The Comedy of Errors quotes

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

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.

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.

Thank me, sir! for what?

Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

I’ll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?

Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

I’ll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something.

But say, sir, is it dinnertime?

Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit.

Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.

Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.

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.

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.

Dromio, keep the gate. Husband, I’ll dine above with you today 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.

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.

Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?

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.

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.

I think thou art an ass.

… in Now in the stirring passage of the day, A vulgar comment will be made of it, And that supposed by the common rout Against your yet ungalled estimation That may with foul intrusion enter in And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;

For slander lives upon succession, Forever housed where it gets possession.

You have prevail’d: I will depart in quiet, And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry. I know a wench of excellent discourse, Pretty and witty, wild and yet, too, gentle: There will we dine.

What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.

It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

She that doth call me husband, even my soul Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, Possess’d 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,

I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

Enter Angelo with the chain.

As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!

Time is a very bankrupt and owes more than he’s worth to season.

Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say, That Time comes stealing on by night and day? If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way, Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?

Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat; or bespeak a long spoon.

Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.

Avoid then, fiend! what tell’st thou me of supping? Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress: I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.

The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth. It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing, And thereof comes it that his head is light. Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:

Unquiet meals make ill digestions;

Thereof the raging fire of fever bred; And what’s a fever but a fit of madness? Thou say’st his sports were hinder’d by thy brawls:

And thereof came it that the man was mad:

The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.

It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing, And thereof comes it that his head is light. Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings: Unquiet meals make ill digestions; Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;

This purse of ducats I received from you And Dromio my man did bring them me.

I see we still did meet each other’s man, And I was ta’en for him, and he for me,

And thereupon these errors are arose.