig,' quoth I, 'is burn'd;' 'My gold!' quoth he:\n'My mistress, sir' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress!\nI know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!'\nLUCIANA Quoth who?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Quoth my master:\n'I know,' quoth he, 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'\nSo that my errand, due unto my tongue,\nI thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;\nFor, in conclusion, he did beat me there.\nADRIANA Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Go back again, and be new beaten home?\nFor God's sake, send some other messenger.\nADRIANA Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS And he will bless that cross with other beating:\nBetween you I shall have a holy head.\nADRIANA Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Am I so round with you as you with me,\nThat like a football you do spurn me thus?\nYou spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:\nIf I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\n[Exit]\nLUCIANA Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!\nADRIANA His company must do his minions grace,\nWhilst I at home starve for a merry look.\nHath homely age the alluring beauty took\nFrom my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it:\nAre my discourses dull? barren my wit?\nIf voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,\nUnkindness blunts it more than marble hard:\nDo their gay vestments his affections bait?\nThat's not my fault: he's master of my state:\nWhat ruins are in me that can be found,\nBy him not ruin'd? then is he the ground\nOf my defeatures. My decayed fair\nA sunny look of his would soon repair\nBut, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale\nAnd feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.\nLUCIANA Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence!\nADRIANA Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.\nI know his eye doth homage otherwhere,\nOr else what lets it but he would be here?\nSister, you know he promised me a chain;\nWould that alone, alone he would detain,\nSo he would keep fair quarter with his bed!\nI see the jewel best enamelled\nWill lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still,\nThat others touch, and often touching will\nWear gold: and no man that hath a name,\nBy falsehood and corruption doth it shame.\nSince that my beauty cannot please his eye,\nI'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.\nLUCIANA How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT II\nSCENE II A public place.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up\nSafe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave\nIs wander'd forth, in care to seek me out\nBy computation and mine host's report.\nI could not speak with Dromio since at first\nI sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.\n[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse]\nHow now sir! is your merry humour alter'd?\nAs you love strokes, so jest with me again.\nYou know no Centaur? you received no gold?\nYour mistress sent to have me home to dinner?\nMy house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad,\nThat thus so madly thou didst answer me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE What answer, sir? when spake I such a word?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Even now, even here, not half an hour since.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I did not see you since you sent me hence,\nHome to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,\nAnd told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;\nFor which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeased.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am glad to see you in this merry vein:\nWhat means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?\nThink'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.\n[Beating him]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest:\nUpon what bargain do you give it me?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Because that I familiarly sometimes\nDo use you for my fool and chat with you,\nYour sauciness will jest upon my love\nAnd make a common of my serious hours.\nWhen the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,\nBut creep in crannies when he hides his beams.\nIf you will jest with me, know my aspect,\nAnd fashion your demeanor to my looks,\nOr I will beat this method in your sconce.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I\nhad rather have it a head: an you use these blows\nlong, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce\nit too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.\nBut, I pray, sir why am I beaten?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Dost thou not know?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Shall I tell you why?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath\na wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why, first,--for flouting me; and then, wherefore--\nFor urging it the second time to me.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,\nWhen in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme\nnor reason?\nWell, sir, I thank you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thank me, sir, for what?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for\nsomething. But say, sir, is it dinner-time?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE In good time, sir; what's that?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Basting.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Your reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another\ndry basting.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a\ntime for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE By what rule, sir?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald\npate of father Time himself.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Let's hear it.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE There's no time for a man to recover his hair that\ngrows bald by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE May he not do it by fine and recovery?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig and recover the\nlost hair of another man.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is,\nso plentiful an excrement?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts;\nand what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth\nit in a kind of jollity.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE For what reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE For two; and sound ones too.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Nay, not sound, I pray you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Sure ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Certain ones then.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Name them.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE The one, to save the money that he spends in\ntrimming; the other, that at dinner they should not\ndrop in his porridge.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE You would all this time have proved there is no\ntime for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair\nlost by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE But your reason was not substantial, why there is no\ntime to recover.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore\nto the world's end will have bald followers.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion:\nBut, soft! who wafts us yonder?\n[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA]\nADRIANA Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:\nSome other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;\nI am not Adriana nor thy wife.\nThe time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow\nThat never words were music to thine ear,\nThat never object pleasing in thine eye,\nThat never touch well welcome to thy hand,\nThat never meat sweet-savor'd in thy taste,\nUnless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee.\nHow comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,\nThat thou art thus estranged from thyself?\nThyself I call it, being strange to me,\nThat, undividable, incorporate,\nAm better than thy dear self's better part.\nAh, do not tear away thyself from me!\nFor know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall\nA drop of water in the breaking gulf,\nAnd take unmingled that same drop again,\nWithout addition or diminishing,\nAs take from me thyself and not me too.\nHow dearly would it touch me to the quick,\nShouldst thou but hear I were licentious\nAnd that this body, consecrate to thee,\nBy ruffian lust should be contaminate!\nWouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me\nAnd hurl the name of husband in my face\nAnd tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow\nAnd from my false hand cut the wedding-ring\nAnd break it with a deep-divorcing vow?\nI know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.\nI am possess'd with an adulterate blot;\nMy blood is mingled with the crime of lust:\nFor if we too be one and thou play false,\nI do digest the poison of thy flesh,\nBeing strumpeted by thy contagion.\nKeep then far league and truce with thy true bed;\nI live unstain'd, thou undishonoured.