Antipholus of Ephesus

“ ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Thou whoreson, senseless villain.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
I am an ass indeed; you may prove it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating; when I am warm he cools me with beating. ”

“ DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark’d?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
He speaks to me; I am your master, Dromio.
Come, go with us. We’ll look to that anon.
Embrace thy brother there, rejoice with him.
[Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus.]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
There is a fat friend at your master’s house,
That kitchen’d me for you today at dinner.
She now shall be my sister, not my wife. ”

“ DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Master, I am here enter’d in bond for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Out on thee, villain! wherefore dost thou mad me?
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.
Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.
[Exeunt Pinch and Assistants, with Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus.]
Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?
OFFICER.
One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?
ADRIANA.
I know the man. What is the sum he owes? ”

“ Ay, when fowls have no
feathers and fish have no fin.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?
For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;
If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.
BALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so! ”

“ DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
If you went in pain, master, this knave would go sore.
ANGELO.
Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome. We would fain have either.
BALTHASAR.
In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.
Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold.
It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold. ”

“ DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Marry, so it doth appear
By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick, being kick’d; and being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
You’re sad, Signior Balthasar; pray God our cheer
May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
BALTHASAR.
I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
O, Signior Balthasar, either at flesh or fish
A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
BALTHASAR.
Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords. ”

“ I’ll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.
I greatly fear my money is not safe.
[Exit.]
ACT II SCENE I. A public place Enter Adriana, wife to Antipholus (of Ephesus) with Luciana her sister.
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. ”

“ Enter Adriana, Luciana, Courtesan and a Schoolmaster called Pinch.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Come, go along, my wife is coming yonder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Mistress, respice finem, respect your end, or rather, the prophesy like the parrot, “Beware the rope’s end.”
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Wilt thou still talk?
[Beats him.]
COURTESAN.
How say you now? Is not your husband mad? ”

“ Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.
Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.
ANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some
expense.
SCENE 2 Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
Enter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
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? ”

“ The Fable. Like all comedies of mistake, the Comedy of Errors has an extremely complicated plot. The play consists of a number of ingeniously contrived situations [44] in which either the Antipholus and the Dromio of Ephesus are mistaken for the Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse, or those of Syracuse are mistaken for those of Ephesus. The comedy of mistake is touched with beauty by the romantic addition of the restoration of old Ægeon to his long-lost wife.
Poets are great or little according to the nobleness of their endeavour to build a mansion for the soul. ”

“ The Duke bade the Abbess be summoned, and no sooner had he given the order than a servant from The Phoenix ran to Adriana with the tale that his master had singed off the doctor's beard.
“Nonsense!” said Adriana, “he's in the abbey.”
“As sure as I live I speak the truth,” said the servant.
Antipholus of Syracuse had not come out of the abbey, before his brother of Ephesus prostrated himself in front of the Duke, exclaiming, “Justice, most gracious Duke, against that woman.” He pointed to Adriana. “She has treated another man like her husband in my own house.” ”

“ DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Return’d so soon? rather approach’d too late.
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek.
She is so hot because the meat is cold;
The meat is cold because you come not home;
You come not home because you have no stomach;
You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray,
Are penitent for your default today.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Stop in your wind, sir, tell me this, I pray:
Where have you left the money that I gave you? ”

“ AEmilia and her charges were picked up by some people of Epidamnum, but some fishermen of Corinth took the babies from her by force, and she returned to Epidanmum alone, and very miserable. Afterwards she settled in Ephesus, a famous town in Asia Minor.
AEgeon and his charges were also saved; and, more fortunate than AEmilia, he was able to return to Syracuse and keep them till they were eighteen. His own child he called Antipholus, and the slavechild he called Dromio ”

“ And now Adriana came up to him and claimed him as her lunatic husband, who had escaped from his keepers; and the men she brought with her were going to lay violent hands on Antipholus and Dromio; but they ran into the convent, and Antipholus begged the abbess to give him shelter in her house.
And now came out the lady abbess herself to inquire into the cause of this disturbance. She was a grave and venerable lady, and wise to judge of what she saw, and she would not too hastily give up the man who had sought protection in her house ”

“ Antiphohs and Dromio were sold by them to duke Menaphon, a famous warrior, who was uncle to the duke of Ephesus, and he carried the boys to Ephesus, when he went to visit the duke his nephew.
The duke of Ephesus taking a liking to young Antipholis, when he grew up, made him an officer in his army, in which he distinguished himself by his great bravery in the wars, where he saved the life of his patron the duke, who rewarded his merit by marrying him to Adriana, a rich lady of Ephesus ”

