_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;
A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough; 35
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;
One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell. 40
_Adr._ Why, man, what is the matter?
_Dro. S._ I do not know the matter: he is ’rested on the case.
_Adr._ What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit.
_Dro. S._ I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
But he’s in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell. 45
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?
_Dro. S._ Not on a band, but on a stronger thing; 50
A chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring?
_Adr._ What, the chain?
_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.
_Adr._ The hours come back! that did I never hear. 55
_Dro. S._ O, yes; if any hour meet a sergeant, ’a turns back
for very fear.
_Adr._ As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!
_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,
That Time comes stealing on by night and day? 60
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?
_Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse._
_Adr._ Go, Dromio; there’s the money, bear it straight;
And bring thy master home immediately.
Come, sister: I am press’d down with conceit,-- 65
Conceit, my comfort and my injury.
[_Exeunt._
NOTES: IV, 2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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