Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 2
A public place.
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.
[p]'Tis so, I am an ass;
else it could never be
[p]But I should know her as well as she knows
me.
Adriana : Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
[p]To put the finger in the
eye and weep,
[p]Whilst man and master laugh my woes to
scorn.
[p]Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
[p]Husband,
I'll dine above with you to-day
[p]And shrive you of a thousand idle
pranks.
[p]Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
[p]Say he dines
forth, and let no creature enter.
[p]Come, sister. Dromio, play the
porter well.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
[p]Sleeping or waking? mad or
well-advised?
[p]Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
[p]I'll
say as they say and persever so,
[p]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.
Antipholus of Syracuse : The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
[p]Safe at the Centaur; and the
heedful slave
[p]Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out
[p]By
computation and mine host's report.
[p]I could not speak with Dromio
since at first
[p]I sent him from the mart. See, here he
comes.
[p][Enter DROMIO of Syracuse]
[p]How now sir! is your merry
humour alter'd?
[p]As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
[p]You
know no Centaur? you received no gold?
[p]Your mistress sent to have
me home to dinner?
[p]My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou
mad,
[p]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,
[p]Home to the Centaur,
with the gold you gave me.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,
[p]And told'st me of a
mistress and a dinner;
[p]For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was
displeased.
Dromio of Syracuse : I am glad to see you in this merry vein:
[p]What means this jest? I
pray you, master, tell me.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
[p]Think'st thou I
jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
Dromio of Syracuse : Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest:
[p]Upon what
bargain do you give it me?
Antipholus of Syracuse : Because that I familiarly sometimes
[p]Do use you for my fool and chat
with you,
[p]Your sauciness will jest upon my love
[p]And make a
common of my serious hours.
[p]When the sun shines let foolish gnats
make sport,
[p]But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
[p]If
you will jest with me, know my aspect,
[p]And fashion your demeanor to
my looks,
[p]Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
Dromio of Syracuse : Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I
[p]had rather have
it a head: an you use these blows
[p]long, I must get a sconce for my
head and ensconce
[p]it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my
shoulders.
[p]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
[p]a wherefore.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Why, first,--for flouting me; and then, wherefore--
[p]For urging it
the second time to me.
Dromio of Syracuse : Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
[p]When in the why
and the wherefore is neither rhyme
[p]nor reason?
[p]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
[p]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
[p]dry basting.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a
[p]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
[p]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
[p]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
[p]lost hair of
another man.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is,
[p]so plentiful
an excrement?
Dromio of Syracuse : Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts;
[p]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
[p]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
[p]trimming; the other,
that at dinner they should not
[p]drop in his porridge.
Antipholus of Syracuse : You would all this time have proved there is no
[p]time for all
things.
Dromio of Syracuse : Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair
[p]lost by
nature.
Antipholus of Syracuse : But your reason was not substantial, why there is no
[p]time to
recover.
Dromio of Syracuse : Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore
[p]to the world's
end will have bald followers.
Antipholus of Syracuse : I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion:
[p]But, soft! who wafts us
yonder?
Adriana : Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:
[p]Some other mistress
hath thy sweet aspects;
[p]I am not Adriana nor thy wife.
[p]The time
was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
[p]That never words were music
to thine ear,
[p]That never object pleasing in thine eye,
[p]That
never touch well welcome to thy hand,
[p]That never meat sweet-savor'd
in thy taste,
[p]Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to
thee.
[p]How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
[p]That thou
art thus estranged from thyself?
[p]Thyself I call it, being strange
to me,
[p]That, undividable, incorporate,
[p]Am better than thy dear
self's better part.
[p]Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
[p]For
know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall
[p]A drop of water in the
breaking gulf,
[p]And take unmingled that same drop again,
[p]Without
addition or diminishing,
[p]As take from me thyself and not me
too.
[p]How dearly would it touch me to the quick,
[p]Shouldst thou
but hear I were licentious
[p]And that this body, consecrate to
thee,
[p]By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
[p]Wouldst thou not
spit at me and spurn at me
[p]And hurl the name of husband in my
face
[p]And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow
[p]And from my
false hand cut the wedding-ring
[p]And break it with a deep-divorcing
vow?
[p]I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.
[p]I am
possess'd with an adulterate blot;
[p]My blood is mingled with the
crime of lust:
[p]For if we too be one and thou play false,
[p]I do
digest the poison of thy flesh,
[p]Being strumpeted by thy
contagion.
[p]Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
[p]I
live unstain'd, thou undishonoured.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
[p]In Ephesus I am but two
hours old,
[p]As strange unto your town as to your talk;
[p]Who, every
word by all my wit being scann'd,
[p]Want wit in all one word to
understand.
Luciana : Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!
[p]When were you wont
to use my sister thus?
[p]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,
[p]That he did buffet
thee, and, in his blows,
[p]Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
[p]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
[p]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,
[p]Unless it be by
inspiration.
Adriana : How ill agrees it with your gravity
[p]To counterfeit thus grossly
with your slave,
[p]Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
[p]Be it my
wrong you are from me exempt,
[p]But wrong not that wrong with a more
contempt.
[p]Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
[p]Thou art
an elm, my husband, I a vine,
[p]Whose weakness, married to thy
stronger state,
[p]Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
[p]If
aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
[p]Usurping ivy, brier, or
idle moss;
[p]Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
[p]Infect
thy sap and live on thy confusion.
Antipholus of Syracuse : To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
[p]What, was I married
to her in my dream?
[p]Or sleep I now and think I hear all
this?
[p]What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
[p]Until I know
this sure uncertainty,
[p]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.
[p]This is the fairy land: O
spite of spites!
[p]We talk with goblins, owls and sprites:
[p]If we
obey them not, this will ensue,
[p]They'll suck our breath, or pinch
us black and blue.
Luciana : Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?
[p]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.
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