Comedy of errors, p.6
Comedy of Errors, page 6
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
A reason? So I can eat lunch. I haven’t eaten today.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) And you won’t eat here today. Come again some other time.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Who do you think you are, keeping me out of my own house?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) I’m the doorkeeper for the moment, and my name is Dromio.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
You jerk! You’ve stolen both my job and my name! True, the job never did me much good, and my name only ever got me in trouble. If you were the Dromio in my shoes today, you would have felt like you traded your head for a target and your name for the name of “Ass.”
LUCE
(from offstage) What’s all the commotion, Dromio? Who’s at the door?1
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Luce, let my master in.
LUCE
(from offstage) No way, he’s too late. Tell your master that.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Oh, Lord, this makes me laugh! I’ll come at you with the old proverb: “Should I make myself at home?”
LUCE
(from offstage) I’ll come at you with another: “I’d like to see you try it!”
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) If your name’s Luce, then I say: Luce, good answer!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Listen up, you slave. Are you going to let us in?
LUCE
(from offstage) I was going to ask you that question.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) But you already answered no.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Come, help me bang on the door, master. Well done! We answered them, blow for blow.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You good-for-nothing, let me in.
LUCE
(from offstage) Says who?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Master, knock hard upon the door.
LUCE
(from offstage) He can knock till it hurts.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
If I break the door down, slave, you’ll be sorry for this.
LUCE
(from offstage) Why are we putting up with all this? The town’s got a pair of stocks.2
ADRIANA
(from offstage) Who’s making such a ruckus at the door?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) I swear, this town’s plagued by troublesome boys.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Is that you, wife? You could have come sooner.
ADRIANA
(from offstage) Your wife, you scoundrel? Get away from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
If she punishes you, master, she’s sure to punish me.
ANGELO
It looks like we’re not going to get food or welcome here.
BALTHASAR
We argued about which was best, and now we won’t get either one.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Master, your guests are just standing here. Tell them they’re welcome.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
There’s something strange in the air that’s keeping us from getting in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
And if your clothes were as thin as mine, you’d really feel the air. The food inside is warm, but you’re out here freezing. It would make any man as mad as a bull to be betrayed like this.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Go get me something I can use to break down the door.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) Break anything here and I’ll break your head.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I’ll break words with you, sir. And since words are just wind, I’ll be breaking wind right in your face.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) It seems you’re the one who needs to be broken. Be off with you, you dog!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I’ve had enough of this “off with you!” Come on, let me in!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
(from offstage) Of course—when birds have no feathers and fish have no fins.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Well, I’m going to break in. Go get me a crow.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
A crow without feathers? Master, do you really mean that? He said “when fish have no fins,” and you came back with a bird with no feathers. (to DROMIO OF SYRACUSE) If a crow gets us in, sirrah, then you and I will have a crow to pluck together.3
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
I meant a crowbar. Get going already.
BALTHASAR
Be patient, sir! Don’t do this! This will hurt your reputation and make your wife, who’s innocent, look suspicious. Look, you’ve known her a long time. She’s wise, serious, mature, and modest. All this suggests that she has a good reason for doing this to you. Let’s assume that she has a reason, which you don’t know yet: have faith that she’ll eventually explain why she shut the doors on you today. Listen to me. Be patient and leave, and we’ll all go to the Tiger for lunch. In the evening, come back alone and figure out this strange resistance. If you get violent and break in now, in broad daylight, people will talk about it. The common mob will presume things, and your untarnished reputation will be damaged—and that damage will last long after you’re dead. Slander passes from generation to generation, and once it sticks to a family, it’s there forever.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You’re right—I’ll go quietly. And even though I’m in a distasteful mood, I’ll work on being happy. I know a terrific wench. She’s beautiful and charming—a little wild, but also gentle. We’ll eat at her place. My wife has accused me more than once of misbehaving with this woman. I swear to her that I haven’t, but it doesn’t change anything. We’ll go to her place for lunch. (to ANGELO) Go get the necklace, which I’m sure is done by now. Bring it to the Porcupine, where this woman is. I’ll to give it to her, just to spite my wife. Hurry, good sir. Since my own doors refuse to admit me, I’ll knock somewhere else and see if they turn me away as well.
