ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end;
or
rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?
[Beating him]
COURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?
ADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.
Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand.
LUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!
COURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.
PINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your
ear.
[Striking him]
PINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.
ADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?
Did this companion with the saffron face
Revel and feast it at my house to-day,
Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,
And I denied to enter in my house?
ADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,
Where would you had remain'd until this time,
Free from these slanders and this open shame!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest
thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut
out?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut
out.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and
scorn me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd
you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,
That since have felt the vigour of his rage.
ADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?
PINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,
And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest
me.
ADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,
But surely, master, not a rag of money.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of
ducats?
ADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.
LUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness
That I was sent for nothing but a rope!
PINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;
I know it by their pale and deadly looks.
They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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