The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare [love letters to the dead TXT] 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
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If it were chain’d together, and therefore came not.
Ang. Saving your merry humour, here’s the note
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
30 Which doth amount to three odd ducats more
Than I stand debted to this gentleman:
I pray you, see him presently discharged,
For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.
Ant. E. I am not furnish’d with the present money;
35 Besides, I have some business in the town.
Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
And with you take the chain, and bid my wife
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof:
Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
40 Ang. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?
Ant. E. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.
Ang. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?
Ant. E. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;
Or else you may return without your money.
45 Ang. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain:
Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
And I, to blame, have held him here too long.
Ant. E. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.
50 I should have chid you for not bringing it,
But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.
Sec. Mer. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.
Ang. You hear how he importunes me;—the chain!
Ant. E. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.
55 Ang. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.
Either send the chain, or send me by some token.
Ant. E. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath.
Come, where’s the chain? I pray you, let me see it.
Sec. Mer. My business cannot brook this dalliance.
60 Good sir, say whether you’ll answer me or no:
If not, I’ll leave him to the officer.
Ant. E. I answer you! what should I answer you?
Ang. The money that you owe me for the chain.
Ant. E. I owe you none till I receive the chain.
65 Ang. You know I gave it you half an hour since.
Ant. E. You gave me none: you wrong me much to say so.
Ang. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it:
Consider how it stands upon my credit.
Sec. Mer. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
70 Off. I do; and charge you in the duke’s name to obey me.
Ang. This touches me in reputation.
Either consent to pay this sum for me,
Or I attach you by this officer.
Ant. E. Consent to pay thee that I never had!
75 Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou darest.
Ang. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.
I would not spare my brother in this case,
If he should scorn me so apparently.
Off. I do arrest you, sir: you hear the suit.
80 Ant. E. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.
But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
As all the metal in your shop will answer.
Ang. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,
To your notorious shame; I doubt it not.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse, from the bay.85 Dro. S. Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum
That stays but till her owner comes aboard,
And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
I have convey’d aboard; and I have bought
The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitæ.
90 The ship is in her trim; the merry wind
Blows fair from land: they stay for nought at all
But for their owner, master, and yourself.
Ant. E. How now! a madman! Why, thou peevish sheep,
What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?
95 Dro. S. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
Ant. E. Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,
And told thee to what purpose and what end.
Dro. S. You sent me for a rope’s end as soon:
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
100 Ant. E. I will debate this matter at more leisure,
And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight:
Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk
That’s cover’d o’er with Turkish tapestry
105 There is a purse of ducats; let her send it:
Tell her I am arrested in the street,
And that shall bail me: hie thee, slave, be gone!
On, officer, to prison till it come.
Exeunt Sec. Merchant, Angelo, Officer, and Ant. E.
Dro. S. To Adriana! that is where we dined,
110 Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband:
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
Thither I must, although against my will,
For servants must their masters’ minds fulfil. Exit.
IV. 2 Scene II. The house of Antipholus of Ephesus. Enter Adriana and Luciana.Adr. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Mightst thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest? yea or no?
Look’d he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
5 What observation madest thou, in this case,
Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
Luc. First he denied you had in him no right.
Adr. He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
Luc. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
10 Adr. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
Luc. Then pleaded I for you.
Adr.
And what said he?
Luc. That love I begg’d for you he begg’d of me.
Adr. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
Luc. With words that in an honest suit might move.
15 First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
Adr. Didst speak him fair?
Luc.
Have patience, I beseech.
Adr. I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still;
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
20 Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
Luc. Who would be jealous, then, of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
25 Adr. Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse.
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away:
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse.Dro. S. Here! go; the desk, the purse! sweet, now, make haste.
Luc. How hast thou lost thy breath?
30 Dro. S.
By running fast.
Adr. Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?
Dro. S. No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
35 A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay, worse; a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;
40 One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.
Adr. Why, man, what is the matter?
Dro. S. I do not know the matter: he is ’rested on the case.
Adr. What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit.
Dro. S. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
45 But he’s in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell.
Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?
Adr. Go fetch it, sister. [Exit Luciana.] This I wonder at,
That he, unknown to me, should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
50 Dro. S. Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;
A chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring?
Adr. What, the chain?
Dro. S. No, no, the bell: ’tis time that I were gone:
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
55 Adr. The hours come back! that did I never hear.
Dro. S. O, yes; if any hour meet a sergeant, ’a turns back for very fear.
Adr. As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!
Dro. S. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he’s worth to season.
Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say,
60 That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?
Re-enter Luciana with a purse.Adr. Go, Dromio; there’s the money, bear it straight;
And bring thy master home immediately.
65 Come, sister: I am press’d down with conceit,—
Conceit, my comfort and my injury.
Exeunt.
IV. 3 Scene III. A public place. Enter Antipholus of Syracuse.Ant. S. There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend;
And every one doth call me by my name.
Some tender money to me; some invite me;
5 Some other give me thanks for kindnesses;
Some offer me commodities to buy;—
Even now a tailor call’d me in his shop,
And show’d me silks that he had bought for me,
And therewithal took measure of my body.
10 Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,
And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse.Dro. S. Master, here’s the gold you sent me for.—
What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled?
Ant. S. What gold is this? what Adam dost thou mean?
15 Dro. S. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison: he that goes in the calf’s skin that was killed for the Prodigal; he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.
Ant. S. I understand thee not.
20 Dro. S. No? why, ’tis a plain case: he that went, like a base-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir, that, when gentlemen
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