THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Act 2 Scene 2

(Enter Antipholus of Syracuse)
l1l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
l2l		Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave
l3l		Is wandered forth in care to seek me out.
l4l		By computation and mine host’s report,
l5l		I could not speak with Dromio since at first
l6l		I sent him from the mart! See, here he comes.
		(Enter Dromio of Syracuse)
l7l		How now, sir, is your merry humour altered?
l8l		As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
l9l		You know no Centaur? You received no gold?
l10l		Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?
l11l		My house was at the Phoenix?—Wast thou mad,
l12l		That thus so madly thou didst answer me?
l13l	Dromio Of Syracuse	What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?
l14l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Even now, even here, not half an hour since.
l15l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I did not see you since you sent me hence
l16l		Home to the Centaur with the gold you gave me.
l17l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Villain, thou didst deny the gold’s receipt,
l18l		And told’st me of a mistress and a dinner,
l19l		For which I hope thou felt’st I was displeased.
l20l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I am glad to see you in this merry vein.
l21l		What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.
l22l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
l23l		Think’st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
		(He beats Dromio)
l24l	Dromio Of Syracuse	 Hold, sir, for God’s sake—now your jest is earnest!
l25l		Upon what bargain do you give it me?
l26l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Because that I familiarly sometimes
l27l		Do use you for my fool, and chat with you,
l28l		Your sauciness will jest upon my love,
l29l		And make a common of my serious hours.
l30l		When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport,
l31l		But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
l32l		If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
l33l		And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
l34l		Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
l35l	Dromio Of Syracuse	 “Sconce” call you it? So you would
l36l		leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you
l37l		use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head,
l38l		and ensconce it too, or else I shall seek my wit in my
l39l		shoulders. But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
l40l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Dost thou not know?
l41l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.
l42l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Shall I tell you why?
l43l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Ay, sir, and wherefore# for they say
l44l		every why hath a wherefore.
l45l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 “Why” first: for flouting me# and then “wherefore”:
l46l		For urging it the second time to me.
l47l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
l48l		When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?—
l49l		Well, sir, I thank you.
	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Thank me, sir, for what?
l50l	Dromio Of Syracuse	 Marry, sir, for this something that
l51l		you gave me for nothing.
l52l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	I’ll make you amends next, to
l53l		give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it
l54l		dinner-time?
l55l	Dromio Of Syracuse	No, sir, I think the meat wants that
l56l		I have.
l57l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	In good time, sir. What’s that?
l58l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Basting.
l59l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Well, sir, then ’twill be dry.
l60l	Dromio Of Syracuse	If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.
l61l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Your reason?
l62l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Lest it make you choleric and
l63l		purchase me another dry basting.
l64l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Well, sir, learn to jest in good
l65l		time. There’s a time for all things.
l66l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I durst have denied that before you
l67l		were so choleric.
l68l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	By what rule, sir?
l69l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the
l70l		plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
l71l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Let’s hear it.
l72l	Dromio Of Syracuse	There’s no time for a man to recover
l73l		his hair that grows bald by nature.
l74l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	May he not do it by fine and
l75l		recovery?
l76l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and
l77l		recover the lost hair of another man.
l78l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Why is Time such a niggard of
l79l		hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
l80l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Because it is a blessing that he
l81l		bestows on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in
l82l		hair he hath given them in wit.
l83l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Why, but there’s many a man
l84l		hath more hair than wit.
l85l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Not a man of those but he hath the
l86l		wit to lose his hair.
l87l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Why, thou didst conclude hairy
l88l		men plain dealers, without wit.
l89l	Dromio Of Syracuse	The plainer dealer, the sooner lost.
l90l		Yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
l91l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	For what reason?
l92l	Dromio Of Syracuse	For two, and sound ones too.
l93l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Nay, not sound, I pray you.
l94l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Sure ones, then.
l95l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
l96l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Certain ones, then.
l97l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Name them.
l98l	Dromio Of Syracuse	The one, to save the money that he
l99l		spends in tiring# the other, that at dinner they should
l100l		not drop in his porridge.
l101l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	You would all this time have
l102l		proved there is no time for all things.
l103l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, and did, sir: namely, e’en no
l104l		time to recover hair lost by nature.
l105l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	But your reason was not substantial,
l106l		why there is no time to recover.
l107l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,
l108l		and therefore to the world’s end will have bald
l109l		followers.
l110l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	I knew ’twould be a bald conclusion.
