Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;
I should have chid you for not bringing it,
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But like a shrew you first begin to brawl.
2 MERCHANT
The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.
ANGELO You hear how he importunes me; the chain!
ANTIPHOLUS E.
Why, give it to my wife and fetch your money.
ANGELO
Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.
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Either send the chain or send me by some token.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
Fie, now you run this humour out of breath;
Come, where’s the chain? I pray you let me see it.
2 MERCHANT My business cannot brook this dalliance;
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 E.
I answer you? What should I answer you?
ANGELO The money that you owe me for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS E. 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 E.
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 I do,
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And charge you in the duke’s name to obey me.
ANGELO This touches me in reputation;
Either consent to pay this sum for me,
Or I attach you by this officer.
ANTIPHOLUS E. Consent to pay thee that I never had?
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Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar’st.
ANGELO Here is thy fee, arrest him officer.
I would not spare my brother in this case
If he should scorn me so apparently.
OFFICER I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.
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ANTIPHOLUS E. I do obey thee, till I give thee bail.
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.
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Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE from the bay.
DROMIO S. Master, there’s a bark of Epidamnum
That stays but till her owner comes aboard,
And then she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
I have convey’d aboard, and I have bought
The oil, the balsamum and aqua-vitae.
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The ship is in her trim, the merry wind
Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at all
But for their owner, master, and yourself.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
How now? a madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,
What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?
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DROMIO S. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,
And told thee to what purpose and what end.
DROMIO S. You sent me for a rope’s end, sir, as soon;
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
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ANTIPHOLUS E.
I will debate this matter at more leisure,
And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight:
Give her this key, and tell her in the desk
That’s cover’d o’er with Turkish tapestry,
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There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.
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.
DROMIO S. To Adriana, – that is where we din’d,
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Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband;
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.
4.2 Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.
ADRIANA Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might’st thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?
Look’d 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.
10
LUCIANA Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA And what said he?
LUCIANA That love I begg’d for you, he begg’d 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 Did’st 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,
Ill-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
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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 wail’d 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.
DROMIO S.
Here, go: the desk; the purse; sweat now, make haste.
LUCIANA How hast thou lost thy breath?
DROMIO S. By running fast.
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ADRIANA Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?
DROMIO S. No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough,
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A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, 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 judgment, carries poor souls to
hell.
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ADRIANA Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO S.
I do not know the matter; he is ’rested on the case.
ADRIANA What, is he arrested? tell me at whose suit?
DROMIO S.
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; this I wonder at,
Exit Luciana.
That he unknown to me should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
DROMIO S. Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;
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A chain, a chain, do yo
u not hear it ring?
ADRIANA What, the chain?
DROMIO S. 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 S.
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 S.
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 money.
ADRIANA
Go, Dromio, there’s the money, bear it straight,
And bring thy master home immediately.
Come, sister, I am press’d down with conceit;
Conceit, my comfort and my injury. Exeunt.
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4.3 Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend,
And every one 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 call’d me in his shop,
And show’d me silks that he had bought for me,
And therewithal took measure of my body.
Sure these are but imaginary wiles,
10
And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.
Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
DROMIO S. Master, here’s the gold you sent me for:
what, have you got the picture of old Adam new-
apparelled?
ANTIPHOLUS S. What gold is this? What Adam dost
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thou mean?
DROMIO S. 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
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forsake your liberty.
ANTIPHOLUS S. I understand thee not.
DROMIO S. 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;
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he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives them
suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more
exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.
ANTIPHOLUS S. What, thou mean’st an officer?
DROMIO S. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band; he that
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brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; one
that thinks a man always going to bed, and says, ‘God
give you good rest’.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is
there any ship puts forth to-night? may we be gone?
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DROMIO S. Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since,
that the bark Expedition put forth tonight, and then
were you hindered by the sergeant to tarry for the hoy
Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver
you.
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ANTIPHOLUS S. The fellow is distract, and so am I,
And here we wander in illusions –
Some blessed power deliver us from hence!
Enter a Courtesan.
COURTESAN Well met, well met, master Antipholus;
I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now;
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Is that the chain you promis’d me to-day?
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Satan avoid, I charge thee tempt me not.
DROMIO S. Master, is this mistress Satan?
ANTIPHOLUS S. It is the devil.
DROMIO S. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil’s dam; and
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here she comes in the habit of a light wench, and
thereof comes that the wenches say ‘God damn me’,
that’s as much as to say, ‘God make me a light wench’.
It is written, they appear to men like angels of light;
light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 81
