I thought to have asked you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [within] And you said, no.
55
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
So, come – help. [They beat the door.]
Well struck! There was blow for blow.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Thou baggage, let me in!
LUCE [within] Can you tell for whose sake?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Master, knock the door hard.
LUCE [within] Let him knock till it ache.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You’ll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.
[Beats on the door.]
LUCE [within]
What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?
60
[Exit.]
Enter ADRIANA[, above, within the house].
ADRIANA [within]
Who is that at the door that keeps all this noise?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [within]
By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS [to Adriana]
Are you there, wife? You might have come before.
ADRIANA [within]
Your wife, sir knave? Go, get you from the door. [Exit.]
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
If you went in pain, master, this ‘knave’ would go sore.
65
ANGELO [to Antipholus]
Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have either.
BALTHAZAR
In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.
70
Your cake is warm within; you stand here in the cold.
It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Go fetch me something: I’ll break ope the gate.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [within]
Break any breaking here, and I’ll break your knave’s pate.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind;
75
Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [within]
It seems thou want’st breaking. Out upon thee, hind!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Here’s too much ‘Out upon thee!’ I pray thee let me in.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [within]
Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Well, I’ll break in: go borrow me a crow.
80
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?
For a fish without a fin, there’s a fowl without a feather.
[to Dromio of Syracuse] If a crow help us in, sirrah, we’ll pluck a crow together.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Go, get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.
BALTHAZAR
Have patience, sir. O, let it not be so!
85
Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compass of suspect
Th’unviolated honour of your wife.
Once, this: your long experience of her wisdom,
Her sober virtue, years and modesty
90
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;
And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
Why at this time the doors are made against you.
Be ruled by me: depart in patience,
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner,
95
And about evening come yourself alone
To know the reason of this strange restraint.
If by strong hand you offer to break in
Now in the stirring passage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it;
100
And that supposed by the common rout
Against your yet ungalled estimation,
That may with foul intrusion enter in
And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;
For slander lives upon succession,
105
Forever housed where it gets possession.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You have prevailed. I will depart in quiet,
And in despite of wrath mean to be merry:
I know a wench of excellent discourse,
Pretty and witty, wild and yet, too, gentle.
110
There will we dine. This woman that I mean,
My wife – but I protest, without desert –
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal.
To her will we to dinner. [to Angelo] Get you home
And fetch the chain; by this, I know, ’tis made.
115
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine,
For there’s the house. That chain will I bestow –
Be it for nothing but to spite my wife –
Upon mine hostess there. Good sir, make haste.
Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
120
I’ll knock elsewhere to see if they’ll disdain me.
ANGELO
I’ll meet you at that place some hour hence.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.
Exeunt [Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, Angelo
and Balthazar. Exit separately Dromio of Syracuse].
[3.2]
Enter [LUCI
ANA] with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
LUCIANA
And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
5
Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness.
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth:
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;
10
Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger;
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
15
What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed
And let her read it in thy looks at board.
Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
20
Alas, poor women! Make us but believe,
Being compact of credit, that you love us;
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve:
We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
25
Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her ‘wife’.
’Tis holy sport to be a little vain
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Sweet mistress – what your name is else, I know not,
Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine –
30
Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
Lay open to my earthy, gross conceit –
Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak –
35
The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? Would you create me new?
Transform me, then, and to your power I’ll yield.
40
But if that I am I, then well I know,
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe.
Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
45
To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears:
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote.
Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I’ll take thee, and there lie,
And in that glorious supposition think
50
He gains by death that hath such means to die.
Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink!
LUCIANA
What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Not mad, but mated; how I do not know.
LUCIANA
It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
55
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA
Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA
Why call you me ‘love’? Call my sister so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Thy sister’s sister.
LUCIANA That’s my sister.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE No;
60
It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
My food, my fortune and my sweet hope’s aim,
My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
LUCIANA
All this my sister is, or else should be.
65
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Call thyself ‘sister’, sweet, for I am thee.
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife:
Give me thy hand. [Offers to take her hand.]
LUCIANA O, soft, sir, hold you still;
69
I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will. Exit.
Enter DROMIO [OF SYRACUSE, running].
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Why, how now, Dromio, where run’st thou so fast?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Do you know me, sir? Am I
Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am an ass, I am a woman’s
75
man, and besides myself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
What woman’s man? And how besides thyself?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, besides myself I am
due to a woman: one that claims me, one that haunts
me, one that will have me.
80
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What claim lays she to thee?
The Comedy of Errors Page 19
