William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

ACT II. SCENE 1. A public place. (continued)

LUCIANA.
Quoth who?

DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Quoth my master:
'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress:'
So that my errand, due unto my tongue,
I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

ADRIANA.
Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.

DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Go back again! and be new beaten home?
For God's sake, send some other messenger.

ADRIANA.
Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.

DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
And he will bless that cross with other beating:
Between you I shall have a holy head.

ADRIANA.
Hence, prating peasant: fch thy master home.

DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Am I so round with you, as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

[Exit.]

LUCIANA.
Fie, how impatience low'reth in your face!

ADRIANA.
His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.
Hath homely age the alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it:
Are my discourses dull? barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard:
Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
That's not my fault; he's master of my state:
What ruins are in me that can be found
By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground
Of my defeatures: my decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair;
But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.

LUCIANA.
Self-harming jealousy!--fie, beat it hence.