Act II
Scene I
The house of Antipholus of Ephesus.
Enter Adriana and Luciana. | |
Adriana |
Neither my husband nor the slave return’d,
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Luciana |
Perhaps some merchant hath invited him
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Adriana | Why should their liberty than ours be more? |
Luciana | Because their business still lies out o’ door. |
Adriana | Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. |
Luciana | O, know he is the bridle of your will. |
Adriana | There’s none but asses will be bridled so. |
Luciana |
Why, headstrong liberty is lash’d with woe.
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Adriana | This servitude makes you to keep unwed. |
Luciana | Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed. |
Adriana | But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway. |
Luciana | Ere I learn love, I’ll practise to obey. |
Adriana | How if your husband start some other where? |
Luciana | Till he come home again, I would forbear. |
Adriana |
Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause;
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Luciana |
Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
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Enter Dromio of Ephesus. | |
Adriana | Say, is your tardy master now at hand? |
Dromio of Ephesus | Nay, he’s at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness. |
Adriana | Say, didst thou speak with him? know’st thou his mind? |
Dromio of Ephesus |
Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear:
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Luciana | Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning? |
Dromio of Ephesus | Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could scarce understand them. |
Adriana |
But say, I prithee, is he coming home?
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Dromio of Ephesus | Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad. |
Adriana | Horn-mad, thou villain! |
Dromio of Ephesus |
I mean not cuckold-mad;
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Luciana | Quoth who? |
Dromio of Ephesus |
Quoth my master:
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Adriana | Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. |
Dromio of Ephesus |
Go back again, and be new beaten home?
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Adriana | Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. |
Dromio of Ephesus |
And he will bless that cross with other beating:
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Adriana | Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home. |
Dromio of Ephesus |
Am I so round with you as you with me,
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Luciana | Fie, how impatience loureth in your face! |
Adriana |
His company must do his minions grace,
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Luciana | Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence! |
Adriana |
Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
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Luciana | How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! Exeunt. |
Scene II
A public place.
Enter Antipholus of Syracuse. | |
Antipholus of Syracuse |
The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
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Enter Dromio of Syracuse. | |
How now, sir! is your merry humour alter’d?
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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,
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Villain, thou didst deny the gold’s receipt
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Dromio of Syracuse |
I am glad to see you in this merry vein:
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
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Dromio of Syracuse |
Hold, sir, for God’s sake! now your jest is earnest:
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Because that I familiarly sometimes
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Dromio of Syracuse | Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head and insconce 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? |
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—
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Dromio of Syracuse |
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
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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 dinnertime? |
Dromio of Syracuse | No, sir: I think the meat wants that I have. |
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? |
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. |
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 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, 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. |
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. |
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. |
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:
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
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Luciana |
Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!
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Antipholus of Syracuse | By Dromio? |
Dromio of Syracuse | By me? |
Adriana |
By thee; and this thou didst return from him,
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
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Dromio of Syracuse | I, sir? I never saw her till this time. |
Antipholus of Syracuse |
Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
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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,
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Adriana |
How ill agrees it with your gravity
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
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Luciana | Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. |
Dromio of Syracuse |
O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
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Luciana |
Why pratest thou to thyself and answer’st not?
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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.
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Adriana |
Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
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Antipholus of Syracuse |
Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
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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. |