ADRIANA
Ah, Luciana, did he tempt so?
Might’st perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?
Look’d he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
What observation mad’st in this case
Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
LUCIANA
First he denied you had in him no right.
ADRIANA
He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
LUCIANA
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
ADRIANA
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
LUCIANA
Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA
And what said he?
LUCIANA
That love I begg’d for you he begg’d of me.
ADRIANA
With what persuasion did he tempt love?
LUCIANA
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
ADRIANA
speak him fair?
LUCIANA
Have patience, I beseech.
ADRIANA
I cannot, nor I will not hold me still.
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
Ill-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
LUCIANA
Who would be jealous then of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
ADRIANA
Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse:
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Here, go; the desk, the purse, sweet now, make haste.
LUCIANA
How lost breath?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
By running fast.
ADRIANA
Where is master, Dromio? is he well?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment him,
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
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 dryfoot well,
One that, before the judgement, carries poor souls to hell.
ADRIANA
Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I do not know the matter. He is ’rested on the case.
ADRIANA
What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
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.
Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?
ADRIANA
Go fetch it, sister. This I wonder at,
ADRIANA
Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;
A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?
ADRIANA
What, the chain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
No, no, the bell, time that I were gone.
It was two I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
ADRIANA
The hours come back! That did I never hear.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
O yes, if any hour meet a sergeant, ’a turns back for very fear.
ADRIANA
As if time were in debt. How fondly reason!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
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?
If he be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?
ADRIANA
Go, Dromio, there’s the money, bear it straight,
And bring master home immediately.
Come, sister, I am press’d down with conceit;
Conceit, my comfort and my injury.