THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. William Shakespeare

Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

       LUCIANA.

       Spake he so doubtfully thou could’st 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 pr’ythee, 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’s stark mad.

       When I desir’d 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: fch 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 low’reth 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 promis’d 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, yet 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.]

      SCENE 2. The same.

       [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 receiv’d 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 displeas’d.

       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: