drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,
And told thee to what purpose and what end.
S. Dro.
You sent me for a rope’s end as soon:
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
E. Ant.
I will debate this matter at more leisure,
And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight:
Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk
That’s cover’d o’er with Turkish tapestry
There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.
Tell her I am arrested in the street,
And that shall bail me. Hie thee, slave, be gone!
On, officer, to prison till it come.
Exeunt [all but Dromio of Syracuse].
S. Dro.
To Adriana! That is where we din’d,
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband:
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
Thither I must, although against my will,
For servants must their masters’ minds fulfill.
Exit.
¶
[Scene II]
Enter Adriana and Luciana.
Adr.
Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Mightst thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest? yea or no?
Look’d he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
What observation mad’st thou in this case
[Of] his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
Luc.
First he denied you had in him no right.
Adr.
He meant he did me none: the more my spite.
Luc.
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
Adr.
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
Luc.
Then pleaded I for you.
Adr.
And what said he?
Luc.
That love I begg’d for you, he begg’d of me.
Adr.
With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
Luc.
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
Adr.
Didst speak him fair?
Luc.
Have patience, I beseech.
Adr.
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-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless every where;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
Luc.
Who would be jealous then of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
Adr.
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.
Enter Dromio [of] Syracusa.
S. Dro.
Here, go: the desk, the purse! [Sweat] now, make haste!
Luc.
How hast thou lost thy breath?
S. Dro.
By running fast.
Adr.
Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?
S. Dro.
No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell:
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;
[One] whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;
One
