Complete Plays, The (334 page)

Dromio of Ephesus

I pray you, air, as you sit at dinner:
I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will score your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

Dromio of Ephesus

To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.

Dromio of Ephesus

My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner:
My mistress and her sister stays for you.

Antipholus of Syracuse

In what safe place you have bestow’d my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undisposed:
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?

Dromio of Ephesus

I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Thy mistress’ marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dromio of Ephesus

Your worship’s wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.

Antipholus of Syracuse

What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.

Dromio of Ephesus

What mean you, sir? for God’s sake, hold your hands!
Nay, and you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels.

Exit

Antipholus of Syracuse

Upon my life, by some device or other
The villain is o’er-raught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin:
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I’ll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave:
I greatly fear my money is not safe.

Exit

A
CT
II

S
CENE
I. T
HE
HOUSE
OF
A
NTIPHOLUS
OF
E
PHESUS
.

Enter Adriana and Luciana

Adriana

Neither my husband nor the slave return’d,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o’clock.

Luciana

Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he’s somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine and never fret:
A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master, and, when they see time,
They’ll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.

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.
There’s nothing situate under heaven’s eye
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males’ subjects and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more preeminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords:
Then let your will attend on their accords.

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;
They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more would we ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me,
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg’d patience in thee will be left.

Luciana

Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
Here comes your man; now is your husband nigh.

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:
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

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? It seems he hath great care to please his wife.

Dromio of Ephesus

Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.

Adriana

Horn-mad, thou villain!

Dromio of Ephesus

I mean not cuckold-mad;
But, sure, he is stark mad.
When I desired him to come home to dinner,
He ask’d me for a thousand marks in gold:
‘’Tis dinner-time,’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he;
‘Your meat doth burn,’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he:
‘Will you come home?’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he.
‘Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?’
‘The pig,’ quoth I, ‘is burn’d;’ ‘My gold!’ quoth he:
‘My mistress, sir’ quoth I; ‘Hang up thy mistress!
I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!’

Luciana

Quoth who?

Dromio of Ephesus

Quoth my master:
‘I know,’ quoth he, ‘no house, no wife, no mistress.’
So that my errand, due unto my tongue,
I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

Adriana

Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.

Dromio of Ephesus

Go back again, and be new beaten home?
For God’s sake, send some other messenger.

Adriana

Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.

Dromio of Ephesus

And he will bless that cross with other beating:
Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adriana

Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home.

Dromio of Ephesus

Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

Exit

Luciana

Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!

Adriana

His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.
Hath homely age the alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it:
Are my discourses dull? barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr’d,
Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard:
Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
That’s not my fault: he’s master of my state:
What ruins are in me that can be found,
By him not ruin’d? then is he the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair
But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.

Luciana

Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence!

Adriana

Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
I know his eye doth homage otherwhere,
Or else what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know he promised me a chain;
Would that alone, alone he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still,
That others touch, and often touching will
Wear gold: and no man that hath a name,
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die.

Luciana

How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

Exeunt

S
CENE
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
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?
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,
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:
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?

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,
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 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?

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 —
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.

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.

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