DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me!
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast dispos’d thy charge.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.
My mistress and her sister stay for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Now, as I am a Christian, answer me
In what safe place you have bestow’d my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undispos’d;
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Thy mistress’ marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Your worship’s wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
What mean you, sir? for God’s sake hold your hands.
Nay, an you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels.
[_Exit Dromio._]
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Upon my life, by some device or other
The villain is o’er-raught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin:
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I’ll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.
I greatly fear my money is not safe.
[_Exit._]
ACT II
SCENE I. A public place
Enter Adriana, wife to Antipholus (of Ephesus) with Luciana her
sister.
ADRIANA.
Neither my husband nor the slave return’d
That in such haste I sent to seek his master?
Sure, Luciana, it is two o’clock.
LUCIANA.
Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he’s somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine, and never fret;
A man is master of his liberty;
Time is their master, and when they see time,
They’ll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.
ADRIANA.
Why should their liberty than ours be more?
LUCIANA.
Because their business still lies out o’ door.
ADRIANA.
Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
LUCIANA.
O, know he is the bridle of your will.
ADRIANA.
There’s none but asses will be bridled so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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