William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

ACT IV. SCENE 2. The same.

[Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.]

ADRIANA.
Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
  Might'st thou 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 thou 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 thy love?

LUCIANA.
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.

ADRIANA.
Didst 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.

[Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.]