The Comedy of Errors
ACT IV SCENE II | The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. | |
[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? | ||
Look’d he or red or pale, or sad or merrily? | ||
What observation madest 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. | 15 |
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech. | ||
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. | 20 | |
He is deformed, crooked, old and sere, | ||
Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere; | ||
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; | ||
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. | ||
LUCIANA | Who would be jealous then of such a one? | 25 |
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone. | ||
ADRIANA | Ah, but I think him better than I say, | |
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. | 30 | |
[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] | ||
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Here! go; the desk, the purse! sweet, now, make haste. | |
LUCIANA | How hast thou lost thy breath? | |
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | By running fast. | |
ADRIANA | Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well? | |
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell. | 35 |
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; | ||
A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff; | ||
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that | 40 | |
countermands | ||
The passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands; | ||
A hound that runs counter and yet draws dryfoot well; | ||
One that before the judgement carries poor souls to hell. | ||
ADRIANA | Why, man, what is the matter? | 45 |
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 he’s in a suit of buff which ‘rested him, that can I tell. | ||
Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk? | 50 | |
ADRIANA | Go fetch it, sister. | |
[Exit Luciana] | ||
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; | 55 |
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. | 60 | |
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. | ||
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 | 65 |
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 Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way, | ||
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day? | 70 | |
[Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse] | ||
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] |
Next: The Comedy of Errors, Act 4, Scene 3