The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare [book club suggestions .txt] 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
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My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old and sere,
Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. Luciana
Who would be jealous then of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
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.
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;
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;
One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell.
I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
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?
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?
Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;
A chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring?
No, no, the bell: ’tis time that I were gone:
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
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,
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?
Go, Dromio; there’s the money, bear it straight,
And bring thy master home immediately.
Come, sister: I am press’d down with conceit—
Conceit, my comfort and my injury. Exeunt.
A public place.
Enter Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of SyracuseThere’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend;
And everyone doth call me by my name.
Some tender money to me; some invite me;
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.
Sure, these are but imaginary wiles
And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.
The fellow is distract, and so am I;
And here we wander in illusions:
Some blessed power deliver us from hence!
Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.
I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now:
Is that the chain you promised me today?
Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.
Will you go with me? We’ll mend our dinner here?
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