THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. William Shakespeare

Should’st 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 two be one, and thou play false,

       I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

       Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

       Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;

       I live dis-stain’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 chang’d 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 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.

       Table of Contents

      SCENE 1. The same.