William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

ACT IV. SCENE 2. The same. (continued)

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Here, go; the desk, the purse: sweet now, make haste.

LUCIANA.
How hast thou lost thy breath?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
By running fast.

ADRIANA.
Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
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 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 dry foot well;
One that, before the judgment, 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,

[Exit LUCIANA]

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; 'tis time that I were gone.
It was two ere 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.