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:\nIn Ephesus I am but two hours old,\nAs strange unto your town as to your talk;\nWho, every word by all my wit being scann'd,\nWant wit in all one word to understand.\nLUCIANA Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!\nWhen were you wont to use my sister thus?\nShe sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE By Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE By me?\nADRIANA By thee; and this thou didst return from him,\nThat he did buffet thee, and, in his blows,\nDenied my house for his, me for his wife.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?\nWhat is the course and drift of your compact?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I, sir? I never saw her till this time.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Villain, thou liest; for even her very words\nDidst thou deliver to me on the mart.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I never spake with her in all my life.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE How can she thus then call us by our names,\nUnless it be by inspiration.\nADRIANA How ill agrees it with your gravity\nTo counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,\nAbetting him to thwart me in my mood!\nBe it my wrong you are from me exempt,\nBut wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\nCome, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:\nThou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,\nWhose weakness, married to thy stronger state,\nMakes me with thy strength to communicate:\nIf aught possess thee from me, it is dross,\nUsurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;\nWho, all for want of pruning, with intrusion\nInfect thy sap and live on thy confusion.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:\nWhat, was I married to her in my dream?\nOr sleep I now and think I hear all this?\nWhat error drives our eyes and ears amiss?\nUntil I know this sure uncertainty,\nI'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.\nLUCIANA Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.\nThis is the fairy land: O spite of spites!\nWe talk with goblins, owls and sprites:\nIf we obey them not, this will ensue,\nThey'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.\nLUCIANA Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?\nDromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am transformed, master, am I not?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I think thou art in mind, and so am I.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thou hast thine own form.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, I am an ape.\nLUCIANA If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE 'Tis true; she rides me and I long for grass.\n'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be\nBut I should know her as well as she knows me.\nADRIANA Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,\nTo put the finger in the eye and weep,\nWhilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn.\nCome, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.\nHusband, I'll dine above with you to-day\nAnd shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.\nSirrah, if any ask you for your master,\nSay he dines forth, and let no creature enter.\nCome, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?\nSleeping or waking? mad or well-advised?\nKnown unto these, and to myself disguised!\nI'll say as they say and persever so,\nAnd in this mist at all adventures go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, shall I be porter at the gate?\nADRIANA Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.\nLUCIANA Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT III\nSCENE I Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus,\nANGELO, and BALTHAZAR]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;\nMy wife is shrewish when I keep not hours:\nSay that I linger'd with you at your shop\nTo see the making of her carcanet,\nAnd that to-morrow you will bring it home.\nBut here's a villain that would face me down\nHe met me on the mart, and that I beat him,\nAnd charged him with a thousand marks in gold,\nAnd that I did deny my wife and house.\nThou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know;\nThat you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show:\nIf the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,\nYour own handwriting would tell you what I think.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I think thou art an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Marry, so it doth appear\nBy the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.\nI should kick, being kick'd; and, being at that pass,\nYou would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS You're sad, Signior Balthazar: pray God our cheer\nMay answer my good will and your good welcome here.\nBALTHAZAR I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your\nwelcome dear.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,\nA table full of welcome make scarce one dainty dish.\nBALTHAZAR Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS And welcome more common; for that's nothing but words.\nBALTHAZAR Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest:\nBut though my cates be mean, take them in good part;\nBetter cheer may you have, but not with better heart.\nBut, soft! my door is lock'd. Go bid them let us in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicel, Gillian, Ginn!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb,\nidiot, patch!\nEither get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.\nDost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st\nfor such store,\nWhen one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS What patch is made our porter? My master stays in\nthe street.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Let him walk from whence he came, lest he\ncatch cold on's feet.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Who talks within there? ho, open the door!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Right, sir; I'll tell you when, an you tell\nme wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Wherefore? for my dinner: I have not dined to-day.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Nor to-day here you must not; come again\nwhen you may.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS What art thou that keepest me out from the house I owe?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] The porter for this time, sir, and my name\nis Dromio.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS O villain! thou hast stolen both mine office and my name.\nThe one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.\nIf thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,\nThou wouldst have changed thy face for a name or thy\nname for an ass.\nLUCE [Within] What a coil is there, Dromio? who are those\nat the gate?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Let my master in, Luce.\nLUCE [Within] Faith, no; he comes too late;\nAnd so tell your master.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS O Lord, I must laugh!\nHave at you with a proverb--Shall I set in my staff?\nLUCE [Within] Have at you with another; that's--When?\ncan you tell?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] If thy name be call'd Luce--Luce, thou hast\nanswered him well.\nANTIPHOLUS Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I hope?\nOF EPHESUS\nLUCE [Within] I thought to have asked you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] And you said no.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS So, come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Thou baggage, let me in.\nLUCE [Within] Can you tell for whose sake?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Master, knock the door hard.\nLUCE [Within] Let him knock till it ache.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.\nLUCE [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?\nADRIANA [Within] Who is that at the door that keeps all\nthis noise?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] By my troth, your town is troubled with\nunruly boys.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Are you there, wife? you might have come before.\nADRIANA [Within] Your wife, sir knave! go get you from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS If you went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go sore.\nANGELO Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome: we would\nfain have either.\nBALTHAZAR In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.\nYour cake there is warm within; you stand here in the cold:\nIt would make a man mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Go fetch me something: I'll break ope the gate.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Break any breaking here, and I'll break your\nknave's pate.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind,\nAy, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] It seems thou want'st breaking: out upon\nthee, hind!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Here's too much 'out upon thee!' I pray thee,\nlet me in.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Well, I'll break in: go borrow me a crow.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?