The Comedy of Errors: Act II

Man, more divine, the master of all these,
Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry seas,
Endued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more preeminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.

Man, more divine, the master of all these,
Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry seas,
Endued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more preeminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.

Then let your will attend on their accords.

Till he come home again, I would forbear.

Now is your husband nigh.

I mean not cuckold mad,
But sure he is stark mad.

I mean not cuckold mad,
But sure he is stark mad.

His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.

Hath homely age th’ alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek?

Are my discourses dull?

If voluble and sharp discourse be marred,
Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.

Do their gay vestments his affections bait?

I know his eye doth homage otherwhere,
Or else what lets it but he would be here?

Now your jest is earnest.

Because that I familiarly sometimes
Do use you for my fool and chat with you,
Your sauciness will jest upon my love
And make a common of my serious hours.

If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
And fashion your demeanor to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.

An you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce it too, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.

Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting.

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it
That thou art then estrangèd from thyself?

“Thyself” I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self’s better part.

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!

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!

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.

What is the course and drift of your compact?

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

If aught 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.

If aught 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.

Until I know this sure uncertainty
I’ll entertain the offered fallacy.

If we obey them not, this will ensue:
They’ll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.

Dromio—thou, Dromio—thou snail, thou slug, thou sot.