The Comedy of Errors
Page: 12

For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I doe digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion:
Keepe then faire league and truce with thy true bed,
I liue distain'd, thou vndishonoured

Antip. Plead you to me faire dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two houres old,
As strange vnto your towne, as to your talke,
Who euery word by all my wit being scan'd,
Wants wit in all, one word to vnderstand

Luci. Fie brother, how the world is chang'd with you:
When were you wont to vse my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner

Ant. By Dromio?
Drom. By me

Adr. By thee, and this thou didst returne from him.
That he did buffet thee, and in his blowes,
Denied my house for his, me for his wife

Ant. Did you conuerse sir with this gentlewoman:
What is the course and drift of your compact?
S.Dro. I sir? I neuer saw her till this time

Ant. Villaine thou liest, for euen her verie words,
Didst thou deliuer to me on the Mart

S.Dro. I neuer spake with her in all my life

Ant. How can she thus then call vs by our names?
Vnlesse it be by inspiration

Adri. How ill agrees it with your grauitie,
To counterfeit thus grosely with your slaue,
Abetting him to thwart me in my moode;
Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come I will fasten on this sleeue of thine:
Thou art an Elme my husband, I a Vine:
Whose weaknesse married to thy stranger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If ought possesse thee from me, it is drosse,
Vsurping Iuie, Brier, or idle Mosse,
Who all for want of pruning, with intrusion,
Infect thy sap, and liue on thy confusion

Ant. To mee shee speakes, shee moues mee for her
theame;
What, was I married to her in my dreame?
Or sleepe I now, and thinke I heare all this?
What error driues our eies and eares amisse?
Vntill I know this sure vncertaintie,
Ile entertaine the free'd fallacie

Luc. Dromio, goe bid the seruants spred for dinner

S.Dro. Oh for my beads, I crosse me for a sinner.
This is the Fairie land, oh spight of spights,