\nFor a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;\nIf a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.\nBALTHAZAR Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!\nHerein you war against your reputation\nAnd draw within the compass of suspect\nThe unviolated honour of your wife.\nOnce this,--your long experience of her wisdom,\nHer sober virtue, years and modesty,\nPlead on her part some cause to you unknown:\nAnd doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse\nWhy at this time the doors are made against you.\nBe ruled by me: depart in patience,\nAnd let us to the Tiger all to dinner,\nAnd about evening come yourself alone\nTo know the reason of this strange restraint.\nIf by strong hand you offer to break in\nNow in the stirring passage of the day,\nA vulgar comment will be made of it,\nAnd that supposed by the common rout\nAgainst your yet ungalled estimation\nThat may with foul intrusion enter in\nAnd dwell upon your grave when you are dead;\nFor slander lives upon succession,\nFor ever housed where it gets possession.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS You have prevailed: I will depart in quiet,\nAnd, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry.\nI know a wench of excellent discourse,\nPretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle:\nThere will we dine. This woman that I mean,\nMy wife--but, I protest, without desert--\nHath oftentimes upbraided me withal:\nTo her will we to dinner.\n[To Angelo]\nGet you home\nAnd fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made:\nBring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;\nFor there's the house: that chain will I bestow--\nBe it for nothing but to spite my wife--\nUpon mine hostess there: good sir, make haste.\nSince mine own doors refuse to entertain me,\nI'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.\nANGELO I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Do so. This jest shall cost me some expense.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT III\nSCENE II The same.\n[Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse]\nLUCIANA And may it be that you have quite forgot\nA husband's office? shall, Antipholus.\nEven in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?\nShall love, in building, grow so ruinous?\nIf you did wed my sister for her wealth,\nThen for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness:\nOr if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;\nMuffle your false love with some show of blindness:\nLet not my sister read it in your eye;\nBe not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;\nLook sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;\nApparel vice like virtue's harbinger;\nBear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;\nTeach sin the carriage of a holy saint;\nBe secret-false: what need she be acquainted?\nWhat simple thief brags of his own attaint?\n'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed\nAnd let her read it in thy looks at board:\nShame hath a bastard fame, well managed;\nIll deeds are doubled with an evil word.\nAlas, poor women! make us but believe,\nBeing compact of credit, that you love us;\nThough others have the arm, show us the sleeve;\nWe in your motion turn and you may move us.\nThen, gentle brother, get you in again;\nComfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:\n'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,\nWhen the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,\nNor by what wonder you do hit of mine,--\nLess in your knowledge and your grace you show not\nThan our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.\nTeach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;\nLay open to my earthy-gross conceit,\nSmother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,\nThe folded meaning of your words' deceit.\nAgainst my soul's pure truth why labour you\nTo make it wander in an unknown field?\nAre you a god? would you create me new?\nTransform me then, and to your power I'll yield.\nBut if that I am I, then well I know\nYour weeping sister is no wife of mine,\nNor to her bed no homage do I owe\nFar more, far more to you do I decline.\nO, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\nTo drown me in thy sister's flood of tears:\nSing, siren, for thyself and I will dote:\nSpread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\nAnd as a bed I'll take them and there lie,\nAnd in that glorious supposition think\nHe gains by death that hath such means to die:\nLet Love, being light, be drowned if she sink!\nLUCIANA What, are you mad, that you do reason so?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.\nLUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.\nLUCIANA Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.\nLUCIANA Why call you me love? call my sister so.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thy sister's sister.\nLUCIANA That's my sister.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE No;\nIt is thyself, mine own self's better part,\nMine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,\nMy food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim,\nMy sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim.\nLUCIANA All this my sister is, or else should be.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.\nThee will I love and with thee lead my life:\nThou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.\nGive me thy hand.\nLUCIANA O, soft, air! hold you still:\nI'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.\n[Exit]\n[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man?\nam I myself?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself.\nANTIPHOLUS What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one\nthat claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What claim lays she to thee?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your\nhorse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I\nbeing a beast, she would have me; but that she,\nbeing a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What is she?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may\nnot speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have\nbut lean luck in the match, and yet is she a\nwondrous fat marriage.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE How dost thou mean a fat marriage?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease;\nand I know not what use to put her to but to make a\nlamp of her and run from her by her own light. I\nwarrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a\nPoland winter: if she lives till doomsday,\nshe'll burn a week longer than the whole world.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What complexion is she of?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so\nclean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over\nshoes in the grime of it.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE That's a fault that water will mend.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What's her name?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's\nan ell and three quarters, will not measure her from\nhip to hip.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Then she bears some breadth?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:\nshe is spherical, like a globe; I could find out\ncountries in her.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE In what part of her body stands Ireland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where Scotland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where France?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war\nagainst her heir.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where England?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no\nwhiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,\nby the salt rheum that ran between France and it.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where Spain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where America, the Indies?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with\nrubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich\naspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole\narmadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this\ndrudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me\nDromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what\nprivy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my\nshoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my\nleft arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch:\nAnd, I think, if my breast had not been made of\nfaith and my heart of steel,\nShe had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made\nme turn i' the wheel.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Go hie thee presently, post to the road:\nAn if the wind blow any way from shore,\nI will not harbour in this town to-night:\nIf any bark put forth, come to the mart,\nWhere I will walk till thou return to me.\nIf every one knows us and we know none,\n'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE As from a bear a man would run for life,\nSo fly I from her that would be my wife.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE There's none but witches do inhabit here;\nAnd therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.