The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare (find a book to read txt) 📕

impatience loureth in your face! Adriana

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:
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:
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
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.

Luciana Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence! Adriana

Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
Or else what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know he promised me a chain;
Would that alone, a love 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,
That others touch, yet 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.

Luciana How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! Exeunt. Scene II

A public place.

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Syracuse

The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave
Is wander’d forth, in care to seek me out
By computation and mine host’s report.
I could not speak with Dromio since at first
I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse.

How now, sir! is your merry humour alter’d?
As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
You know no Centaur? you received no gold?
Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?
My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad,
That thus so madly thou didst answer me?

Dromio of Syracuse What answer, sir? when spake I such a word? Antipholus of Syracuse Even now, even here, not half an hour since. Dromio of Syracuse

I did not see you since you sent me hence,
Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Villain, thou didst deny the gold’s receipt
And told’st me of a mistress and a dinner;
For which, I hope, thou felt’st I was displeased.

Dromio of Syracuse

I am glad to see you in this merry vein:
What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.

Antipholus of Syracuse

Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
Think’st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. Beating him.

Dromio of Syracuse

Hold, sir, for God’s sake! now your jest is earnest:
Upon what bargain do you give it me?

Antipholus of Syracuse

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.
When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
If you will jest with me, know my aspect
And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.

Dromio of Syracuse Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: an you use 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? Antipholus of Syracuse Dost thou not know? Dromio of Syracuse Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. Antipholus of Syracuse Shall I tell you why? Dromio of Syracuse Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore. Antipholus of Syracuse

Why, first⁠—for flouting me; and then, wherefore⁠—
For urging it the second time to me.

Dromio of Syracuse

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.

Antipholus of Syracuse Thank me, sir! for what? Dromio of Syracuse Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. Antipholus of Syracuse I’ll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime? Dromio of Syracuse No, sir: I think the meat wants that I have. Antipholus of Syracuse In good time, sir; what’s that? Dromio of Syracuse Basting. Antipholus of Syracuse Well, sir, then ’twill be dry. Dromio of Syracuse If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it. Antipholus of Syracuse Your reason? Dromio of Syracuse Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting. Antipholus of Syracuse Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there’s a time for all things. Dromio of Syracuse I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. Antipholus of Syracuse By what rule, sir? Dromio of Syracuse Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself. Antipholus of Syracuse Let’s hear it. Dromio of Syracuse There’s no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature. Antipholus of Syracuse May he not do it by fine and recovery? Dromio of Syracuse Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig and recover the lost hair of another man. Antipholus of Syracuse Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement? Dromio of Syracuse Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit. Antipholus of Syracuse Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit. Dromio of Syracuse Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair. Antipholus of Syracuse Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. Dromio of Syracuse The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. Antipholus of Syracuse For what reason? Dromio of Syracuse For two; and sound ones too. Antipholus of Syracuse Nay, not sound, I pray you. Dromio of Syracuse Sure ones