The Comedy of Errors: Act IV

While I go to the goldsmith’s house, go thou
And buy a rope’s end. That will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates
For locking me out of my doors by day.

Saving your merry humor, here’s the note
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
Which doth amount to three-odd ducats more
Than I stand debted to this gentleman.

You use this dalliance to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.

You use this dalliance to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.

I should have chid you for not bringing it,
But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.

I pray you, sir, dispatch.

My business cannot brook this dalliance.

Why, thou peevish sheep,
What ship of Epidamium stays for me?

Thither I must, although against my will,
For servants must their masters’ minds fulfill.

Might’st thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?

Have patience, I beseech.

He is deformèd, crooked, old, and sere,
Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere,
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.

A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff

A backfriend, a shoulder clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter and yet draws dryfoot well,
One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell.

Come, sister, I am pressed down with conceit:
Conceit, my comfort and my injury.

Sure these are but imaginary wiles,
And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.

Not that Adam that kept the Paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the calf’s skin that was killed for the Prodigal; he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.

Why, ’tis a plain case: he that went like a bass viol in a case of leather; the
man, sir, that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob and ’rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives them suits of durance; he
that sets up his rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.

Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since that the bark Expedition put forth tonight, and then were you hindered by the sergeant to tarry for the hoy Delay.

Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since that the bark Expedition put forth tonight, and then were you hindered by the sergeant to tarry for the hoy Delay.

Light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn: ergo, light wenches will burn.

Some devils ask but the parings of one’s nail, a rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, a nut, a cherrystone; but she, more covetous, would have a chain.

My wife is in a wayward mood today
And will not lightly trust the messenger
That I should be attached in Ephesus.

I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long ears.—I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows.

His incivility confirms no less.

And did not she herself revile me there?

Did not her kitchen maid rail, taunt, and scorn me?

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

Thou hast suborned the goldsmith to arrest me.

Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
And art confederate with a damnèd pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me.

Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
And art confederate with a damnèd pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me.

Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
And art confederate with a damnèd pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me.

Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!

How idly do they talk!

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse with his rapier drawn, and Dromio of Syracuse.