SCENE II. A public place. The Comedy of Errors  Shakespeare homepage  |  Comedy of Errors  | Act 2, Scene 2 

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 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 demeanor 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 ensconce 

 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 dinner-time? 

 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, then. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  Certain ones then. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Name them. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  The one, to save the money that he spends in 

 trimming; the other, that at dinner they should not 

 drop in his porridge. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  You would all this time have proved there is no 

 time for all things. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair 

 lost by nature. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  But your reason was not substantial, why there is no 

 time to recover. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore 

 to the world's end will have bald followers. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion: 

 But, soft! who wafts us yonder? 



 Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA  ADRIANA  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 unurged wouldst vow 

 That never words were music to thine ear, 

 That never object pleasing in thine eye, 

 That never touch well welcome to thy hand, 

 That never meat sweet-savor'd in thy taste, 

 Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee. 

 How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, 

 That thou art thus estranged from thyself? 

 Thyself I call it, being strange to me, 

 That, undividable, incorporate, 

 Am better than thy dear self's better part. 

 Ah, do not tear away thyself from me! 

 For know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall 

 A drop of water in the breaking gulf, 

 And take unmingled that same drop again, 

 Without addition or diminishing, 

 As take from me thyself and not me too. 

 How dearly would it touch me to the quick, 

 Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious 

 And that this body, consecrate to thee, 

 By ruffian lust should be contaminate! 

 Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me 

 And hurl the name of husband in my face 

 And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow 

 And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring 

 And break it with a deep-divorcing vow? 

 I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it. 

 I am possess'd with an adulterate blot; 

 My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: 

 For if we too be one and thou play false, 

 I do digest the poison of thy flesh, 

 Being strumpeted by thy contagion. 

 Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed; 

 I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  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; 

 Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd, 

 Want wit in all one word to understand. 

 LUCIANA  Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you! 

 When were you wont to use my sister thus? 

 She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  By Dromio? 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  By me? 

 ADRIANA  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. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman? 

 What is the course and drift of your compact? 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  I, sir? I never saw her till this time. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Villain, thou liest; for even her very words 

 Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  I never spake with her in all my life. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  How can she thus then call us by our names, 

 Unless it be by inspiration. 

 ADRIANA  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, brier, or idle moss; 

 Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion 

 Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme: 

 What, was I married to her in my dream? 

 Or sleep I now and think I hear all this? 

 What error drives our eyes and ears amiss? 

 Until I know this sure uncertainty, 

 I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy. 

 LUCIANA  Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  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 sprites: 

 If we obey them not, this will ensue, 

 They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. 

 LUCIANA  Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not? 

 Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  I am transformed, master, am I not? 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  I think thou art in mind, and so am I. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Thou hast thine own form. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  No, I am an ape. 

 LUCIANA  If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  'Tis true; she rides me and I long for grass. 

 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be 

 But I should know her as well as she knows me. 

 ADRIANA  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, 

 Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter. 

 Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well. 

 ANTIPHOLUS 

 OF SYRACUSE  Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? 

 Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised? 

 Known unto these, and to myself disguised! 

 I'll say as they say and persever so, 

 And in this mist at all adventures go. 

 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE  Master, shall I be porter at the gate? 

 ADRIANA  Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. 

 LUCIANA  Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. 



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