\nShe that doth call me husband, even my soul\nDoth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,\nPossess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,\nOf such enchanting presence and discourse,\nHath almost made me traitor to myself:\nBut, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,\nI'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\n[Enter ANGELO with the chain]\nANGELO Master Antipholus,--\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Ay, that's my name.\nANGELO I know it well, sir, lo, here is the chain.\nI thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine:\nThe chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What is your will that I shall do with this?\nANGELO What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.\nANGELO Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.\nGo home with it and please your wife withal;\nAnd soon at supper-time I'll visit you\nAnd then receive my money for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I pray you, sir, receive the money now,\nFor fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.\nANGELO You are a merry man, sir: fare you well.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What I should think of this, I cannot tell:\nBut this I think, there's no man is so vain\nThat would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.\nI see a man here needs not live by shifts,\nWhen in the streets he meets such golden gifts.\nI'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay\nIf any ship put out, then straight away.\n[Exit]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT IV\nSCENE I A public place.\n[Enter Second Merchant, ANGELO, and an Officer]\nSecond Merchant You know since Pentecost the sum is due,\nAnd since I have not much importuned you;\nNor now I had not, but that I am bound\nTo Persia, and want guilders for my voyage:\nTherefore make present satisfaction,\nOr I'll attach you by this officer.\nANGELO Even just the sum that I do owe to you\nIs growing to me by Antipholus,\nAnd in the instant that I met with you\nHe had of me a chain: at five o'clock\nI shall receive the money for the same.\nPleaseth you walk with me down to his house,\nI will discharge my bond and thank you too.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus\nfrom the courtezan's]\nOfficer That labour may you save: see where he comes.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou\nAnd buy a rope's end: that will I bestow\nAmong my wife and her confederates,\nFor locking me out of my doors by day.\nBut, soft! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;\nBuy thou a rope and bring it home to me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I buy a thousand pound a year: I buy a rope.\n[Exit]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS A man is well holp up that trusts to you:\nI promised your presence and the chain;\nBut neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.\nBelike you thought our love would last too long,\nIf it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.\nANGELO Saving your merry humour, here's the note\nHow much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,\nThe fineness of the gold and chargeful fashion.\nWhich doth amount to three odd ducats more\nThan I stand debted to this gentleman:\nI pray you, see him presently discharged,\nFor he is bound to sea and stays but for it.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I am not furnish'd with the present money;\nBesides, I have some business in the town.\nGood signior, take the stranger to my house\nAnd with you take the chain and bid my wife\nDisburse the sum on the receipt thereof:\nPerchance I will be there as soon as you.\nANGELO Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.\nANGELO Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;\nOr else you may return without your money.\nANGELO Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain:\nBoth wind and tide stays for this gentleman,\nAnd I, to blame, have held him here too long.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse\nYour breach of promise to the Porpentine.\nI should have chid you for not bringing it,\nBut, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.\nSecond Merchant The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.\nANGELO You hear how he importunes me;--the chain!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Why, give it to my wife and fetch your money.\nANGELO Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.\nEither send the chain or send me by some token.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Fie, now you run this humour out of breath,\nwhere's the chain? I pray you, let me see it.\nSecond Merchant My business cannot brook this dalliance.\nGood sir, say whether you'll answer me or no:\nIf not, I'll leave him to the officer.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I answer you! what should I answer you?\nANGELO The money that you owe me for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I owe you none till I receive the chain.\nANGELO You know I gave it you half an hour since.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS You gave me none: you wrong me much to say so.\nANGELO You wrong me more, sir, in denying it:\nConsider how it stands upon my credit.\nSecond Merchant Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.\nOfficer I do; and charge you in the duke's name to obey me.\nANGELO This touches me in reputation.\nEither consent to pay this sum for me\nOr I attach you by this officer.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Consent to pay thee that I never had!\nArrest me, foolish fellow, if thou darest.\nANGELO Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer,\nI would not spare my brother in this case,\nIf he should scorn me so apparently.\nOfficer I do arrest you, sir: you hear the suit.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I do obey thee till I give thee bail.\nBut, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear\nAs all the metal in your shop will answer.\nANGELO Sir, sir, I will have law in Ephesus,\nTo your notorious shame; I doubt it not.\n[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse, from the bay]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum\nThat stays but till her owner comes aboard,\nAnd then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,\nI have convey'd aboard; and I have bought\nThe oil, the balsamum and aqua-vitae.\nThe ship is in her trim; the merry wind\nBlows fair from land: they stay for nought at all\nBut for their owner, master, and yourself.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS How now! a madman! Why, thou peevish sheep,\nWhat ship of Epidamnum stays for me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope;\nAnd told thee to what purpose and what end.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE You sent me for a rope's end as soon:\nYou sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I will debate this matter at more leisure\nAnd teach your ears to list me with more heed.\nTo Adriana, villain, hie thee straight:\nGive her this key, and tell her, in the desk\nThat's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry,\nThere is a purse of ducats; let her send it:\nTell her I am arrested in the street\nAnd that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone!\nOn, officer, to prison till it come.\n[Exeunt Second Merchant, Angelo, Officer, and\nAntipholus of Ephesus]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE To Adriana! that is where we dined,\nWhere Dowsabel did claim me for her husband:\nShe is too big, I hope, for me to compass.\nThither I must, although against my will,\nFor servants must their masters' minds fulfil.\n[Exit]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT IV\nSCENE II The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.\n[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA]\nADRIANA Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\nMightst thou perceive austerely in his eye\nThat he did plead in earnest? yea or no?\nLook'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\nWhat observation madest thou in this case\nOf his heart's meteors tilting in his face?\nLUCIANA First he denied you had in him no right.\nADRIANA He meant he did me none; the more my spite.\nLUCIANA Then swore he that he was a stranger here.\nADRIANA And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.\nLUCIANA Then pleaded I for you.\nADRIANA And what said he?\nLUCIANA That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.\nADRIANA With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?\nLUCIANA With words that in an honest suit might move.\nFirst he did praise my beauty, then my speech.\nADRIANA Didst speak him fair?\nLUCIANA Have patience, I beseech.\nADRIANA I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still;\nMy tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.\nHe is deformed, crooked, old and sere,\nIll-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;\nVicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;\nStigmatical in making, worse in mind.\nLUCIANA Who would be jealous then of such a one?\nNo evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.\nADRIANA Ah, but I think him better than I say,\nAnd yet would herein others' eyes were worse.\nFar from her nest the lapwing cries away:\nMy heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.