The Comedy of Errors The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] · William Shakespeare
ACT II.
_Adr._ This servitude makes you to keep unwed. _Luc._ Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed. _Adr._ But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway. _Luc._ Ere I learn love, I’ll practise to obey. _Adr._ How if your husband start some other where? 30 _Luc._ Till he come home again, I would forbear. _Adr._ Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause; They can be meek that have no other cause. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; 35 But were we burden’d with like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me; But, if thou live to see like right bereft, 40 This fool-begg’d patience in thee will be left. _Luc._ Well, I will marry one day, but to try. Here comes your man; now is your husband nigh. _Enter _DROMIO of Ephesus_._ _Adr._ Say, is your tardy master now at hand? _Dro. E._ Nay, he’s at two hands with me, and that my 45 two ears can witness. _Adr._ Say, didst thou speak with him? know’st thou his mind? _Dro. E._ Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear: Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it. _Luc._ Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his 50 meaning?
_Dro. E._ Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them. _Adr._ But say, I prithee, is he coming home? 55 It seems he hath great care to please his wife. _Dro. E._ Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad. _Adr._ Horn-mad, thou villain! _Dro. E._ I mean not cuckold-mad; But, sure, he is stark mad. When I desired him to come home to dinner, 60 He ask’d me for a thousand marks in gold: ‘’Tis dinner-time,’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he: ‘Your meat doth burn,’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he: ‘Will you come home?’ quoth I; ‘My gold!’ quoth he, ‘Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?’ 65 ‘The pig,’ quoth I, ‘is burn’d;’ ‘My gold!’ quoth he: ‘My mistress, sir,’ quoth I; ‘Hang up thy mistress! I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!’ _Luc._ Quoth who? _Dro. E._ Quoth my master: 70 ‘I know,’ quoth he, ‘no house, no wife, no mistress.’ So that my errand, due unto my tongue, I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; For, in conclusion, he did beat me there. _Adr._ Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. 75 _Dro. E._ Go back again, and be new beaten home? For God’s sake, send some other messenger.
_Adr._ Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. _Dro. E._ And he will bless that cross with other beating: Between you I shall have a holy head. 80 _Adr._ Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home. _Dro. E._ Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither: If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [_Exit._ 85 _Luc._ Fie, how impatience lowereth in your face! _Adr._ His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. Hath homely age the alluring beauty took From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it: 90 Are my discourses dull? barren my wit? If voluble and sharp discourse be marr’d, Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard: Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That’s not my fault; he’s master of my state: 95 What ruins are in me that can be found, By him not ruin’d? then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair: But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale, 100 And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale. _Luc._ Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence!
_Adr._ Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense. I know his eye doth homage otherwhere; Or else what lets it but he would be here? 105 Sister, you know he promised me a chain; Would that alone, alone he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed! I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still, 110 That others touch, and often touching will Wear gold: and no man that hath a name, By falsehood and corruption doth it shame. Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die. 115 _Luc._ How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! [_Exeunt._
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