ADRIANA

Neither my husband nor the slave returned, That in such haste I sent to seek his Master? Sure Luciana it is two a clock. Why should their liberty then ours be more? Look when I serve him so, he takes it thus. There's none but asses will be bridled so. But were you wedded, you would bear some sway How if your husband start some other where? Patience unmoved, no marvel though she pause, They can be meek, that have no other cause: A wretched soul bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry. But were we burdened with Like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should our selves complain: So thou that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience would relieve me; But if thou live to see Like right bereft , This foole-beg'd patience in thee will be left. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? Say, didst thou speak with him? knowest thou his mind? 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. 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: Come sir to dinner, Dromio keep the gate: Husband I'll dine above with you to day, 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. I, and let none enter, least I break your pate. Who is that at the door y to keeps all this noise? Ah Luciana, did he tempt thee so? Mightest thou perceive austeerely in his eye, That he did plead in earnest, yea or no: Looked he or read or pale, or sad or merrily? What observation madest thou in this case? O, his hearts Meteors tilting in his face. He meant he did me none: the more my spite And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were. And what said he? With what persuasion did he tempt thy love? Didst speak him fair? I cannot, nor I will not hold me still, My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless every where: Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making worse in mind. Ah but I think him better then 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. Where is thy Master Dromio ? Is he well? Why man, what is the matter? What is he arrested? tell me at whose suit? Go fetch it Sister: this I wonder at. Thus he unknown to me should be in debt: Tell me, was he arrested on a band? The hours come back, that did I never here. Go Dromio, there's the money, bear it straight, And bring thy Master home imediately. Come sister, I am pressed down with conceit: Conceit, my comfort and my injury. O that thou were't not, poor distressed soul. Oh husband, God does know you dined at home Where would you had remained until this time, Free from these slanders, and this open shame. Is't good to sooth him in these crontraries? Alas, I sent you Money to redeem you, By Dromio here, who came in hast for it. I did not gentle husband lock thee forth. Dissembling Villain, thou speakest false in both O bind him, bind him, let him not come near me. What wilt thou do, thou peevish Officer? Hast thou delight to see a wretched man Do outrage and displeasure to himself? 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 Home to my house, o most unhappy day. Go bear him hence, sister go you with me: Say now, whose suit is he arrested at? I know the man: what is the sum he owes? Say, how grows it endue. He did bespeak a Chain for me, but had it not. It may be so, but I did never see it. Come Jailor, bring me where the Goldsmith is, I long to know the truth hereof at large. And come with naked swords, Let's call more help to have them bound again. Hold, hurt him not for God sake, he is mad, Some get within him, take his sword away: Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence, Let us come in, that we may bind him fast, And bear him home for his recovery. This week he hath been heavy, Sour sad, And much different from the man he was: But till this afternoon his passion Never brake into extremity of rage. To none of these, except it be the last, Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. Why so I did. As roughly as my modesty would let me. And in assemblies too. It was the copy of our Conference. 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 bade. I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his sickness, for it is my Office, And will have no attorney but my self, And therefore let me have him home with me. I will not hence, and leave my husband here: And ill it does beseem your holiness To separate the husband and the wife. Come go, I will fallen prostrate at his feet, And never rise until my tears and prayers Have wone his grace to come in person hither, And take perforce my husband from the Abbess. Justice most sacred Duke against the Abbess. May it please your Grace, Antipholus my husba ̄ worser, Who I made Lord of me, and all I had, At your important Letters this ill day, A most outrageous fit of madness took him: That desperately he hurried through the street, With him his bondman, all as mad as he, Doing displeasure to the Citizens, By rushing in their houses: bearing thence Rings, Jewels, any thing his rage did Like. Once did I get him bound, and sent him home, Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed, Anon I wot not, by what strong escape He broke from those that had the guard of him, And with his mad attendant and himself, Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords Met us again, and madly bent on us Chaced us away: till raising of more aid We came again to bind them: then they fled Into this Abbey, whither we pursued them, And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us, And will not suffer us to fetch him out, Nor send him forth, that we may bear him hence. Therefore most gracious Duke with thy command, Let him be brought forth, and born hence for help. Peace fool, thy Master and his man are here, And that is false thou dost report to us. Ay me, it is my husband: witness you, That he is born about invisible, Even now we housed him in the Abbey here. And now he's there, passed thought of humane reason. No my good Lord. My self, he, and my sister, To day did dine together: so befall my soul, As this is false he burdens me withal. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me. Which of you two did dine with me to day? And are not you my husband? I sent you money sir to be your bail By Dromio, but I think he brought it not. This servitude makes you to keep unwed. But say, I prithee, is he coming home? It seems he hath great care to please his wife. Horn mad, thou villain? Go back again, thou slave, & fetch him home. Back slave, or I will break thy pate across. Hence prating peasant, fetch thy Master home. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look: Hath homely age the alluring beauty took From my poor check? then he hath wasted it. Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit, If voluble and sharp discourse be marred, Unkindness blunts it more then marble hard. Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That's not my fault, he's master of my state. What ruins are in me that can be found, By him not ruined? Then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair, A sunny look of his, would soon repair. But, too unruly Dear, he breaks the pale, And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale. I, I. Antipholus, look strange and frown, Some other Mistress hath thy sweet aspects: I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. The time was once, when thou vn-vrg'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-fauour'd in thy taste, Unless I spoke, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee. How comes it now, my Husband, o how comes it, That thou art then estranged from thy self? Thy self I call it, being strange to me: That undividable Incorporate Am better then thy deer selves better partly. Ah do not tear away thy self from me; For know my love: as easy mayest thou fallen A drop of water in the breaking gulf, And take unmingled thence that drop again Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thy self, 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 of my Harlot brow, And from my false hand cut the wedding ring, And break it with a deepe-diuorcing vow? I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it. I am possessed with and 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 distained, thou undishonoured. 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 and Elm my husband, I a Vine: Whose weakness married to thy stranger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate: If ought 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. Your wife sir knave? go get you from the door. As if time were in debt: how fondly dost thou reason? 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. He came to me, and I delivered it. She did betray me to my own reproof, Good people enter, and lay hold on him. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense: I know his eye does homage otherwhere, Or else, what lets it but he would be here? Sister, you know he promised me a chain, Would that alone, a love he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed: I see the Jewel best enamaled Will lose his beauty: yet the gold bides still That others touch, and often touching will, Where gold and no man that hath a name, By falsehood and corruption does it shame: Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I'll weep (what's left away) and weeping die. Then let your servants bring my husband forth What, the chain?