The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare [book club suggestions .txt] 📗

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 tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge. Antipholus of Syracuse You would all this time have proved there is no time for all things. Dromio of Syracuse Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair lost by nature. Antipholus of Syracuse But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover. Dromio of Syracuse Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore to the world’s end will have bald followers. Antipholus of Syracuse I knew ’twould be a bald conclusion: But, soft! who wafts us yonder? Enter Adriana and Luciana. Adriana

Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;
I am not Adriana nor thy wife.
The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savour’d in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look’d, or touch’d, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self’s better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me
And hurl the name of husband in my face
And tear the stain’d skin off my harlot-brow
And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.
I am possess’d with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we two be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain’d, thou undishonoured.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being scann’d,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luciana

Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Antipholus of Syracuse By Dromio? Dromio of Syracuse By me? Adriana

By thee; and this thou didst return from him,
That he did buffet thee and in his blows
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?

Dromio of Syracuse I, sir? I never saw her till this time. Antipholus of Syracuse

Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

Dromio of Syracuse I never spake with her in all my life. Antipholus of Syracuse

How can she thus then call us by our names,
Unless it be by inspiration.

Adriana

How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state
Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

Antipholus of Syracuse

To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this sure uncertainty,
I’ll entertain the offer’d fallacy.

Luciana Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. Dromio of Syracuse

O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
This is the fairy land: O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They’ll suck our breath or pinch us black and blue.

Luciana

Why pratest thou to thyself and answer’st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

Dromio of Syracuse I am transformed, master, am I not? Antipholus of Syracuse I think thou art in mind, and so am I. Dromio of Syracuse Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape. Antipholus of Syracuse Thou hast thine own form. Dromio of Syracuse No, I am an ape. Luciana If thou art changed to aught, ’tis to an ass. Dromio of Syracuse

’Tis true; she rides me and I long for grass.
’Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be
But I should know her as well as she knows me.

Adriana

Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn.
Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
Husband, I’ll dine above with you today
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
Say he dines forth and let no creature enter.
Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I’ll say as they say and persever so
And in this mist at all adventures go.

Dromio of Syracuse Master, shall I be porter at the gate? Adriana Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. Luciana Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. Exeunt. Act III