READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scene ii; Act IV, scenes i-ii |
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Act IV, Scene ii:
The same.
The same.
| [Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.] |
| ADRIANA: |
| Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so? |
 Might'st 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? |
| LUCIANA: |
| First he denied you had in him no right. |
| ADRIANA: |
| He meant he did me none; the more my spite. |
| LUCIANA: |
| Then swore he that he was a stranger here. |
| ADRIANA: |
| And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were. |
| LUCIANA: |
| Then pleaded I for you. |
| ADRIANA: |
| And what said he? |
| LUCIANA: |
| That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me. |
| ADRIANA: |
| With what persuasion did he tempt thy love? |
| LUCIANA: |
| With words that in an honest suit might move. |
| First he did praise my beauty, then my speech. |
| ADRIANA: |
| Didst speak him fair? |
| LUCIANA: |
| Have patience, I beseech. |
| ADRIANA: |
| 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 everywhere; |
| Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; |
| Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. |
| LUCIANA: |
| Who would be jealous then of such a one? |
| No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone. |
| ADRIANA: |
| 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 SYRACUSE.] |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| Here, go; the desk, the purse: sweet now, make haste. |
| LUCIANA: |
| How hast thou lost thy breath? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| By running fast. |
| ADRIANA: |
| Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| 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 that, before the judgment, carries poor souls to hell. |
| ADRIANA: |
| Why, man, what is the matter? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| I do not know the matter: he is 'rested on the case. |
| ADRIANA: |
| What, is he arrested? tell me at whose suit? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| I know not at whose suit he is arrested, well; |
| But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell. |
| Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk? |
| ADRIANA: |
| Go fetch it, sister. This I wonder at, |
| [Exit LUCIANA] |
| Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.— |
| Tell me, was he arrested on a band? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| Not on a band, but on a stronger thing; |
| A chain, a chain: do you not hear it ring? |
| ADRIANA: |
| What, the chain? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone. |
| It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one. |
| ADRIANA: |
| The hours come back! that did I never hear. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant, 'a turns back for very fear. |
| ADRIANA: |
| As if time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason! |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: |
| Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's worth to season. |
| Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say |
| That Time comes stealing on by night and day? |
| If he be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way, |
| Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day? |
| [Enter LUCIANA.] |
| ADRIANA: |
| Go, Dromio, there's the money, bear it straight; |
| And bring thy master home immediately.— |
| Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit- |
| Conceit my comfort and my injury. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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