The Comedy of Errors
Page 21
Come, where’s the chain? I pray you, let me see it.
2 MERCHANT
My business cannot brook this dalliance.
[to Antipholus] Good sir, say whe’er you’ll answer me or no.
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If not, I’ll leave him to the officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
I answer you? What should I answer you?
ANGELO
The money that you owe me for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
I owe you none till I receive the chain.
ANGELO
You know I gave it you half an hour since.
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ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You gave me none. You wrong me much to say so.
ANGELO
You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.
Consider how it stands upon my credit.
2 MERCHANT
Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
OFFICER [to Angelo] I do,
And charge you in the Duke’s name to obey me.
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ANGELO
This touches me in reputation.
[to Antipholus] Either consent to pay this sum for me,
Or I attach you by this officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Consent to pay thee that I never had?
Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar’st.
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ANGELO [Gives money to Officer.]
Here is thy fee: arrest him, officer.
– I would not spare my brother in this case
If he should scorn me so apparently.
OFFICER [to Antipholus]
I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
I do obey thee till I give thee bail.
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[to Angelo] But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
As all the metal in your shop will answer.
ANGELO
Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,
To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.
Enter DROMIO [OF SYRACUSE] from the bay.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Master, there’s a bark of Epidamium
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That stays but till her owner comes aboard;
And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
I have conveyed aboard, and I have bought
The oil, the balsamum and aqua-vitae.
The ship is in her trim; the merry wind
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Blows fair from land: they stay for naught at all
But for their owner, master, and yourself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
How now? A madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,
What ship of Epidamium stays for me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
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ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,
And told thee to what purpose and what end.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
You sent me for a rope’s end as soon!
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
I will debate this matter at more leisure,
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And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight:
[offering Dromio a key] Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk
That’s covered o’er with Turkish tapestry,
There is a purse of ducats: let her send it.
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Tell her I am arrested in the street
And that shall bail me. Hie thee, slave. Be gone!
– On, officer, to prison, till it come.
Exeunt [all but Dromio of Syracuse.]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
‘To Adriana’: that is where we dined,
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband;
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She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
Thither I must, although against my will,
For servants must their masters’ minds fulfil.
Exit [with the key.]
[4.2]
Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.
ADRIANA
Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Mightst thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?
Looked he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
What observation mad’st thou in this case
5
Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
LUCIANA
First he denied you had in him no right.
ADRIANA
He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
LUCIANA
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
ADRIANA
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
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LUCIANA
Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA And what said he?
LUCIANA
That love I begged for you, he begged of me.
ADRIANA
With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
LUCIANA
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
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ADRIANA
Didst speak him fair?
LUCIANA Have patience, I beseech.
ADRIANA
I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still;
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old and sere,
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Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
LUCIANA
Who would be jealous, then, of such a one?
No evil lost is wailed when it is gone.
ADRIANA
Ah, but I think him better than I say,
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And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse.
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.
Enter DROMIO [OF SYRACUSE, running, with the key].
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Offers the key.]
Here, go – the desk, the purse! Sweet now, make haste!
LUCIANA
How hast thou lost thy breath?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE By running fast.
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ADRIANA
Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell:
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
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A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff;
A backfriend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well,
One that before the Judgement carries poor souls to hell.
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ADRIANA
Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I do not know the matter; he is ’rested on the case.
ADRIANA
What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
But is in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell.
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Will you send him, mistress, redemption – the money in his desk?
ADRIANA
Go fetch it, sister. Exit Luciana [with the key].
– This I wonder at,
That he unknown to me should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Not on a band, but on a stronger thing:
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A chain, a chain – do you not hear it ring?
ADRIANA
What, the chain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, no, the bell; ’tis time that I were gone:
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
ADRIANA
The hours come back! That did I never hear.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
O, yes, if any hour meet a sergeant, ’a turns back for very fear.
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ADRIANA
As if time were in debt? How fondly dost thou reason!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he’s worth to season.
Nay, he’s a thief, too: have you not heard men say
That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
If ’a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
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Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?
Enter LUCIANA [with the purse].
ADRIANA [Offers the purse.]
Go, Dromio, there’s the money. Bear it straight
And bring thy master home immediately.
[Exit Dromio with the purse.]
Come, sister, I am pressed down with conceit:
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Conceit, my comfort and my injury. [Exeunt.]
[4.3]
Enter ANTIPHOLUS [OF SYRACUSE, with the chain].
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend,
And everyone doth call me by my name.
Some tender money to me; some invite me;
Some other give me thanks for kindnesses;
5
Some offer me commodities to buy.
Even now a tailor called me in his shop,
And showed me silks that he had bought for me,
And therewithal took measure of my body.
Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,
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And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.
Enter DROMIO [OF SYRACUSE, with the purse].
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, [presenting the purse]
here’s the gold you sent me for. – What, have you got
the picture of old Adam new-apparelled?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
What gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?
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DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not that Adam that kept the
paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison: he that
goes in the calf’s skin that was killed for the Prodigal;
he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and
bid you forsake your liberty.
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ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I understand thee not.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No? Why, ’tis a plain case: he
that went like a bass viol in a case of leather; the
man, sir, that when gentlemen are tired gives them a
sob and rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed