Comedy Of Errors

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


Certain ones then.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


Name them.

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


The one, to save the money that he spends in
trimming; the other, that at dinner they should not
drop in his porridge.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


You would all this time have proved there is no
time for all things.

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair
lost by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


But your reason was not substantial, why there is no
time to recover.

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore
to the world's end will have bald followers.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion:
But, soft! who wafts us yonder?

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

 

[Guru]

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-savor'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thyself?
Thyself 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 mayest thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled that same drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch me 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 stain'd skin off my harlot-brow
And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.
I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we too be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


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,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

 

[Guru]

LUCIANA


Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


By Dromio?

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


By me?

 

[Guru]

ADRIANA


By thee; and this thou didst return from him,
That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows,
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


I, sir? I never saw her till this time.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


I never spake with her in all my life.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


How can she thus then call us by our names,
Unless it be by inspiration.

 

[Guru]

ADRIANA


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,
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.
ANTIPHOLUS

 

[Guru]

OF SYRACUSE


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.

 

[Guru]

LUCIANA


Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


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,
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.

 

[Guru]

LUCIANA


Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

 

[Guru]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE


I am transformed, master, am I not?
ANTIPHOLUS