1593 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Page: 13

I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.
I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you
not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk,
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.
LUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?
ADRIANA. 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.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this
gentlewoman?
What is the course and drift of your compact?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very
words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our
names,
Unless it be by inspiration?
ADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
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.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her
theme.
What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?