The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 77
(Unseen, inquisitive) confounds himself.
So I, to find a mother and a brother,
In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.
40
Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Here comes the almanac of my true date:
What now? How chance thou art return’d so soon?
DROMIO E.
Return’d so soon? rather approach’d too late;
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;
45
My mistress made it one upon my cheek;
She is so hot because the meat is cold;
The meat is cold because you come not home;
You come not home because you have no stomach;
You have no stomach having broke your fast;
50
But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray,
Are penitent for your default to-day.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Stop in your wind, sir, tell me this I pray:
Where have you left the money that I gave you?
DROMIO E. O, sixpence that I had o’ Wednesday last,
55
To pay the saddler for my mistress’ crupper:
The saddler had it, sir, I kept it not.
ANTIPHOLUS S. I am not in a sportive humour now:
Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
We being strangers here, how dar’st thou trust
60
So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO E. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner:
I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return I shall be post indeed,
For she will scour your fault upon my pate.
65
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Come Dromio, come, these jests are out of season,
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this;
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
70
DROMIO E. To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast dispos’d thy charge.
DROMIO E.
My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner;
75
My mistress and her sister stays for you.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Now as I am a Christian, answer me
In what safe place you have bestow’d my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undispos’d;
80
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate;
Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders;
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
85
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Thy mistress’ marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?
DROMIO E.
Your worship’s wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
90
ANTIPHOLUS S.
What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
DROMIO E.
What mean you, sir? for God’s sake hold your hands.
Nay, and you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels. Exit.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Upon my life, by some device or other
95
The villain is o’er-raught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
100
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin:
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I’ll to the Centaur to go seek this slave;
I greatly fear my money is not safe. Exit.
105
2.1 Enter ADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, with LUCIANA, her sister.
ADRIANA Neither my husband nor the slave return’d,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master?
Sure, Luciana, it is two o’clock.
LUCIANA Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he’s somewhere gone to dinner.
5
Good sister let us dine, and never fret;
A man is master of his liberty;
Time is their master, and when they see time,
They’ll go or come; if so, be patient, sister.
ADRIANA Why should their liberty than ours be more?
10
LUCIANA Because their business still lies out o’door.
ADRIANA Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
LUCIANA O, know he is the bridle of your will.
ADRIANA There’s none but asses will be bridled so.
LUCIANA Why, headstrong liberty is lash’d with woe.
15
There’s nothing situate under heaven’s eye
But hath his bound in earth, in sea, in sky.
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls
Are their males’ subjects, and at their controls;
Man, more divine, the master of all these,
20
Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords:
Then let your will attend on their accords.
25
ADRIANA This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
LUCIANA Not this, but troubles of the marriage bed.
ADRIANA
But were you wedded you would bear some sway.
LUCIANA Ere I learn love, I’ll practise to obey.
ADRIANA
How if your husband start some other where?
30
LUCIANA Till he come home again I would forbear.
ADRIANA
Patience unmov’d! no marvel though she pause;
They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul bruis’d with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
35
But were we burden’d with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain:
So thou that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience would relieve me;
But if thou live to see like right bereft,
40
This fool-begg’d patience in thee will be left.
LUCIANA Well, I will marry one day but to try.
Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.
Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
ADRIANA Say, is your tardy master now at hand?
DROMIO E. Nay, he’s at two hands with me, and that my
45
two ears can witness.
ADRIANA Say, didst thou speak with him? knowst thou
his mind?
DROMIO E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear,
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.
50
LUCIANA Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel
his meaning?
DROMIO E. Nay, he struck so plainly I could too well feel
his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce
understand them.
&nb
sp; 55
ADRIANA But say, I prithee, is he coming home?
It seems he hath great care to please his wife.
DROMIO E.
Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.
ADRIANA Horn-mad, thou villain?
DROMIO E. I mean not cuckold-mad,
But sure he is stark mad.
60
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 will burn’, quoth I; ‘my gold’, quoth he,
‘Will you come?’, quoth I; ‘my gold’, quoth he,
65
‘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?
70
DROMIO E. 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.
75
ADRIANA
Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.
DROMIO E. 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 E.
And he will bless that cross with other beating;
80
Between you I shall have a holy head.
ADRIANA
Hence, prating peasant, fetch thy master home.
DROMIO E. 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;
85
If I last in this service you must case me in leather.
Exit.
LUCIANA Fie, how impatience loureth in your face.
ADRIANA His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.
Hath homely age th’alluring beauty took
90
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?
95
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;
100
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,
105
Or else what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know he promis’d me a chain;
Would that alone a toy he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed:
I see the jewel best enamelled
110
Will lose his beauty: yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and 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,
115
I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die.
LUCIANA How many fond fools serve mad jealousy?
Exeunt.
2.2 Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
ANTIPHOLUS S. 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
5
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?
10
My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad
That thus so madly thou didst answer me?
DROMIO S.
What answer, sir? when spake I such a word?
ANTIPHOLUS S.