\n[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Here! go; the desk, the purse! sweet, now, make haste.\nLUCIANA How hast thou lost thy breath?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE By running fast.\nADRIANA Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.\nA devil in an everlasting garment hath him;\nOne whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;\nA fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough;\nA wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff;\nA back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that\ncountermands\nThe passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands;\nA hound that runs counter and yet draws dryfoot well;\nOne that before the judgement carries poor souls to hell.\nADRIANA Why, man, what is the matter?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I do not know the matter: he is 'rested on the case.\nADRIANA What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;\nBut he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.\nWill you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?\nADRIANA Go fetch it, sister.\n[Exit Luciana]\nThis I wonder at,\nThat he, unknown to me, should be in debt.\nTell me, was he arrested on a band?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;\nA chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring?\nADRIANA What, the chain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, no, the bell: 'tis time that I were gone:\nIt was two ere I left him, and now the clock\nstrikes one.\nADRIANA The hours come back! that did I never hear.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, yes; if any hour meet a sergeant, a' turns back for\nvery fear.\nADRIANA As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's\nworth, to season.\nNay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say\nThat Time comes stealing on by night and day?\nIf Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,\nHath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?\n[Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse]\nADRIANA Go, Dromio; there's the money, bear it straight;\nAnd bring thy master home immediately.\nCome, sister: I am press'd down with conceit--\nConceit, my comfort and my injury.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT IV\nSCENE III A public place.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE There's not a man I meet but doth salute me\nAs if I were their well-acquainted friend;\nAnd every one doth call me by my name.\nSome tender money to me; some invite me;\nSome other give me thanks for kindnesses;\nSome offer me commodities to buy:\nEven now a tailor call'd me in his shop\nAnd show'd me silks that he had bought for me,\nAnd therewithal took measure of my body.\nSure, these are but imaginary wiles\nAnd Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.\n[Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, here's the gold you sent me for. What, have\nyou got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What gold is this? what Adam dost thou mean?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not that Adam that kept the Paradise but that Adam\nthat keeps the prison: he that goes in the calf's\nskin that was killed for the Prodigal; he that came\nbehind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you\nforsake your liberty.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I understand thee not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE No? why, 'tis a plain case: he that went, like a\nbass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,\nthat, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob\nand 'rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed\nmen and gives them suits of durance; he that sets up\nhis rest to do more exploits with his mace than a\nmorris-pike.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE What, thou meanest an officer?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band, he that brings\nany man to answer it that breaks his band; one that\nthinks a man always going to bed, and says, 'God\ngive you good rest!'\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is there any\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since that the\nbark Expedition put forth to-night; and then were\nyou hindered by the sergeant, to tarry for the hoy\nDelay. Here are the angels that you sent for to\ndeliver you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE The fellow is distract, and so am I;\nAnd here we wander in illusions:\nSome blessed power deliver us from hence!\n[Enter a Courtezan]\nCourtezan Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.\nI see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now:\nIs that the chain you promised me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, is this Mistress Satan?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE It is the devil.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam; and here\nshe comes in the habit of a light wench: and thereof\ncomes that the wenches say 'God damn me;' that's as\nmuch to say 'God make me a light wench.' It is\nwritten, they appear to men like angels of light:\nlight is an effect of fire, and fire will burn;\nergo, light wenches will burn. Come not near her.\nCourtezan Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.\nWill you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat; or bespeak a\nlong spoon.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Why, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with\nthe devil.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Avoid then, fiend! what tell'st thou me of supping?\nThou art, as you are all, a sorceress:\nI conjure thee to leave me and be gone.\nCourtezan Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\nOr, for my diamond, the chain you promised,\nAnd I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,\nA rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\nA nut, a cherry-stone;\nBut she, more covetous, would have a chain.\nMaster, be wise: an if you give it her,\nThe devil will shake her chain and fright us with it.\nCourtezan I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain:\nI hope you do not mean to cheat me so.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE 'Fly pride,' says the peacock: mistress, that you know.\n[Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse]\nCourtezan Now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad,\nElse would he never so demean himself.\nA ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,\nAnd for the same he promised me a chain:\nBoth one and other he denies me now.\nThe reason that I gather he is mad,\nBesides this present instance of his rage,\nIs a mad tale he told to-day at dinner,\nOf his own doors being shut against his entrance.\nBelike his wife, acquainted with his fits,\nOn purpose shut the doors against his way.\nMy way is now to hie home to his house,\nAnd tell his wife that, being lunatic,\nHe rush'd into my house and took perforce\nMy ring away. This course I fittest choose;\nFor forty ducats is too much to lose.\n[Exit]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT IV\nSCENE IV A street.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and the Officer]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Fear me not, man; I will not break away:\nI'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,\nTo warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.\nMy wife is in a wayward mood to-day,\nAnd will not lightly trust the messenger\nThat I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\nI tell you, 'twill sound harshly in her ears.\n[Enter DROMIO of Ephesus with a rope's-end]\nHere comes my man; I think he brings the money.\nHow now, sir! have you that I sent you for?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS But where's the money?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Five hundred ducats, villain, for a rope?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I returned.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.\n[Beating him]\nOfficer Good sir, be patient.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in adversity.\nOfficer Good, now, hold thy tongue.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Thou whoreson, senseless villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel\nyour blows.\nANTIPHOLUS Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an\nass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long\nears. I have served him from the hour of my\nnativity to this instant, and have nothing at his\nhands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he\nheats me with beating; when I am warm, he cools me\nwith beating; I am waked with it when I sleep;\nraised with it when I sit; driven out of doors with\nit when I go from home; welcomed home with it when\nI return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a\nbeggar wont her brat; and, I think when he hath\nlamed me, I shall beg with it from door to door.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.\n[Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the Courtezan, and PINCH]\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or\nrather, the prophecy like the parrot, 'beware the\nrope's-end.'\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Wilt thou still talk?\n[Beating him]\nCourtezan How say you now? is not your husband mad?\nADRIANA His incivility confirms no less.\nGood Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;\nEstablish him in his true sense again,\nAnd I will please you what you will demand.\nLUCIANA Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\nCourtezan Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!\nPINCH Give me your hand and let me feel your pulse.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.\n[Striking him]\nPINCH I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,\nTo yield possession to my holy prayers\nAnd to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:\nI conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.\nADRIANA O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS You minion, you, are these your customers?\nDid this companion with the saffron face\nRevel and feast it at my house to-day,\nWhilst upon me the guilty doors were shut\nAnd I denied to enter in my house?\nADRIANA O husband, God doth know you dined at home;\nWhere would you had remain'd until this time,\nFree from these slanders and this open shame!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Dined at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS And did not she herself revile me there?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Sans fable, she herself reviled you there.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS And did not I in rage depart from thence?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS In verity you did; my bones bear witness,\nThat since have felt the vigour of his rage.\nADRIANA Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?\nPINCH It is no shame: the fellow finds his vein,\nAnd yielding to him humours well his frenzy.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me.\nADRIANA Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,\nBy Dromio here, who came in haste for it.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Money by me! heart and goodwill you might;\nBut surely master, not a rag of money.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Went'st not thou to her for a purse of ducats?\nADRIANA He came to me and I deliver'd it.\nLUCIANA And I am witness with her that she did.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS God and the rope-maker bear me witness\nThat I was sent for nothing but a rope!\nPINCH Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;\nI know it by their pale and deadly looks:\nThey must be bound and laid in some dark room.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day?\nAnd why dost thou deny the bag of gold?\nADRIANA I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS And, gentle master, I received no gold;\nBut I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.\nADRIANA Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all;\nAnd art confederate with a damned pack\nTo make a loathsome abject scorn of me:\nBut with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes\nThat would behold in me this shameful sport.\n[Enter three or four, and offer to bind him.\nHe strives]\nADRIANA O, bind him, bind him! let him not come near me.\nPINCH More company! The fiend is strong within him.\nLUCIANA Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou,\nI am thy prisoner: wilt thou suffer them\nTo make a rescue?\nOfficer Masters, let him go\nHe is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.\nPINCH Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.\n[They offer to bind Dromio of Ephesus]\nADRIANA What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?\nHast thou delight to see a wretched man\nDo outrage and displeasure to himself?\nOfficer He is my prisoner: if I let him go,\nThe debt he owes will be required of me.\nADRIANA I will discharge thee ere I go from thee:\nBear me forthwith unto his creditor,\nAnd, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.\nGood master doctor, see him safe convey'd\nHome to my house. O most unhappy day!\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS O most unhappy strumpet!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Master, I am here entered in bond for you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Out on thee, villain! wherefore dost thou mad me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Will you be bound for nothing? be mad, good master:\ncry 'The devil!'\nLUCIANA God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!\nADRIANA Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.\n[Exeunt all but Adriana, Luciana, Officer and\nCourtezan]\nSay now, whose suit is he arrested at?\nOfficer One Angelo, a goldsmith: do you know him?\nADRIANA I know the man. What is the sum he owes?\nOfficer Two hundred ducats.\nADRIANA Say, how grows it due?\nOfficer Due for a chain your husband had of him.\nADRIANA He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.\nCourtezan When as your husband all in rage to-day\nCame to my house and took away my ring--\nThe ring I saw upon his finger now--\nStraight after did I meet him with a chain.\nADRIANA It may be so, but I did never see it.\nCome, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is:\nI long to know the truth hereof at large.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse with his rapier drawn,\nand DROMIO of Syracuse]\nLUCIANA God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.\nADRIANA And come with naked swords.\nLet's call more help to have them bound again.\nOfficer Away! they'll kill us.\n[Exeunt all but Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio\nof Syracuse]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I see these witches are afraid of swords.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE She that would be your wife now ran from you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence:\nI long that we were safe and sound aboard.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us\nno harm: you saw they speak us fair, give us gold:\nmethinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for\nthe mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of\nme, I could find in my heart to stay here still and\nturn witch.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I will not stay to-night for all the town;\nTherefore away, to get our stuff aboard.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\nACT V\nSCENE I A street before a Priory.\n[Enter Second Merchant and ANGELO]\nANGELO I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you;\nBut, I protest, he had the chain of me,\nThough most dishonestly he doth deny it.\nSecond Merchant How is the man esteemed here in the city?\nANGELO Of very reverend reputation, sir,\nOf credit infinite, highly beloved,\nSecond to none that lives here in the city:\nHis word might bear my wealth at any time.\nSecond Merchant Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse and DROMIO of Syracuse]\nANGELO 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck\nWhich he forswore most monstrously to have.\nGood sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.\nSignior Antipholus, I wonder much\nThat you would put me to this shame and trouble;\nAnd, not without some scandal to yourself,\nWith circumstance and oaths so to deny\nThis chain which now you wear so openly:\nBeside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\nYou have done wrong to this my honest friend,\nWho, but for staying on our controversy,\nHad hoisted sail and put to sea to-day:\nThis chain you had of me; can you deny it?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I think I had; I never did deny it.\nSecond Merchant Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?\nSecond Merchant These ears of mine, thou know'st did hear thee.\nFie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou livest\nTo walk where any honest man resort.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE Thou art a villain to impeach me thus:\nI'll prove mine honour and mine honesty\nAgainst thee presently, if thou darest stand.\nSecond Merchant I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.\n[They draw]\n[Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the Courtezan, and others]\nADRIANA Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! he is mad.\nSome get within him, take his sword away:\nBind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house!\nThis is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd!\n[Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse\nto the Priory]\n[Enter the Lady Abbess, AEMILIA]\nAEMELIA Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?\nADRIANA To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.\nLet us come in, that we may bind him fast\nAnd bear him home for his recovery.\nANGELO I knew he was not in his perfect wits.\nSecond Merchant I am sorry now that I did draw on him.\nAEMELIA How long hath this possession held the man?\nADRIANA This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,\nAnd much different from the man he was;\nBut till this afternoon his passion\nNe'er brake into extremity of rage.\nAEMELIA Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?\nBuried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye\nStray'd his affection in unlawful love?\nA sin prevailing much in youthful men,\nWho give their eyes the liberty of gazing.\nWhich of these sorrows is he subject to?\nADRIANA To none of these, except it be the last;\nNamely, some love that drew him oft from home.