ANGELO
I’ll meet you there in an hour.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Do that. This little prank of hers is going to cost me.
They exit.
ACT 3, SCENE 2
Original Text
Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
LUCIANA
And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,
Even in the spring of love thy love-springs rot?
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
5
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness.
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth—
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness.
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
10
Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;
Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger.
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted.
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.
15
Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?
What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed
And let her read it in thy looks at board.
Shame hath a bastard fame, well managèd;
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Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
Alas, poor women, make us but believe,
Being compact of credit, that you love us.
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
25
Then, gentle brother, get you in again.
Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.
’Tis holy sport to be a little vain
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Sweet mistress—what your name is else I know not,
30
Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,—
Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.
Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
35
Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? would you create me new?
40
Transform me, then, and to your power I’ll yield.
But if that I am I, then well I know
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe.
Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
45
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note
To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.
Sing, Siren, for thyself, and I will dote.
Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I’ll take them and there lie,
50
And in that glorious supposition think
He gains by death that hath such means to die.
Let Love, being light, be drownèd if she sink.
LUCIANA
What, are you mad that you do reason so?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Not mad, but mated—how, I do not know.
LUCIANA
55
It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA
Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA
60
Why call you me “love”? Call my sister so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Thy sister’s sister.
LUCIANA
That’s my sister.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
No,
It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
65
My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
LUCIANA
All this my sister is, or else should be.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Call thyself “sister,” sweet, for I am thee.
Thee will I love and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
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Give me thy hand.
LUCIANA
O soft, sir! Hold you still.
I’ll fetch my sister to get her goodwill.
Exit LUCIANA
Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Why, how now, Dromio. Where runn’st thou so fast?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
75
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides myself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
What woman’s man? And how besides thyself?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, sir, besides myself I am due to a woman, one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
80
What claim lays she to thee?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast; not that I being a beast she would have me, but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
85
What is she?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
A very reverent body, ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without he say “sir-reverence.” I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
How dost thou mean a “fat marriage”?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
90
Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a week longer than the whole world.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
95
What complexion is she of?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Swart like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept. For why? She sweats. A man may go overshoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
That’s a fault that water will mend.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
100
No, sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
What’s her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Nell, sir, but her name and three quarters—that’s an ell and three quarters—will not measure her from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
105
No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip. She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, sir, in her buttocks. I found it out by the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
110
I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Where France?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
In her forehead, armed and reverted, making war against her heir.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
115
I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Where Spain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
120
Where America, the Indies?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
O, sir, upon her nose, all o’er-embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadas of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
125
Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me, call’d me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch.
130
And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel,
She had transformed me to a curtal dog and made me turn i’ th’ wheel.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Go, hie thee presently. Post to the road.
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
135
I will not harbor in this town tonight.
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If every one knows us, and we know none,
’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
140
As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
Exit DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
There’s none but witches do inhabit here,
And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence.
She that doth call me husband, even my soul
145
Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
Possessed with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
Hath almost made me traitor to myself.
But lest myself be guilty to self wrong,
150
I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.
Enter ANGELO with the chain
ANGELO
Master Antipholus.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Ay, that’s my name.
ANGELO
I know it well, sir. Lo, here’s the chain.
I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine;
The chain unfinished made me stay thus long.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
155
What is your will that I shall do with this?
ANGELO
What please yourself, sir. I have made it for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Made it for me, sir? I bespoke it not.
ANGELO
Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
Go home with it and please your wife withal,
160
And soon at supper time I’ll visit you
And then receive my money for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
ANGELO
You are a merry man, sir. Fare you well.
Exit ANGELO
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
165
What I should think of this I cannot tell,
But this I think: there’s no man is so vain
That would refuse so fair an offered chain.
I see a man here needs not live by shifts
When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay.
170
