The Comedy of Errors

A hall in the Duke’s palace.

Enter Duke, Aegeon, Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants.

Aegeon

Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall And by the doom of death end woes and all.

Duke

Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more; I am not partial to infringe our laws: The enmity and discord which of late Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen, Who wanting guilders to redeem their lives Have seal’d his rigorous statutes with their bloods, Excludes all pity from our threatening looks. For, since the mortal and intestine jars ’Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us, It hath in solemn synods been decreed, Both by the Syracusians and ourselves, To admit no traffic to our adverse towns: Nay, more, If any born at Ephesus be seen At any Syracusian marts and fairs; Again: if any Syracusian born Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies, His goods confiscate to the duke’s dispose, Unless a thousand marks be levied, To quit the penalty and to ransom him. Thy substance, valued at the highest rate, Cannot amount unto a hundred marks; Therefore by law thou art condemn’d to die.

Aegeon

Yet this my comfort: when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

Duke

Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause Why thou departed’st from thy native home And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.

Aegeon

A heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable: Yet, that the world may witness that my end Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, I’ll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.

Farewell till then: I will go lose myself And wander up and down to view the city.

First Merchant

Sir, I commend you to your own content. Exit.

Antipholus of Syracuse

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.

Enter Dromio of Ephesus.

Here comes the almanac of my true date. What now? how chance thou art return’d so soon?

Dromio of Ephesus

Return’d so soon! rather approach’d too late: The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit, The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell; My mistress made it one upon my cheek: She is so hot because the meat is cold; The meat is cold because you come not home; You come not home because you have no stomach; You have no stomach having broke your fast; But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray Are penitent for your default today.

I mean not cuckold-mad; But, sure, he’s stark mad. When I desired him to come home to dinner, He ask’d me for a thousand marks in gold: “ ’Tis dinner time,” quoth I; “My gold!” quoth he: “Your meat doth burn,” quoth I; “My gold!” quoth he: “Will you come home?” quoth I; “My gold!” quoth he, “Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?” “The pig,” quoth I “is burn’d;” “My gold!” quoth he: “My mistress, sir,” quoth I; “Hang up thy mistress! I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!”

Luciana

Quoth who?

Dromio of Ephesus

Quoth my master: “I know,” quoth he, “no house, no wife, no mistress.” So that my errand, due unto my tongue, I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

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-savour’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 mayst thou fall A drop of water in the breaking gulf And take unmingled thence that drop again, Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself and not me too. How dearly would it touch thee 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.

Before the house of Antipholus of Ephesus.

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Ephesus, Angelo, and Balthazar.

Antipholus of Ephesus

Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all; My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours: Say that I linger’d with you at your shop To see the making of her carcanet And that tomorrow you will bring it home. But here’s a villain that would face me down He met me on the mart and that I beat him And charged him with a thousand marks in gold And that I did deny my wife and house. Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?

Dromio of Ephesus

Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know; That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show: If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave were ink, Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.