\nAEMELIA You should for that have reprehended him.\nADRIANA Why, so I did.\nAEMELIA Ay, but not rough enough.\nADRIANA As roughly as my modesty would let me.\nAEMELIA Haply, in private.\nADRIANA And in assemblies too.\nAEMELIA Ay, but not enough.\nADRIANA It was the copy of our conference:\nIn bed he slept not for my urging it;\nAt board he fed not for my urging it;\nAlone, it was the subject of my theme;\nIn company I often glanced it;\nStill did I tell him it was vile and bad.\nAEMELIA And thereof came it that the man was mad.\nThe venom clamours of a jealous woman\nPoisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.\nIt seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing,\nAnd therefore comes it that his head is light.\nThou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:\nUnquiet meals make ill digestions;\nThereof the raging fire of fever bred;\nAnd what's a fever but a fit of madness?\nThou say'st his sports were hinderd by thy brawls:\nSweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\nBut moody and dull melancholy,\nKinsman to grim and comfortless despair,\nAnd at her heels a huge infectious troop\nOf pale distemperatures and foes to life?\nIn food, in sport and life-preserving rest\nTo be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast:\nThe consequence is then thy jealous fits\nHave scared thy husband from the use of wits.\nLUCIANA She never reprehended him but mildly,\nWhen he demean'd himself rough, rude and wildly.\nWhy bear you these rebukes and answer not?\nADRIANA She did betray me to my own reproof.\nGood people enter and lay hold on him.\nAEMELIA No, not a creature enters in my house.\nADRIANA Then let your servants bring my husband forth.\nAEMELIA Neither: he took this place for sanctuary,\nAnd it shall privilege him from your hands\nTill I have brought him to his wits again,\nOr lose my labour in assaying it.\nADRIANA I will attend my husband, be his nurse,\nDiet his sickness, for it is my office,\nAnd will have no attorney but myself;\nAnd therefore let me have him home with me.\nAEMELIA Be patient; for I will not let him stir\nTill I have used the approved means I have,\nWith wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers,\nTo make of him a formal man again:\nIt is a branch and parcel of mine oath,\nA charitable duty of my order.\nTherefore depart and leave him here with me.\nADRIANA I will not hence and leave my husband here:\nAnd ill it doth beseem your holiness\nTo separate the husband and the wife.\nAEMELIA Be quiet and depart: thou shalt not have him.\n[Exit]\nLUCIANA Complain unto the duke of this indignity.\nADRIANA Come, go: I will fall prostrate at his feet\nAnd never rise until my tears and prayers\nHave won his grace to come in person hither\nAnd take perforce my husband from the abbess.\nSecond Merchant By this, I think, the dial points at five:\nAnon, I'm sure, the duke himself in person\nComes this way to the melancholy vale,\nThe place of death and sorry execution,\nBehind the ditches of the abbey here.\nANGELO Upon what cause?\nSecond Merchant To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,\nWho put unluckily into this bay\nAgainst the laws and statutes of this town,\nBeheaded publicly for his offence.\nANGELO See where they come: we will behold his death.\nLUCIANA Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.\n[Enter DUKE SOLINUS, attended; AEGEON bareheaded; with the\nHeadsman and other Officers]\nDUKE SOLINUS Yet once again proclaim it publicly,\nIf any friend will pay the sum for him,\nHe shall not die; so much we tender him.\nADRIANA Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess!\nDUKE SOLINUS She is a virtuous and a reverend lady:\nIt cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\nADRIANA May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband,\nWhom I made lord of me and all I had,\nAt your important letters,--this ill day\nA most outrageous fit of madness took him;\nThat desperately he hurried through the street,\nWith him his bondman, all as mad as he--\nDoing displeasure to the citizens\nBy rushing in their houses, bearing thence\nRings, jewels, any thing his rage did like.\nOnce did I get him bound and sent him home,\nWhilst to take order for the wrongs I went,\nThat here and there his fury had committed.\nAnon, I wot not by what strong escape,\nHe broke from those that had the guard of him;\nAnd with his mad attendant and himself,\nEach one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,\nMet us again and madly bent on us,\nChased us away; till, raising of more aid,\nWe came again to bind them. Then they fled\nInto this abbey, whither we pursued them:\nAnd here the abbess shuts the gates on us\nAnd will not suffer us to fetch him out,\nNor send him forth that we may bear him hence.\nTherefore, most gracious duke, with thy command\nLet him be brought forth and borne hence for help.\nDUKE SOLINUS Long since thy husband served me in my wars,\nAnd I to thee engaged a prince's word,\nWhen thou didst make him master of thy bed,\nTo do him all the grace and good I could.\nGo, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate\nAnd bid the lady abbess come to me.\nI will determine this before I stir.\n[Enter a Servant]\nServant O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!\nMy master and his man are both broke loose,\nBeaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor\nWhose beard they have singed off with brands of fire;\nAnd ever, as it blazed, they threw on him\nGreat pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:\nMy master preaches patience to him and the while\nHis man with scissors nicks him like a fool,\nAnd sure, unless you send some present help,\nBetween them they will kill the conjurer.\nADRIANA Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,\nAnd that is false thou dost report to us.\nServant Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;\nI have not breathed almost since I did see it.\nHe cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,\nTo scorch your face and to disfigure you.\n[Cry within]\nHark, hark! I hear him, mistress. fly, be gone!\nDUKE SOLINUS Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds!\nADRIANA Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you,\nThat he is borne about invisible:\nEven now we housed him in the abbey here;\nAnd now he's there, past thought of human reason.\n[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus]\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Justice, most gracious duke, O, grant me justice!\nEven for the service that long since I did thee,\nWhen I bestrid thee in the wars and took\nDeep scars to save thy life; even for the blood\nThat then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.\nAEGEON Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,\nI see my son Antipholus and Dromio.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there!\nShe whom thou gavest to me to be my wife,\nThat hath abused and dishonour'd me\nEven in the strength and height of injury!\nBeyond imagination is the wrong\nThat she this day hath shameless thrown on me.\nDUKE SOLINUS Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS This day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me,\nWhile she with harlots feasted in my house.\nDUKE SOLINUS A grievous fault! Say, woman, didst thou so?\nADRIANA No, my good lord: myself, he and my sister\nTo-day did dine together. So befall my soul\nAs this is false he burdens me withal!\nLUCIANA Ne'er may I look on day, nor sleep on night,\nBut she tells to your highness simple truth!\nANGELO O perjured woman! They are both forsworn:\nIn this the madman justly chargeth them.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS My liege, I am advised what I say,\nNeither disturbed with the effect of wine,\nNor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire,\nAlbeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\nThis woman lock'd me out this day from dinner:\nThat goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\nCould witness it, for he was with me then;\nWho parted with me to go fetch a chain,\nPromising to bring it to the Porpentine,\nWhere Balthazar and I did dine together.\nOur dinner done, and he not coming thither,\nI went to seek him: in the street I met him\nAnd in his company that gentleman.\nThere did this perjured goldsmith swear me down\nThat I this day of him received the chain,\nWhich, God he knows, I saw not: for the which\nHe did arrest me with an officer.\nI did obey, and sent my peasant home\nFor certain ducats: he with none return'd\nThen fairly I bespoke the officer\nTo go in person with me to my house.\nBy the way we met\nMy wife, her sister, and a rabble more\nOf vile confederates. Along with them\nThey brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,\nA mere anatomy, a mountebank,\nA threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller,\nA needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,\nA dead-looking man: this pernicious slave,\nForsooth, took on him as a conjurer,\nAnd, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\nAnd with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,\nCries out, I was possess'd. Then all together\nThey fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence\nAnd in a dark and dankish vault at home\nThere left me and my man, both bound together;\nTill, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\nI gain'd my freedom, and immediately\nRan hither to your grace; whom I beseech\nTo give me ample satisfaction\nFor these deep shames and great indignities.