# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Comedy of Errors
[I, 1]

Solinus

30

Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
Why thou departed'st from thy native home
And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.

2

Comedy of Errors
[I, 2]

Dromio of Ephesus

236

To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.

3

Comedy of Errors
[II, 1]

Adriana

282

Why should their liberty than ours be more?

4

Comedy of Errors
[II, 1]

Luciana

287

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.

5

Comedy of Errors
[II, 1]

Dromio of Ephesus

329

Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.

6

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Dromio of Syracuse

429

Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I
had rather have it a head: an you use these blows
long, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce
it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.
But, I pray, sir why am I beaten?

7

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

436

Shall I tell you why?

8

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Dromio of Syracuse

437

Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath
a wherefore.

9

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

439

Why, first,—for flouting me; and then, wherefore—
For urging it the second time to me.

10

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Dromio of Syracuse

441

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme
nor reason?
Well, sir, I thank you.

11

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

469

Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is,
so plentiful an excrement?

12

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

473

Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

13

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

475

Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

14

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

492

But your reason was not substantial, why there is no
time to recover.

15

Comedy of Errors
[II, 2]

Luciana

582

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

16

Comedy of Errors
[III, 1]

Balthazar

720

Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!
Herein you war against your reputation
And draw within the compass of suspect
The unviolated honour of your wife.
Once this,—your long experience of her wisdom,
Her sober virtue, years and modesty,
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown:
And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
Why at this time the doors are made against you.
Be ruled by me: depart in patience,
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner,
And about evening come yourself alone
To know the reason of this strange restraint.
If by strong hand you offer to break in
Now in the stirring passage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it,
And that supposed by the common rout
Against your yet ungalled estimation
That may with foul intrusion enter in
And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;
For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.

17

Comedy of Errors
[III, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

791

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!

18

Comedy of Errors
[III, 2]

Luciana

821

Why call you me love? call my sister so.

19

Comedy of Errors
[III, 2]

Antipholus of Syracuse

838

Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?

20

Comedy of Errors
[III, 2]

Dromio of Syracuse

864

Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
shoes in the grime of it.