That never object pleasing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet-savoured in thy taste,

Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.

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

That thou art then estranged from thysetf?—

Thy ‘self’ 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 stained 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 possessed with an adulterate blot;

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust.

For if we two be one, and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed,

I live unstained, thou undishonourèd.

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 scanned,

Wants 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 A

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 (aside)

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 offered fallacy.

LUCIANA

Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE (aside)

O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.

This is the fairy land. O spite of spites,

We talk with goblins, oafs, and sprites.

If we obey them not, this will ensue:

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

LUCIANA

Why prat‘st thou to thyself, and answer’st not?

Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE (to Antipholus)

I am transformed, master, am not I?

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 ⌈to Antipholus⌉

’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 laughs my woes to scorn.

(To Antipholus) Come, sir, to dinner.—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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE (aside)

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

Sleeping or waking? Mad or well advised?