\nANGELO My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,\nThat he dined not at home, but was lock'd out.\nDUKE SOLINUS But had he such a chain of thee or no?\nANGELO He had, my lord: and when he ran in here,\nThese people saw the chain about his neck.\nSecond Merchant Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine\nHeard you confess you had the chain of him\nAfter you first forswore it on the mart:\nAnd thereupon I drew my sword on you;\nAnd then you fled into this abbey here,\nFrom whence, I think, you are come by miracle.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I never came within these abbey-walls,\nNor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me:\nI never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!\nAnd this is false you burden me withal.\nDUKE SOLINUS Why, what an intricate impeach is this!\nI think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.\nIf here you housed him, here he would have been;\nIf he were mad, he would not plead so coldly:\nYou say he dined at home; the goldsmith here\nDenies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porpentine.\nCourtezan He did, and from my finger snatch'd that ring.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.\nDUKE SOLINUS Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?\nCourtezan As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace.\nDUKE SOLINUS Why, this is strange. Go call the abbess hither.\nI think you are all mated or stark mad.\n[Exit one to Abbess]\nAEGEON Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\nHaply I see a friend will save my life\nAnd pay the sum that may deliver me.\nDUKE SOLINUS Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.\nAEGEON Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?\nAnd is not that your bondman, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Within this hour I was his bondman sir,\nBut he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords:\nNow am I Dromio and his man unbound.\nAEGEON I am sure you both of you remember me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;\nFor lately we were bound, as you are now\nYou are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?\nAEGEON Why look you strange on me? you know me well.\nANTIPHOLUS I never saw you in my life till now.\nAEGEON O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last,\nAnd careful hours with time's deformed hand\nHave written strange defeatures in my face:\nBut tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Neither.\nAEGEON Dromio, nor thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS No, trust me, sir, nor I.\nAEGEON I am sure thou dost.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a\nman denies, you are now bound to believe him.\nAEGEON Not know my voice! O time's extremity,\nHast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue\nIn seven short years, that here my only son\nKnows not my feeble key of untuned cares?\nThough now this grained face of mine be hid\nIn sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,\nAnd all the conduits of my blood froze up,\nYet hath my night of life some memory,\nMy wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,\nMy dull deaf ears a little use to hear:\nAll these old witnesses--I cannot err--\nTell me thou art my son Antipholus.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I never saw my father in my life.\nAEGEON But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,\nThou know'st we parted: but perhaps, my son,\nThou shamest to acknowledge me in misery.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS The duke and all that know me in the city\nCan witness with me that it is not so\nI ne'er saw Syracusa in my life.\nDUKE SOLINUS I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years\nHave I been patron to Antipholus,\nDuring which time he ne'er saw Syracusa:\nI see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n[Re-enter AEMILIA, with ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse and\nDROMIO of Syracuse]\nAEMELIA Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\n[All gather to see them]\nADRIANA I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.\nDUKE SOLINUS One of these men is Genius to the other;\nAnd so of these. Which is the natural man,\nAnd which the spirit? who deciphers them?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE AEgeon art thou not? or else his ghost?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, my old master! who hath bound him here?\nAEMELIA Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds\nAnd gain a husband by his liberty.\nSpeak, old AEgeon, if thou be'st the man\nThat hadst a wife once call'd AEmilia\nThat bore thee at a burden two fair sons:\nO, if thou be'st the same AEgeon, speak,\nAnd speak unto the same AEmilia!\nAEGEON If I dream not, thou art AEmilia:\nIf thou art she, tell me where is that son\nThat floated with thee on the fatal raft?\nAEMELIA By men of Epidamnum he and I\nAnd the twin Dromio all were taken up;\nBut by and by rude fishermen of Corinth\nBy force took Dromio and my son from them\nAnd me they left with those of Epidamnum.\nWhat then became of them I cannot tell\nI to this fortune that you see me in.\nDUKE SOLINUS Why, here begins his morning story right;\nThese two Antipholuses, these two so like,\nAnd these two Dromios, one in semblance,--\nBesides her urging of her wreck at sea,--\nThese are the parents to these children,\nWhich accidentally are met together.\nAntipholus, thou camest from Corinth first?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.\nDUKE SOLINUS Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord,--\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS And I with him.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Brought to this town by that most famous warrior,\nDuke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.\nADRIANA Which of you two did dine with me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I, gentle mistress.\nADRIANA And are not you my husband?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS No; I say nay to that.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE And so do I; yet did she call me so:\nAnd this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,\nDid call me brother.\n[To Luciana]\nWhat I told you then,\nI hope I shall have leisure to make good;\nIf this be not a dream I see and hear.\nANGELO That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE I think it be, sir; I deny it not.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.\nANGELO I think I did, sir; I deny it not.\nADRIANA I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,\nBy Dromio; but I think he brought it not.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS No, none by me.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE This purse of ducats I received from you,\nAnd Dromio, my man, did bring them me.\nI see we still did meet each other's man,\nAnd I was ta'en for him, and he for me,\nAnd thereupon these errors are arose.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS These ducats pawn I for my father here.\nDUKE SOLINUS It shall not need; thy father hath his life.\nCourtezan Sir, I must have that diamond from you.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS There, take it; and much thanks for my good cheer.\nAEMELIA Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains\nTo go with us into the abbey here\nAnd hear at large discoursed all our fortunes:\nAnd all that are assembled in this place,\nThat by this sympathized one day's error\nHave suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,\nAnd we shall make full satisfaction.\nThirty-three years have I but gone in travail\nOf you, my sons; and till this present hour\nMy heavy burden ne'er delivered.\nThe duke, my husband and my children both,\nAnd you the calendars of their nativity,\nGo to a gossips' feast and go with me;\nAfter so long grief, such festivity!\nDUKE SOLINUS With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.\n[Exeunt all but Antipholus of Syracuse, Antipholus\nof Ephesus, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF EPHESUS Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.\nANTIPHOLUS\nOF SYRACUSE He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio:\nCome, go with us; we'll look to that anon:\nEmbrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.\n[Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE There is a fat friend at your master's house,\nThat kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner:\nShe now shall be my sister, not my wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:\nI see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.\nWill you walk in to see their gossiping?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not I, sir; you are my elder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS That's a question: how shall we try it?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE We'll draw cuts for the senior: till then lead thou first.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, then, thus:\nWe came into the world like brother and brother;\nAnd now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.\n[Exeunt]","title":"Comedy of Errors","type":"page"}