 | Act II | |
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
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 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 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.
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-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,
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,
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
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 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.
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.
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 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-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
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