Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep, then, fair league and truce with thy true bed;
I live distain'd, thou undishonoured.

Ant. S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

As strange unto your town as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

150

Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you! When were you wont to use my sister thus?

She sent for you by Dromie home to dinner.

Ant. S. By Dromio?

Dro. S. By me?

Adr. By thee; and this thou didst return from him,

160

That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows,
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
Ant. S. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?

Dro. S. I, sir? I never saw her till this time.
Ant. S. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

Dro. S. I never spake with her in all my life.
Ant. S. How can she thus then call us by our names?
Unless it be by inspiration.

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity

To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, i a vine,

Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,

170

Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.

180

Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
What, was I married to her in my dream?

Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this sure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.
Dro. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
This is the fairy land: O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,

190

They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why pratest thou to thyself, and answer'st not?

Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am not I?

Ant. S. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.

Dro. S. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.
Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form.

Dro. S.

No, I am an ape.

Luc. If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.
Dro. S. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.

'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be

But I should know her as well as she knows me.

Adr. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.
Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.

200

Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,

Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.
Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.
Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?

Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I'll say as they say, and persever so,
And in this mist at all adventures go.

Dro. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?

210

Adr. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. 219 Luc. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

ACT THIRD.

Scene I.

[Exeunt.

Before the house of Antipholus of Ephesus.

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Ephesus, Angelo, and Balthazar.

Ant. E. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;
My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours:
Say that I linger'd with you at your shop
To see the making of her carcanet,

And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
But here's a villain that would face me down;
He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,
And charged him with a thousand marks in gold,
And that I did deny my wife and house.

9

Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this? Dro. E. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know;

« PreviousContinue »