“ It was, perhaps, this Alphius who sided with Lampetius (possibly the bishop of Casium) in the difficulty regarding the vagrant ascetics called Massaliani or Euchites, men and women, who gave themselves to prayer and lived by begging, refusing to work. They were censured at the synod of Ephesus, [171] and their condemnation henceforth acted as a deterrent to the wanderings of hermits generally. In consequence of his course of action Alphius was obliged to resign his see. He was succeeded by Ptolemæus of Rhinocorura, who acted in concert with Timothy, patriarch of Alexandria. ”

“ Antipholus declared he had never done so. The merchant said they had heard him with their own ears. The end of the matter was that they all got so angry that they drew their swords and began to fight. Adriana, coming up at that moment, thought it was her husband who had got free [Pg 456] from his bondage, and called to the others not to hurt him, he was mad, but to seize him and take away his sword.
Antipholus of Syracuse, seeing that he was likely to be overpowered, slipped with Dromio for refuge inside a Priory, near which they were standing. ”

“ Ephesus, Antioch, Smyrna, Alexandria, all of them great centres of Christianity, are the objects of a like censure. To him, Ephesus, the head-quarters of Paul, and afterwards of John, owes its salvation. Apollonius did much good there, we are told, but learnt nothing. A Christian, reading his biography, will easily understand the possibility of remaining attached to the old religion without its being necessary to approve of immoral practices, such as the combats of gladiators, or to believe in such absurd fables as were imagined by the poets. ”

“ For thou hast shamed me and my horses, putting thine own in front, which are, of a truth, much worse than they. Judge, therefore, between us, ye chiefs of the Greeks. And thou, Antilochus, stand before thy chariot and thy horses, as the custom is, holding in one hand thy whip, and laying the other hand on thine horses, and swear by Poseidon that thou didst not hinder my chariot by fraud."
To him Antilochus made reply: "Bear with me, Menelaus, for I am younger than thou, and thou knowest how young men go astray, for their judgment is hasty and their wit small. ”

“ A generation before me the deity changed the fortunes of Tithorea for the worse. There is the outline of a theatre, and the precincts of an ancient market-place, still remaining. But the most remarkable things in the town are the grove and shrine and statue of Athene, and the tomb of Antiope and Phocus. In my account of the Thebans I have shewn how Antiope went mad through the anger of Dionysus, and why she drew on her the anger of the god, and how she married Phocus the son of Ornytion, of whom she was passionately fond, and how they were buried together. ”

“ When she had suffered what the story says she suffered, Dionysus was angry with Antiope. For some reason extravagant punishments always arouse the resentment of the gods. They say that Antiope went mad, and when out of her wits roamed all over Greece; but Phocus, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus, chanced to meet her, cured her madness, and then married her.
9.17.7 So Antiope and Phocus share the same grave. The roughly quarried stones, laid along the tomb of Amphion at its base, are said to be the very rocks that followed the singing of Amphion. ”

“ Is it by chance or is there some reason for it? Why did not Antipholus explain that he had the chain through no option of his own? By means of the Merchant drawing his sword and detaining him, the scene with Adriana at the close of the preceding Act when his flight prevented her from having him bound as a mad man is carried on again, and refuge in the Priory forced upon him.
Why does the Abbess blame Adriana first because she did not find fault with her husband and then because she did? ”

“ Godlike Antilochus
Strode forth to meet him, sped the long spear's flight,
Yet missed him, for a little he swerved, but slew
His Aethiop comrade, son of Pyrrhasus.
Wroth for his fall, against Antilochus
He leapt, as leaps a lion mad of mood
Upon a boar, the beast that flincheth not
From fight with man or brute, whose charge is a flash
Of lightning; so was his swift leap. His foe
Antilochus caught a huge stone from the ground,
Hurled, smote him; but unshaken abode his strength,
For the strong helm-crest fenced his head from death ”

“ A despot named Pythagoras is said to have subverted by stratagem the previous government of the town, at some period before Cyrus, and to have exercised power for a certain time with great cruelty. [312] It is worthy of remark, that we find no trace of the existence of the four Ionic tribes at Ephesus; and this, when coupled with the fact that neither Ephesus nor Kolophôn solemnized the peculiar Ionic festival of the Apaturia, is one among other indications that the Ephesian population had little [p. 183] community of race with Athens, though the œkist may have been of heroic Athenian family. ”

“ Antilochus was first to slay a warrior of the Trojans in full armour, a goodly man amid the foremost fighters, Echepolus, son of Thalysius. Him was he first to smite upon the horn of his helmet with crest of horse-hair, and into his forehead drave the spear, and the point of bronze passed within the bone ”

“ Accordingly the two men swore to each other all the oaths which are the most terrible among the Christians and are in fact so designated by them, that they would never betray each other, even in the presence of dangers threatening their destruction. And so for the present it seemed to them not advisable to undertake the deed, but when Antonina should arrive from Byzantium and Theodosius should go to Ephesus, at that moment Photius was to arrive in Ephesus, where without difficulty he would lay hands upon Theodosius and the money. ”