ACT 11 SCENE I-A Public Place. Enter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, and LUCIANA her sister. Adr. Neither my husband, nor the slave return'd, That in such haste I sent to seek his master? Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock. Luc. Perhaps, some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret. A man is master of his liberty: Time is their master; and, when they see time, They'll go, or come: if so, be patient, sister. Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more? Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door. Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. Luc. O! know he is the bridle of your will. Adr. There's none but asses will be bridled so. Luc. Why, head-strong liberty is lash'd with woe. There's nothing, situate under heaven's eye, But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subjects, and at their controls. Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world, and wild wat'ry seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords: Then, let your will attend on their accords. 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? Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear. Adr. Patience unmov'd, no marvel though she pause; They can be meek, that have no other cause. 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 is at two hands with me, and that my 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 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 pr'ythee, is he coming home? Adr. Horn-mad, thou villain! I mean not cuckold-mad; But, sure, he is stark mad. Dro. E. Quoth my master: I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress I thank him, I bear home upon my shoulders; Adr. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. 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. Adr. Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home. Dro. E. Am I so round with you, as you with me, That like a foot-ball 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. Luc. Fie, how impatience lowreth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took From my poor cheek? then, he hath wasted it: 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. I know his eye doth homage other where, Sister, you know, he promis'd me a chain: Will lose his beauty: yet though gold 'bides still, That thus so madly thou didst answer me? Dro. S. What answer, sir? when spake I such a word? Ant. S. Even now, even here, not half an hour since. Dro. S. I did not see you since you sent me hence, Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me. Ant. S. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt, And told'st me of a mistress, and a dinner; Dro. S. I am glad to see you in this merry vein. What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me. Ant. S. Yea, dost thou jeer, and flout me in the teeth? Think'st thou, I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. [Beating him. Dro. S. Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest : Upon what bargain do you give it me? Ant. S. Because that I familiarly sometimes Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, Your sauciness will jest upon my love, And make a common of my serious hours. these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, sir, why am I beaten? Ant. S. Dost thou not know? Dro. S. Nothing, sir; but that I am beaten. Dro. S. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for, they say, every why hath a wherefore. Ant. S. Why, first,-for flouting me; and then, wherefore, for urging it the second time to me. Dro. S. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When, in the why, and the wherefore, is neither rhyme nor reason? Well, sir, I thank you. Ant. S. Thank me, sir? for what? Dro. S. Marry, sir, for this something, that you gave me for nothing. Ant. S. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime? Dro. S. No, sir: I think, the meat wants that I have. Ant. S. In good time, sir; what's that? Ant. S. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. Dro. S If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it. Ant. S. Your reason? Dro. S. Lest it make you choleric; and purchase me another dry basting. Ant. S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a time for all things. Dro. S. I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. Ant. S. By what rule, sir? Dro. S. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself. Ant. S. Let's hear it. Dro. S. There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature. Ant. S. May he not do it by fine and recovery? Dro. S. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man. Ant. S. Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement? Dro. S. Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts: and what he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit. Ant. S. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. Dro. S. Not a man of those, but he hath the wit to lose his hair. Ant. S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers, without wit. Dro. S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. Ant. S. For what reason? Dro. S. For two; and sound ones too. Ant. S. Nay, not sound, I pray you. Dro. S. Sure ones then. Ant. S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. Dro. S. Certain ones then. Ant. S. Name them. Dro. S. The one, to save the money that he spends in 'tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge. Ant. S. You would all this time have proved, there is no time for all things. Dro. S. Marry, and did, sir; namely, e'en no time to recover hair lost by nature. Ant. S. But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover. Dro. S. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore, to the world's end, will have bald followers. Ant. S. I knew, 'twould be a bald conclusion. But soft! who wafts us yonder? Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. Adr. 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 would'st Ah, do not tear away thyself from me; As take from me thyself, and not me too. I know thou can'st; and therefore, see, thou do it, I am possess'd with an adulterate blot; Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; Ant. S. 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; Luc. Fie, brother: how the world is chang'd with you! When were you wont to use my sister thus? Dro. S. By me? Adr. 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. Ant. S. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course and drift of your compact? Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. Dro. S. I never spake with her in all my life. Ant. S. How can she thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration? Adr. 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, briar, or idle moss; Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion. If we obey them not, this will ensue, Dromio, thou Dromio, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am I not? Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form. Dro. S. grass. 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be. But I should know her, as well as she knows me. Adr. 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, Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter. her theme! What, was I married to her in my dream, Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this? I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy. Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. Dro. S. 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 elvish sprites. Come, sister.-Dromio, play the porter well. Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Dro. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? ACT SCENE I.-The Same. If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink, Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, Your own hand-writing would tell you what I ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR. Ant. E. Good signior Angelo, you must excuse us all; My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours. Dro. E. Say what you will, sir; but I know what That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show: think. |