The Comedy of Errors | Page 8

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 't'would be a bald
conclusion:
But, soft! who wafts us yonder?
[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.]
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 unurg'd 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-savour'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or
carv'd to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,

That thou art then 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 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,
Should'st 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 two be one, and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then fair league and
truce with thy true bed;
I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.
ANTIPHOLUS 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.
LUCIANA.
Fie, brother! how the world is chang'd with you:
When
were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio
home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
By Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
By me?

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 OF SYRACUSE.
Did you converse, sir, with this
gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I, sir? I never saw her till this time.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Villain, thou liest; for even her
very words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I never spake with her in all my life.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
How can she thus, then, call us by
our names,
Unless it be by inspiration?
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 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.
LUCIANA.
Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

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.
LUCIANA.
Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?
Dromio,
thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I am transformed, master, am not I?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
I think thou art in mind, and so
am I.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Nay, master, both in mind and in my
shape.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Thou hast thine own form.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
No, I am an ape.
LUCIANA.
If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
'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.
ADRIANA.
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:--
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