SEARCH TEXTS  

Plays  +  Sonnets  +  Poems  +  Concordance  +  Advanced Search  +  About OSS

Speeches (Lines) for Adriana
in "Comedy of Errors"

Total: 79

---
# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

II,1,273

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.

2

II,1,282

Why should their liberty than ours be more?

3

II,1,284

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

4

II,1,286

There's none but asses will be bridled so.

5

II,1,298

This servitude makes you to keep unwed.

6

II,1,300

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

7

II,1,302

How if your husband start some other where?

8

II,1,304

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.

9

II,1,317

Say, is your tardy master now at hand?

10

II,1,320

Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind?

11

II,1,327

But say, I prithee, is he coming home? It seems he
hath great care to please his wife.

12

II,1,330

Horn-mad, thou villain!

13

II,1,348

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

14

II,1,351

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

15

II,1,354

Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home.

16

II,1,361

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.

17

II,1,377

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.

18

II,2,499

Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown:
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;
I am not Adriana nor thy wife.
The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savor'd in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled that same drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch me to the quick,
Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me
And hurl the name of husband in my face
And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow
And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.
I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we too be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured.

19

II,2,546

By thee; and this thou didst return from him,
That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows,
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.

20

II,2,557

How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate:
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

21

II,2,593

Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn.
Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.
Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.

22

II,2,608

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

23

III,1,690

[Within] Who is that at the door that keeps all
this noise?

24

III,1,695

[Within] Your wife, sir knave! go get you from the door.

25

IV,2,1072

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?

26

IV,2,1079

He meant he did me none; the more my spite.

27

IV,2,1081

And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.

28

IV,2,1083

And what said he?

29

IV,2,1085

With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?

30

IV,2,1088

Didst speak him fair?

31

IV,2,1090

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.

32

IV,2,1098

Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away:
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.

33

IV,2,1106

Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?

34

IV,2,1117

Why, man, what is the matter?

35

IV,2,1119

What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit.

36

IV,2,1123

Go fetch it, sister.
[Exit Luciana]
This I wonder at,
That he, unknown to me, should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?

37

IV,2,1130

What, the chain?

38

IV,2,1134

The hours come back! that did I never hear.

39

IV,2,1137

As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!

40

IV,2,1145

Go, Dromio; there's the money, bear it straight;
And bring thy master home immediately.
Come, sister: I am press'd down with conceit—
Conceit, my comfort and my injury.

41

IV,4,1296

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.

42

IV,4,1310

O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!

43

IV,4,1316

O husband, God doth know you dined at home;
Where would you had remain'd until this time,
Free from these slanders and this open shame!

44

IV,4,1330

Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?

45

IV,4,1334

Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.

46

IV,4,1339

He came to me and I deliver'd it.

47

IV,4,1348

I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.

48

IV,4,1351

Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.

49

IV,4,1359

O, bind him, bind him! let him not come near me.

50

IV,4,1369

What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?
Hast thou delight to see a wretched man
Do outrage and displeasure to himself?

51

IV,4,1374

I will discharge thee ere I go from thee:
Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,
And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.
Good master doctor, see him safe convey'd
Home to my house. O most unhappy day!

52

IV,4,1385

Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.
[Exeunt all but Adriana, Luciana, Officer and]
Courtezan]
Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?

53

IV,4,1390

I know the man. What is the sum he owes?

54

IV,4,1392

Say, how grows it due?

55

IV,4,1394

He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.

56

IV,4,1399

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]

57

IV,4,1405

And come with naked swords.
Let's call more help to have them bound again.

58

V,1,1459

Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! he is mad.
Some get within him, take his sword away:
Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.

59

V,1,1468

To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.
Let us come in, that we may bind him fast
And bear him home for his recovery.

60

V,1,1474

This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
And much different from the man he was;
But till this afternoon his passion
Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.

61

V,1,1484

To none of these, except it be the last;
Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.

62

V,1,1487

Why, so I did.

63

V,1,1489

As roughly as my modesty would let me.

64

V,1,1491

And in assemblies too.

65

V,1,1493

It was the copy of our conference:
In bed he slept not for my urging it;
At board he fed not for my urging it;
Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company I often glanced it;
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.

66

V,1,1521

She did betray me to my own reproof.
Good people enter and lay hold on him.

67

V,1,1524

Then let your servants bring my husband forth.

68

V,1,1529

I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
And will have no attorney but myself;
And therefore let me have him home with me.

69

V,1,1540

I will not hence and leave my husband here:
And ill it doth beseem your holiness
To separate the husband and the wife.

70

V,1,1546

Come, go: I will fall prostrate at his feet
And never rise until my tears and prayers
Have won his grace to come in person hither
And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

71

V,1,1567

Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess!

72

V,1,1570

May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband,
Whom I made lord of me and all I had,
At your important letters,—this ill day
A most outrageous fit of madness took him;
That desperately he hurried through the street,
With him his bondman, all as mad as he—
Doing displeasure to the citizens
By rushing in their houses, bearing thence
Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like.
Once did I get him bound and sent him home,
Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,
That here and there his fury had committed.
Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,
He broke from those that had the guard of him;
And with his mad attendant and himself,
Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,
Met us again and madly bent on us,
Chased us away; till, raising of more aid,
We came again to bind them. Then they fled
Into this abbey, whither we pursued them:
And here the abbess shuts the gates on us
And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.

73

V,1,1613

Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,
And that is false thou dost report to us.

74

V,1,1622

Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you,
That he is borne about invisible:
Even now we housed him in the abbey here;
And now he's there, past thought of human reason.

75

V,1,1644

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!

76

V,1,1773

I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.

77

V,1,1811

Which of you two did dine with me to-day?

78

V,1,1813

And are not you my husband?

79

V,1,1826

I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.

Return to the "Comedy of Errors" menu