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 to-day.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE Stop in your wind, sir: tell me this, I pray:
Where have you left the money that I gave you?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS O,--sixpence, that I had o' Wednesday last
To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?
The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE I am not in a sportive humour now:
Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
We being strangers here, how darest thou trust
So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS I pray you, air, as you sit at dinner:
I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will score your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner:
My mistress and her sister stays for you.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undisposed:
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE Thy mistress' marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands!
Nay, and you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.
[Exit]
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE Upon my life, by some device or other
The villain is o'er-raught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin:
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave:
I greatly fear my money is not safe.
[Exit]
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
ACT II
SCENE I The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.
[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA]
ADRIANA Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.
LUCIANA Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner.
=4= |