| ACT II SCENE II | A public place. | |
| [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse] |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up |
| Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave |
| Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out |
| By computation and mine host's report. |
| I could not speak with Dromio since at first | 5 |
| I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes. |
[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] |
| How now sir! is your merry humour alter'd? |
| As you love strokes, so jest with me again. |
| You know no Centaur? you received no gold? |
| Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner? | 10 |
| My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad, |
| 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, | 15 |
| Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt, |
| And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner; |
| For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeased. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | I am glad to see you in this merry vein: | 20 |
| What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth? |
| Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. |
| [Beating him] |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest: |
| Upon what bargain do you give it me? | 25 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Because that I familiarly sometimes |
| Do use you for my fool and chat with you, |
| Your sauciness will jest upon my love |
| And make a common of my serious hours. |
| When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, | 30 |
| But creep in crannies when he hides his beams. |
| If you will jest with me, know my aspect, |
| And fashion your demeanor to my looks, |
| Or I will beat this method in your sconce. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I | 35 |
| had rather have it a head: an you use these blows |
| long, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce |
| it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. |
| But, I pray, sir why am I beaten? |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Dost thou not know? | 40 |
| 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 |
| a wherefore. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Why, first,--for flouting me; and then, wherefore-- | 45 |
| For urging it the second time to me. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, |
| When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme |
| nor reason? |
| Well, sir, I thank you. | 50 |
| 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 |
| something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have. | 55 |
| 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? | 60 |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another |
| dry basting. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a |
| time for all things. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. | 65 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | By what rule, sir? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald |
| 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 | 70 |
| 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 |
| lost hair of another man. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, | 75 |
| so plentiful an excrement? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; |
| 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. | 80 |
| 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 |
| it in a kind of jollity. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | For what reason? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | For two; and sound ones too. | 85 |
| 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. | 90 |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | The one, to save the money that he spends in |
| trimming; 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. | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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; | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| That never meat sweet-savor'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, | 115 |
| 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 mayest thou fall |
| A drop of water in the breaking gulf, | 120 |
| And take unmingled that same drop again, |
| Without addition or diminishing, |
| As take from me thyself and not me too. |
| How dearly would it touch me to the quick, |
| Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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: | 135 |
| For if we too be one and thou play false, |
| I do digest the poison of thy flesh, |
| Being strumpeted by thy contagion. |
| Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed; |
| I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. | 140 |
| 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, |
| Want wit in all one word to understand. | 145 |
| 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? | 150 |
| 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? | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| 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, | 165 |
| 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: | 170 |
| 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: | 175 |
| 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. | 180 |
| 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, | 185 |
| 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. | 190 |
| 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. | 195 |
| '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. | 200 |
| Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate. |
| Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day |
| 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. | 205 |
| 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, | 210 |
| 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] |