	112 
		(Enter from the Phoenix Adriana and Luciana)
		 But soft—who wafts us yonder?
l113l	Adriana	 Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:
l114l		Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects.
l115l		I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
l116l		The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
l117l		That never words were music to thine ear,
l118l		That never object pleasing in thine eye,
l119l		That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
l120l		That never meat sweet-savoured in thy taste,
l121l		Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.
l122l		How comes it now, my husband, O how comes it
l123l		That thou art then estrangèd from thyself?—
l124l		Thy “self” I call it, being strange to me
l125l		That, undividable, incorporate,
l126l		Am better than thy dear self’s better part.
l127l		Ah, do not tear away thyself from me#
l128l		For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
l129l		A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
l130l		And take unmingled thence that drop again
l131l		Without addition or diminishing,
l132l		As take from me thyself, and not me too.
l133l		How dearly would it touch thee to the quick
l134l		Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,
l135l		And that this body, consecrate to thee,
l136l		By ruffian lust should be contaminate?
l137l		Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurn at me,
l138l		And hurl the name of husband in my face,
l139l		And tear the stained skin off my harlot brow,
l140l		And from my false hand cut the wedding ring,
l141l		And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
l142l		I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it!
l143l		I am possessed with an adulterate blot#
l144l		My blood is mingled with the crime of lust.
l145l		For if we two be one, and thou play false,
l146l		I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
l147l		Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
l148l		Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed,
l149l		I live unstained, thou undishonourèd.
l150l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not.
l151l		In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
l152l		As strange unto your town as to your talk,
l153l		Who, every word by all my wit being scanned,
l154l		Wants wit in all one word to understand.
l155l	Luciana	Fie, brother, how the world is changed with you!
l156l		When were you wont to use my sister thus?
l157l		She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
l158l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	By Dromio?
l159l	Dromio Of Syracuse	By me?
l160l	Adriana	By thee# and this thou didst return from him—
l161l		That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
l162l		Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
l163l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
l164l		What is the course and drift of your compact?
l165l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I, sir? I never saw her till this time.
l166l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Villain, thou liest# for even her very words
l167l		Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
l168l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I never spake with her in all my life.
l169l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	How can she thus then call us by our names?—
l170l		Unless it be by inspiration.
l171l	Adriana	How ill agrees it with your gravity
l172l		To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
l173l		Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
l174l		Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
l175l		But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
l176l		Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine.
l177l		Thou art an elm, my husband# I a vine,
l178l		Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
l179l		Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
l180l		If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
l181l		Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss,
l182l		Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
l183l		Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.
l184l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	(aside)
		 To me she speaks, she moves me for her theme.
l185l		What, was I married to her in my dream?
l186l		Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
l187l		What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
l188l		Until I know this sure uncertainty,
l189l		I’ll entertain the offered fallacy.
l190l	Luciana	Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.
l191l	Dromio Of Syracuse	(aside)
		 O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
l192l		This is the fairy land. O spite of spites,
l193l		We talk with goblins, oafs, and sprites.
l194l		If we obey them not, this will ensue:
l195l		They’ll suck our breath or pinch us black and blue.
l196l	Luciana	Why prat’st thou to thyself, and answer’st not?
l197l		Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot.
l198l	Dromio Of Syracuse	(to Antipholus)
		 I am transformèd, master, am not I?
l199l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	I think thou art in mind, and so am I.
l200l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.
l201l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Thou hast thine own form. 
	Dromio Of Syracuse	No, I am an ape.
l202l	Luciana	If thou art changed to aught, ’tis to an ass.
l203l	Dromio Of Syracuse	(to Antipholus)
		 ’Tis true she rides me, and I long for grass.
l204l		’Tis so, I am an ass# else it could never be
l205l		But I should know her as well as she knows me.
l206l	Adriana	Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
l207l		To put the finger in the eye and weep
l208l		Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.
l209l		(To Antipholus)
		 Come, sir, to dinner.—Dromio, keep the gate.—
l210l		Husband, I’ll dine above with you today,
l211l		And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.—
l212l		Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
l213l		Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.—
l214l		Come, sister.—Dromio, play the porter well.
l215l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	(aside)
		 Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
l216l		Sleeping or waking? Mad or well advised?
l217l		Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
l218l		I’ll say as they say, and persever so,
l219l		And in this mist at all adventures go.
l220l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Master, shall I be porter at the gate?
l221l	Adriana	Ay, and let none enter, lest I break your pate.
l222l	Luciana	Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.
		(Exeunt into the Phoenix)
	[[ACT INTERVAL]]