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The Comedy of Errors: Act I, Scene 2

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The Comedy of Errors
Act I, Scene 2

The mart.

Byam Shaw, 1901

  1. Enter Antipholus Erotes of Syracuse, First Merchant, and
  2. Dromio of Syracuse.

First Merchant

1 - 8
  1. Therefore give out you are of Epidamium,
  2. Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate:
  3. This very day a Syracusian merchant
  4. Is apprehended for arrival here;
  5. And not being able to buy out his life,
  6. According to the statute of the town,
  7. Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.
  8. There is your money that I had to keep.

Antipholus of Syracuse

9 - 16
  1. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host,
  2. And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.
  3. Within this hour it will be dinner-time;
  4. Till that, I’ll view the manners of the town,
  5. Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
  6. And then return and sleep within mine inn,
  7. For with long travel I am stiff and weary.
  8. Get thee away.

Dromio of Syracuse

17 - 18
  1. Many a man would take you at your word,
  2. And go indeed, having so good a mean.
  1. Exit Dromio.

Antipholus of Syracuse

19 - 23
  1. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,
  2. When I am dull with care and melancholy,
  3. Lightens my humor with his merry jests.
  4. What, will you walk with me about the town,
  5. And then go to my inn and dine with me?

First Merchant

24 - 29
  1. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,
  2. Of whom I hope to make much benefit;
  3. I crave your pardon. Soon at five a’ clock,
  4. Please you, I’ll meet with you upon the mart,
  5. And afterward consort you till bed-time:
  6. My present business calls me from you now.

Antipholus of Syracuse

30 - 31
  1. Farewell till then. I will go lose myself,
  2. And wander up and down to view the city.

First Merchant

32
  1. Sir, I commend you to your own content.
  1. Exit.

Antipholus of Syracuse

33 - 42
  1. He that commends me to mine own content,
  2. Commends me to the thing I cannot get:
  3. I to the world am like a drop of water,
  4. That in the ocean seeks another drop,
  5. Who, falling there to find his fellow forth
  6. (Unseen, inquisitive), confounds himself.
  7. So I, to find a mother and a brother,
  8. In quest of them (unhappy), ah, lose myself.
  9. Enter Dromio of Ephesus.
  10. Here comes the almanac of my true date.
  11. What now? How chance thou art return’d so soon?

I from my mistress come to you in post

Louis Rhead, circa 1918

Dromio of Ephesus

43 - 52
  1. Return’d so soon! Rather approach’d too late:
  2. The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
  3. The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell:
  4. My mistress made it one upon my cheek:
  5. She is so hot, because the meat is cold:
  6. The meat is cold, because you come not home:
  7. You come not home, because you have no stomach:
  8. You have no stomach, having broke your fast:
  9. But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray,
  10. Are penitent for your default today.

Antipholus of Syracuse

53 - 54
  1. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:
  2. Where have you left the money that I gave you?

Dromio of Ephesus

55 - 57
  1. O—sixpence that I had a’ We’n’sday last
  2. To pay the saddler for my mistress’ crupper?
  3. The saddler had it, sir, I kept it not.

Antipholus of Syracuse

58 - 61
  1. I am not in a sportive humor now:
  2. Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
  3. We being strangers here, how dar’st thou trust
  4. So great a charge from thine own custody?

Dromio of Ephesus

62 - 67
  1. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.
  2. I from my mistress come to you in post:
  3. If I return, I shall be post indeed,
  4. For she will score your fault upon my pate:
  5. Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
  6. And strike you home without a messenger.

Antipholus of Syracuse

68 - 70
  1. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season,
  2. Reserve them till a merrier hour than this:
  3. Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

Dromio of Ephesus

71
  1. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.

Antipholus of Syracuse

72 - 73
  1. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
  2. And tell me how thou hast dispos’d thy charge.

Dromio of Ephesus

74 - 76
  1. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
  2. Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner;
  3. My mistress and her sister stays for you.
Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host

From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Mary Cowden Clarke, Charles Cowden Clarke, 1870

Antipholus of Syracuse

77 - 81
  1. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me,
  2. In what safe place you have bestow’d my money;
  3. Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
  4. That stands on tricks when I am undispos’d:
  5. Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?

Dromio of Ephesus

82 - 86
  1. I have some marks of yours upon my pate;
  2. Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders;
  3. But not a thousand marks between you both.
  4. If I should pay your worship those again,
  5. Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Antipholus of Syracuse

87
  1. Thy mistress’ marks? What mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dromio of Ephesus

88 - 90
  1. Your worship’s wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
  2. She that doth fast till you come home to dinner;
  3. And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.

Antipholus of Syracuse

91 - 92
  1. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
  2. Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
  1. Strikes Dromio.

Dromio of Ephesus

93 - 94
  1. What mean you, sir? For God sake hold your hands!
  2. Nay, and you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels.
  1. Exit Dromio of Ephesus.

Antipholus of Syracuse

95 - 105
  1. Upon my life, by some device or other
  2. The villain is o’erraught of all my money.
  3. They say this town is full of cozenage:
  4. As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
  5. Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
  6. Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
  7. Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
  8. And many such-like liberties of sin:
  9. If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
  10. I’ll to the Centaur to go seek this slave;
  11. I greatly fear my money is not safe.
  1. Exit.

Go bear it to the Centaur

Edwin Austin Abbey, 1889

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