And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel,

She had transform’d me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i’ the wheel.

145 Ant. S. Go hie thee presently, post to the road:—

An if the wind blow any way from shore,

I will not harbour in this town to-night:—

If any bark put forth, come to the mart,

Where I will walk till thou return to me.

150 If every one knows us, and we know none,

’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.

Dro. S. As from a bear a man would run for life,

So fly I from her that would be my wife. Exit.

Ant. S. There’s none but witches do inhabit here;

155 And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence.

She that doth call me husband, even my soul

Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,

Possess’d with such a gentle sovereign grace,

Of such enchanting presence and discourse,

160 Hath almost made me traitor to myself:

But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,

I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

Ang. I know it well, sir:—lo, here is the chain.

165 I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine:

The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.

170 Ang. Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.

Go home with it, and please your wife withal;

And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,

And then receive my money for the chain.

Ant. S. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,

175 For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.

Ant. S. What I should think of this, I cannot tell:

But this I think, there’s no man is so vain

That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.

180 I see a man here needs not live by shifts,

When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay:

If any ship put out, then straight away. Exit.

Sec. Mer. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,

And since I have not much importuned you;

Nor now I had not, but that I am bound

To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage:

5 Therefore make present satisfaction,

Or I’ll attach you by this officer.

Ang. Even just the sum that I do owe to you

Is growing to me by Antipholus;

And in the instant that I met with you

10 He had of me a chain: at five o’clock

I shall receive the money for the same.

Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,

I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.

15 Ant. E. 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.—

But, soft! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;

20 Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.

Ant. E. A man is well holp up that trusts to you:

I promised your presence and the chain;

But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.

25 Belike you thought our love would last too long,

If it were chain’d together, and therefore came not.

Ang. Saving your merry humour, here’s the note

How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,

The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,

30 Which doth amount to three odd ducats more

Than I stand debted to this gentleman:

I pray you, see him presently discharged,

For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.

Ant. E. I am not furnish’d with the present money;

35 Besides, I have some business in the town.

Good signior, take the stranger to my house,

And with you take the chain, and bid my wife

Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof:

Perchance I will be there as soon as you.

Ant. E. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;

Or else you may return without your money.

45 Ang. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain:

Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,

And I, to blame, have held him here too long.

Ant. E. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse

Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.

50 I should have chid you for not bringing it,

But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.

55 Ang. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.

Either send the chain, or send me by some token.

Ant. E. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath.

Come, where’s the chain? I pray you, let me see it.

Sec. Mer. My business cannot brook this dalliance.

60 Good sir, say whether you’ll answer me or no:

If not, I’ll leave him to the officer.

Ang. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it:

Consider how it stands upon my credit.

Ang. This touches me in reputation.

Either consent to pay this sum for me,

Or I attach you by this officer.

Ant. E. Consent to pay thee that I never had!

75 Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou darest.

Ang. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.

I would not spare my brother in this case,

If he should scorn me so apparently.

80 Ant. E. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.

But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear

As all the metal in your shop will answer.

Ang. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,

To your notorious shame; I doubt it not.

85 Dro. S. Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum

That stays but till her owner comes aboard,

And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,

I have convey’d aboard; and I have bought

The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitæ.

90 The ship is in her trim; the merry wind

Blows fair from land: they stay for nought at all

But for their owner, master, and yourself.

Ant. E. How now! a madman! Why, thou peevish sheep,

What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?

Ant. E. Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,

And told thee to what purpose and what end.

Dro. S. You sent me for a rope’s end as soon:

You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.

100 Ant. E. 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

105 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.

Dro. S. To Adriana! that is where we dined,

110 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 fulfil. Exit.

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?

5 What observation madest thou, in this case,

Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?

Luc. With words that in an honest suit might move.

15 First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.

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,

20 Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;

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.

25 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.

Dro. S. 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;  

35 A fiend, a fury, 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;

40 One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.

Dro. S. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;

45 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?

Adr. Go fetch it, sister. [Exit Luciana.] This I wonder at,

That he, unknown to me, should be in debt.

Tell me, was he arrested on a band?

50 Dro. S. Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;

A chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring?

Dro. S. No, no, the bell: ’tis time that I were gone:

It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.

Dro. S. 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,

60 That Time comes stealing on by night and day?

If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,

Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?

Adr. Go, Dromio; there’s the money, bear it straight;

And bring thy master home immediately.

65 Come, sister: I am press’d down with conceit,—

Conceit, my comfort and my injury.

Ant. S. There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me

As if I were their well-acquainted friend;

And every one doth call me by my name.

Some tender money to me; some invite me;

5 Some other give me thanks for kindnesses;

Some offer me commodities to buy;—

Even now a tailor call’d me in his shop,

And show’d me silks that he had bought for me,

And therewithal took measure of my body.

10 Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,

And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.

Dro. S. Master, here’s the gold you sent me for.—

What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled?

Ant. S. The fellow is distract, and so am I;

And here we wander in illusions:

Some blessed power deliver us from hence!

40 Cour. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.

I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now:

Is that the chain you promised me to-day?

Cour. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.

Will you go with me? We’ll mend our dinner here?

60 Ant. S. Avoid then, fiend! what tell’st thou me of supping?

Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress:

I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.

Cour. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,

Or, for my diamond, the chain you promised,

65 And I’ll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

Dro. S. Some devils ask but the parings of one’s nail,

A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,

A nut, a cherry-stone;

But she, more covetous, would have a chain.

70 Master, be wise: an if you give it her,

The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.

Cour. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain:

I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.

Cour. Now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad,

Else would he never so demean himself.

A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,

And for the same he promised me a chain:

80 Both one and other he denies me now.

The reason that I gather he is mad,—

Besides this present instance of his rage,—

Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner,

Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.

85 Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,

On purpose shut the doors against his way.

My way is now to his home to his house,

And tell his wife that, being lunatic,

He rush’d into my house, and took perforce

90 My ring away. This course I fittest choose;

For forty ducats is too much to lose. Exit.

Ant. E. Fear me not, man; I will not break away:

I’ll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,

To warrant thee, as I am ’rested for.

My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,

5 And will not lightly trust the messenger.

That I should be attach’d in Ephesus,

I tell you, ’twill sound harshly in her ears.

Here comes my man; I think he brings the money.

How now, sir! have you that I sent you for?