Speeches (Lines) for Luciana in "The Comedy of Errors"

Adriana. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luciana. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine and never fret:
A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master, and, when they see time,
They'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.

Adriana. Why should their liberty than ours be more?

Luciana. Because their business still lies out o' door.

Adriana. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.

Luciana. O, know he is the bridle of your will.

Adriana. There's none but asses will be bridled so.

Luciana. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
There's nothing situate under heaven's eye
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subjects and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more preeminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords:
Then let your will attend on their accords.

Adriana. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.

Luciana. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.

Adriana. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.

Luciana. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.

Adriana. How if your husband start some other where?

Luciana. Till he come home again, I would forbear.

Adriana. Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause;
They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more would we ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me,
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.

Luciana. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
Here comes your man; now is your husband nigh.

Dromio of Ephesus. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear:
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

Luciana. Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning?

Dromio of Ephesus. I mean not cuckold-mad;
But, sure, he is stark mad.
When I desired him to come home to dinner,
He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold:
'Tis dinner-time,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he;
'Your meat doth burn,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he:
'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'
'The pig,' quoth I, 'is burn'd;' 'My gold!' quoth he:
'My mistress, sir' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress!
I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!'

Luciana. Quoth who?

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.

Luciana. Fie, how impatience loureth 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!

Adriana. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
I know his eye doth homage otherwhere,
Or else what lets it but he would be here?
Sister, you know he promised me a chain;
Would that alone, alone he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still,
That others touch, and often touching will
Wear gold: and no man that hath a name,
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.

Luciana. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

Antipholus of Syracuse. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

Luciana. Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Antipholus of Syracuse. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme:
What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this sure uncertainty,
I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.

Luciana. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.

Dromio of Syracuse. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner.
This is the fairy land: O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.

Luciana. Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

Dromio of Syracuse. No, I am an ape.

Luciana. If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.

Adriana. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.

Luciana. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

Antipholus of Ephesus. Do so. This jest shall cost me some expense.

Luciana. And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband's office? shall, Antipholus.
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness:
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed
And let her read it in thy looks at board:
Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
Being compact of credit, that you love us;
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
We in your motion turn and you may move us.
Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:
'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

Antipholus of Syracuse. Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,
Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,--
Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? would you create me new?
Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield.
But if that I am I, then well I know
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe
Far more, far more to you do I decline.
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears:
Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote:
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take them and there lie,
And in that glorious supposition think
He gains by death that hath such means to die:
Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink!

Luciana. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

Antipholus of Syracuse. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.

Luciana. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

Antipholus of Syracuse. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

Luciana. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.

Antipholus of Syracuse. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

Luciana. Why call you me love? call my sister so.

Antipholus of Syracuse. Thy sister's sister.

Luciana. That's my sister.

Antipholus of Syracuse. No;
It is thyself, mine own self's better part,
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
My food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim,
My sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim.

Luciana. All this my sister is, or else should be.

Antipholus of Syracuse. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.
Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:
Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.
Give me thy hand.

Luciana. O, soft, air! hold you still:
I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.

Adriana. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Mightst 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 madest 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-faced, 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.

Dromio of Syracuse. Here! go; the desk, the purse! sweet, now, make haste.

Luciana. How hast thou lost thy breath?

Adriana. His incivility confirms no less.
Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand.

Luciana. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!

Adriana. He came to me and I deliver'd it.

Luciana. And I am witness with her that she did.

Pinch. More company! The fiend is strong within him.

Luciana. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!

Dromio of Ephesus. Will you be bound for nothing? be mad, good master:
cry 'The devil!'

Luciana. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!

Adriana. It may be so, but I did never see it.
Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is:
I long to know the truth hereof at large.
[Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse with his rapier drawn,]
and DROMIO of Syracuse]

Luciana. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.

Aemilia. And thereof came it that the man was mad.
The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
It seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing,
And therefore comes it that his head is light.
Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:
Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
And what's a fever but a fit of madness?
Thou say'st his sports were hinderd by thy brawls:
Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
But moody and dull melancholy,
Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
And at her heels a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?
In food, in sport and life-preserving rest
To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast:
The consequence is then thy jealous fits
Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.

Luciana. She never reprehended him but mildly,
When he demean'd himself rough, rude and wildly.
Why bear you these rebukes and answer not?

Aemilia. Be quiet and depart: thou shalt not have him.

Luciana. Complain unto the duke of this indignity.

Angelo. See where they come: we will behold his death.

Luciana. Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.
[Enter DUKE SOLINUS, attended; AEGEON bareheaded; with the]
Headsman and other Officers]

Adriana. No, my good lord: myself, he and my sister
To-day did dine together. So befall my soul
As this is false he burdens me withal!

Luciana. Ne'er may I look on day, nor sleep on night,
But she tells to your highness simple truth!