The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 102
The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
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
So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
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.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
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?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.
My mistress and her sister stays for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Now, as I am a Christian, answer me
In what safe place you have bestowed my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undisposed.
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
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,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Thy mistress’ marks? What mistress, slave, hast thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
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.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave!
He beats Dromio
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
What mean you, sir? For God’s sake, hold your hands!
Nay, an you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels. Exit
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Upon my life, by some device or other
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,
Disguisèd cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many suchlike libertines 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
2.1 Enter ⌈from the Phoenix⌉ Adriana, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, with Luciana, her sister
ADRIANA
Neither my husband nor the slave returned
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.
Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.
A man is master of his liberty.
Time is their mistress, and when they see time
They’ll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.
ADRIANA
Why should their liberty than ours be more?
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 lashed with woe.
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,
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.
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 otherwhere?
LUCIANA
Till he come home again, I would forbear.
ADRIANA
Patience unmoved! No marvel though she pause:
They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry.
But were we burdened 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,
This fool-begged patience in thee will be left.
LUCIANA
Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
Enter Dromio of Ephesus
Here comes your man. Now is your husband nigh.
ADRIANA
Say, is your tardy master now at hand?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he’s at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness.
ADRIANA
Say, didst thou speak with him? Know’st thou his mind?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I? Ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.
LUCIANA
Spake he so doubtfully thou couldst not feel his meaning?
DROMIO OF RPHESUS Nay, he struck so plainly I could too well feel his blows, and withal so doubtfully that I could scarce under-stand them.
ADRIANA
But say, I prithee, is he coming home?
It seems he hath great care to please his wife.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.
ADRIANA Horn-mad, thou villain?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I mean not cuckold-mad, but sure he is stark mad.
When I desired him to come home to dinner,
He asked me for a thousand marks in gold.
‘’Tis dinner-time,’ quoth I. ‘My gold,’ quoth he.
‘Your meat doth burn,’ quoth I. ‘My gold,’ quoth he.
‘Will you come home?’ quoth I. ‘My gold,’ quoth he;
‘Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?’
‘The pig’, quoth I, ‘is burned.’ ‘My gold!’ quoth he.
‘My mistress, sir—’ quoth I. ‘Hang up thy mistress!
I know thy mistress not. Out on thy mistress!’
LUCIANA Quoth who?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS 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.
ADRIANA
Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Go back again and be new beaten home?
For God’s sake, send some other messenger.
ADRIANA A
Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
An he will bless that cross with other beating,
Between you I shall have a holy head.
ADRIANA
Hence, prating peasant. Fetch thy master home.
She beats Dromio
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
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.
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.
Exit
LUCIANA (to Adriana)
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
From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.
Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marred,
Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.
Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
That’s not my fault: he’s master of my state.
What ruins are in me that can be found
By him not ruined? Then is he the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair.
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,
Or else what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know he promised me a chain.
Would that alone o’ love he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed.
I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose her beauty. Yet the gold bides still
That others touch; and often touching will
Wear gold, and yet no man that hath a name
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die.
LUCIANA
How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!
⌈Exeunt into the Phoenix⌉
2.2 Enter Antipholus of Syracuse
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave
Is wandered forth in care to seek me out.
By computation and mine host’s report,
I could not speak with Dromio since at first
I sent him from the mart! See, here he comes.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse
How now, sir, is your merry humour altered?
As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
You know no Centaur? You received no gold?
Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?
My house was at the Phoenix?—Wast thou mad,
That thus so madly thou didst answer me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Even now, even here, not half an hour since.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I did not see you since you sent me hence
Home to the Centaur with the gold you gave me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Villain, thou didst deny the gold’s receipt,
And told‘st me of a mistress and a dinner,
For which I hope thou felt’st I was displeased.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I am glad to see you in this merry vein.
What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
Think’st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
He beats Dromio
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Hold, sir, for God’s sake—now your jest is earnest!
Upon what bargain do you give it me?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Because that I familiarly sometimes
Do use you for my fool, and chat with you,
Your sauciness will jest upon my love,
And make a common of my serious hours.
When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE ‘Sconce’ call you it? So you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and ensconce it too, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Dost thou not know?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Shall I tell you why?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
‘Why’ first: for flouting me; and then ‘wherefore’:
For urging it the second time to me.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme
nor reason?—
Well, sir, I thank you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thank me, sir, for what?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. 51
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I’ll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, sir, I think the meat wants that I have. 56
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE In good time, sir. What’s that?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Well, sir, then ’twill be dry.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Your reason? 61
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Well, sir, learn to jest in good time. There’s a time for all things. 65
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I durst have denied that before you were so choleric.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE By what rule, sir?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Let’s hear it.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE There’s no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE May he not do it by fine and recovery?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man.
ANTIPHOLUS or SYRACUSE Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
DROMIO or SYRACUSE Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit. 82
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers, without wit.
DR
OMIO OF SYRACUSE The plainer dealer, the sooner lost. Yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE For what reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE For two, and sound ones too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Nay, not sound, I pray you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Sure ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Certain ones, then. 96
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Name them.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE You would all this time have proved there is no time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, and did, sir: namely, e’en no time to recover hair lost by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore to the world’s end will have bald followers.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I knew ’twould be a bald conclusion.
Enter ⌈from the Phoenix⌉ Adriana and Luciana
But soft—who wafts us yonder?
ADRIANA
Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects.
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savoured in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O how comes it
That thou art then estranged from thysetf?—
Thy ‘self’ I call it, being strange to me
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self’s better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick
Shouldst 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 stained skin off my harlot brow,