Henry IV, part 1—2:3
Lady Percy is worried about her husband going to battle again – she awakens in the middle of the night
to find that he is absent from bed and orders have been sent out to ride away immediately. She feels
betrayed that he isn’t taking her into his confidence and treating her like a little girl to be left behind.
LADY PERCY
O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is ’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth
And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream,
And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
A Comedy of Errors—3:2
Dromio of Syracuse has been mistakenly addressed as his twin by his twin’s mistress’ kitchen cook. He
runs into his master and is anxious to share his harrowing and confusing experience with his master,
who also has no idea that there is a twin running about.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?
I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides myself.
Marry, sir, besides myself I am due to a woman, one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will
have me.
Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast; not that I being
a beast she would have me, but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
A very reverent body, ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without he say “sir-reverence.” I have
but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.
Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to make a
lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a week longer than the whole world.
Her complexion is swart like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept. For why? She sweats. A
man may go overshoes in the grime of it.
Her name is Nell, sir, but her name and three quarters—that’s an ell and three quarters—will not
measure her from hip to hip.
She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her.
To conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me, call’d me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told
me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart
on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch. And, I think, if my breast had not been made of
faith, and my heart of steel, She had transformed me to a curtal dog and made me turn i' th' wheel.
As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife.