DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I’ll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS To a rope’s end, sir, and to that end
am I returned.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.
He beats Dromio
OFFICER Good sir, be patient.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, ’tis for me to be patient: I am in adversity. 21
OFFICER Good now, hold thy tongue.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou whoreson, senseless villain!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS I am an ass indeed. You may prove it by my long ears.—I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating. When I am warm, he cools me with beating. I am waked with it when I sleep, raised with it when I sit, driven out of doors with it when I go from home, welcomed home with it when I return. Nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar wont her brat, and I think when he hath lamed me I shall beg with it from door to door.
Enter Adriana, Luciana, Courtesan, and a schoolmaster called Pinch
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Come, go along: my wife is coming yonder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS (to Adriana) Mistress, respice finem respect your end—or rather, to prophesy like the parrot, ‘Beware the rope’s end’.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Wilt thou still talk?
He beats Dromio
COURTESAN (to Adriana)
How say you now ? Is not your husband mad?
ADRIANA
His incivility confirms no less.—
Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer.
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand.
LUCIANA
Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!
COURTESAN
Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.
PINCH (to Antipholus)
Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.
He strikes Pinch
PINCH
I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.
ADRIANA
O that thou wert not, poor distressed soul.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
You minion, you, are these your customers?
Did this companion with the saffron face
Revel and feast it at my house today,
Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,
And I denied to enter in my house?
ADRIANA
O husband, God doth know you dined at home,
Where would you had remained until this time,
Free from these slanders and this open shame.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Dined at home?
(To Dromio) Thou villain, what sayst thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at home.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Were not my doors locked up, and I shut out?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Pardie, your doors were locked, and you shut out.
ANTIPHOLIIS OF EPHESUS
And did not she herself revile me there?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Sans fable, she herself reviled you there.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Certes she did. The kitchen vestal scorned you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
And did not I in rage depart from thence?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
In verity you did. My bones bears witness,
That since have felt the vigour of his rage.
ADRIANA (aside to Pinch)
Is’t good to soothe him in these contraries?
PINCH (aside to Adriana)
It is no shame. The fellow finds his vein,
And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS (to Adriana)
Thou hast suborned the goldsmith to arrest me.
ADRIANA
Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
Money by me ? Heart and good will you might,
But surely, master, not a rag of money.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Went’st not thou to her for a purse of ducats?
ADRIANA
He came to me, and I delivered it.
LUCIANA
And I am witness with her that she did.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
God and the ropemaker bear me witness
That I was sent for nothing but a rope.
PINCH (aside to Adriana)
Mistress, both man and master is possessed.
I know it by their pale and deadly looks.
They must be bound and laid in some dark room.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS (to Adriana)
Say wherefore didst thou lock me forth today,
(To Dromio) And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?
ADRIANA
I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
And, gentle master, I received no gold.
But I confess, sir, that we were locked out.
ADRIANA
Dissembling villain, thou speak’st false in both.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
And art confederate with a damned pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me.
But with these nails I’ll pluck out those false eyes,
That would behold in me this shameful sport.
⌈He reaches for Adriana ; she shrieks.⌉ Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives
ADRIANA
O, bind him, bind him. Let him not come near me.
PINCH
More company! The fiend is strong within him.
LUCIANA
Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
What, will you murder me?—Thou, jailer, thou,
I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them
To make a rescue?
OFFICER
Masters, let him go.
He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.
PINCH
Go, bind his man, for he is frantic too.
They bind Dromio
ADRIANA
What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?
Hast thou delight to see a wretched man
Do outrage and displeasure to himself?
OFFICER
He is my prisoner. If I let him go,
The debt he owes will be required of me.
ADRIANA
I will discharge thee ere I go from thee.
Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,
And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.—
Good Master Doctor, see him safe conveyed