The Comedy of Errors

My liege, I am advised what I say, Neither disturbed with the effect of wine, Nor heady-rash, provok’d with raging ire, Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.

My master preaches patience to him, and the while His man with scissors nicks him like a fool; And sure (unless you send some present help) Between them they will kill the conjurer.

Ne’er may I look on day, nor sleep on night, But she tells to your Highness simple truth!

Not know my voice! O time’s extremity, Hast thou so crack’d and splitted my poor tongue In seven short years, that here my only son Knows not my feeble key of untun’d cares?

O! Grief hath chang’d me since you saw me last, And careful hours with time’s deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face: But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

Though now this grained face of mine be hid In sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow, And all the conduits of my blood froze up, Yet hath my night of life some memory, My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left, My dull deaf ears a little use to hear: All these old witnesses—I cannot err— Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.

We’ll draw cuts for the senior, till then, lead thou first. E. DRO. Nay then thus: We came into the world like brother and brother; And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

In bed he slept not for my urging it; At board he fed not for my urging it; Alone, it was the subject of my theme; In company I often glanced it; Still did I tell him it was vild and bad.

In verity you did, my bones bears witness, That since have felt the vigor of his rage.

Is’t good to soothe him in these contraries? PINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein, And yielding to him, humors well his frenzy.

My way is now to hie home to his house, And tell his wife that, being lunatic, He rush’d into my house, and took perforce My ring away. This course I fittest choose, For forty ducats is too much to lose.

Now out of doubt Antipholus is mad, Else would he never so demean himself.

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth. It seems his sleeps were hind’red by thy railing, And thereof comes it that his head is light.

Thou whoreson, senseless villain! E. DRO. I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows.

Ah, but I think him better than I say, And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse: Far from her nest the lapwing cries away; My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.

Are you a god? Would you create me new? Transform me then, and to your pow’r I’ll yield. But if that I am I, then well I know Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, Nor to her bed no homage do I owe: Far more, far more, to you do I decline.

As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife.

Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee: Thee will I love and with thee lead my life; Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife. Give me thy hand.

If every one knows us, and we know none, ’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.

It is thyself, mine own self’s better part: Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart, My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim, My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak: Lay open to my earthy gross conceit, Smoth’red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.

Tis holy sport to be a little vain, When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin.

You would say so, master, if your garments were thin. Your cake here is warm within: you stand here in the cold. It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.

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

At length, another ship had seiz’d on us, And knowing whom it was their hap to save, Gave healthful welcome to their shipwrack’d guests, And would have reft the fishers of their prey,

At length the sun, gazing upon the earth, Dispers’d those vapors that offended us, And by the benefit of his wished light The seas wax’d calm,

But here must end the story of my life, And happy were I in my timely death, Could all my travels warrant me they live.

Hath he not lost much wealth by wrack of sea? Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray’d his affection in unlawful love— A sin prevailing much in youthful men, Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing?

I will not hence, and leave my husband here; And ill it doth beseem your holiness To separate the husband and the wife.

In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest To be disturb’d, would mad or man or beast: The consequence is then, thy jealous fits Hath scar’d thy husband from the use of wits.

O, had the gods done so, I had not now Worthily term’d them merciless to us!

Signior Antipholus, I wonder much That you would put me to this shame and trouble, And, not without some scandal to yourself, With circumstance and oaths so to deny This chain which now you wear so openly.

What I told you then I hope I shall have leisure to make good, If this be not a dream I see and hear.

Why, headstrong liberty is lash’d with woe: There’s nothing situate under heaven’s eye But hath his bound in earth, in sea, in sky.

Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis’d? Known unto these, and to myself disguis’d? I’ll say as they say, and persever so, And in this mist at all adventures go.

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

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.

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 dis-stain’d, thou undishonored.

For slander lives upon succession, Forever hous’d where it gets possession.

He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless every where; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.

How ill agrees it with your gravity To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave, Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!

I have serv’d him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows.

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 scann’d, Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Sweet mistress—what your name is else, I know not, Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine— Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth divine.

The time was once, when thou unurg’d 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-savor’d in thy taste, Unless I spake, or look’d, or touch’d, or carv’d to thee.

Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed, And let her read it in thy looks at board: Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed; Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?

A man is master of his liberty: Time is their master, and when they see time, They’ll go or come; if so, be patient, sister. ADR. Why should their liberty than ours be more? LUC. Because their business still lies out a’ door.

A wretched soul, bruis’d with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burd’ned with like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should ourselves complain: