The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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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 prat’st thou to thyself, and answer’st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I am transformed, master, am not I?
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 chang’d 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 laughs my woes to scorn.—
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.—
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-advis’d?
Known unto these, and to myself disguis’d!
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.
SCENE 1. The same.
[Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR.]
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all.
My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours:
Say that I linger’d with you at your shop
To see the making of her carcanet,
And that tomorrow you will bring it home.
But here’s a villain that would face me down.
He met me on the mart; and that I beat him,
And charg’d him with a thousand marks in gold;
And that I did deny my wife and house:—
Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know:
That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;
If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
I think thou art an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Marry, so it doth appear
By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick, being kick’d; and being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
You are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer
May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
BALTHAZAR.
I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,
A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
BALTHAZAR.
Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
And welcome more common; for that’s nothing but words.
BALTHAZAR
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.