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 changed with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 pratest thou to thyself and answer’st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am transformed, master, am I not?
OF SYRACUSE I think thou art in mind, and so am I.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.
OF SYRACUSE Thou hast thine own form.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, I am an ape.
LUCIANA If thou art changed 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 laugh 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 dines forth, and let no creature enter.
Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.
OF SYRACUSE 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.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, shall I be porter at the gate?
ADRIANA Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.
LUCIANA Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.
Exeunt
Act 3
Scene 1
Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.
Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR
OF EPHESUS 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.
Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know;
That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show:
If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
OF EPHESUS I think thou art an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Marry, so it doth appear
By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick, being kick’d; and, being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.
OF EPHESUS You’re sad, Signior Balthazar: pray God our cheer
May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
BALTHAZAR I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your
welcome dear.
OF EPHESUS O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,
A table full of welcome make scarce one dainty dish.
BALTHAZAR Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.
OF EPHESUS And welcome more common; for that’s nothing but words.
BALTHAZAR Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
OF EPHESUS Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest:
But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;
Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.
But, soft! my door is lock’d. Go bid them let us in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicel, Gillian, Ginn!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb,
idiot, patch!
Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.
Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call’st
for such store,
When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS What patch is made our porter? My master stays in
the street.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Let him walk from whence he came, lest he
catch cold on’s feet.
OF EPHESUS Who talks within there? ho, open the door!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Right, sir; I’ll tell you when, an you tell
me wherefore.
OF EPHESUS Wherefore? for my dinner: I have not dined to-day.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Nor to-day here you must not; come again
when you may.
OF EPHESUS What art thou that keepest me out from the house I owe?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
The porter for this time, sir, and my name
is Dromio.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS O villain! thou hast stolen both mine office and my name.
The one ne’er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,
Thou wouldst have changed thy face for a name or thy
name for an ass.
LUCE [Within]
What a coil is there, Dromio? who are those
at the gate?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Let my master in, Luce.
LUCE [Within]
Faith, no; he comes too late;
And so tell your master.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS O Lord, I must laugh!
Have at you with a proverb–Shall I set in my staff?
LUCE [Within]
Have at you with another; that’s–When?
can you tell?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
If thy name be call’d Luce–Luce, thou hast
answered him well.
ANTIPHOLUS Do you hear, you minion? you’ll let us in, I hope?
LUCE [Within]
I thought to have asked you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
And you said no.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS So, come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow.
OF EPHESUS Thou baggage, let me in.
LUCE [Within]
Can you tell for whose sake?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Master, knock the door hard.
LUCE [Within]
Let him knock till it ache.
OF EPHESUS You’ll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.
LUCE [Within]
What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?
ADRIANA [Within]
Who is that at the door that keeps all
this noise?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
By my troth, your town is troubled with
unruly boys.
OF EPHESUS Are you there, wife? you might have come before.
ADRIANA [Within]
Your wife, sir knave! go get you from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS If you went in pain, master, this ‘knave’ would go sore.
ANGELO Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome: we would
fain have either.
BALTHAZAR In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.
OF EPHESUS There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.
Your cake there is warm within; you stand here in the cold: