Act 1, Scene 2

A public place.

[Enter ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and a MERCHANT.]
Merchant
160 Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,
161 Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
162 This very day a Syracusian merchant
163 Is apprehended for arrival here;
164 And, not being able to buy out his life,
165 According to the statute of the town,
166 Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.—
167 There is your money that I had to keep.
Antipholus of Syracuse
168 Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host,
169 And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.
170 Within this hour it will be dinner-time;
171 Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,
172 Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
173 And then return and sleep within mine inn;
174 For with long travel I am stiff and weary.—
175 Get thee away.
Dromio of Syracuse
176 Many a man would take you at your word,
177 And go indeed, having so good a mean.
[Exit DROMIO.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
178 A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,
179 When I am dull with care and melancholy,
180 Lightens my humour with his merry jests.
181 What, will you walk with me about the town,
182 And then go to my inn and dine with me?
Merchant
183 I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,
184 Of whom I hope to make much benefit:
185 I crave your pardon. Soon, at five o'clock,
186 Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,
187 And afterward consort you till bed-time:
188 My present business calls me from you now.
Antipholus of Syracuse
189 Farewell till then: I will go lose myself,
190 And wander up and down to view the city.
Merchant
191 Sir, I commend you to your own content.
[Exit MERCHANT.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
192 He that commends me to mine own content
193 Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
194 I to the world am like a drop of water
195 That in the ocean seeks another drop;
196 Who, failing there to find his fellow forth,
197 Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself:
198 So I, to find a mother and a brother,
199 In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.
[Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
200 Here comes the almanac of my true date.
201 What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?
Dromio of Ephesus
202 Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.
203 The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
204 The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell—
205 My mistress made it one upon my cheek:
206 She is so hot because the meat is cold;
207 The meat is cold because you come not home,;
208 You come not home because you have no stomach;
209 You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
210 But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,
211 Are penitent for your default to-day.
Antipholus of Syracuse
212 Stop—in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:
213 Where have you left the money that I gave you?
Dromio of Ephesus
214 O,—sixpence that I had o'Wednesday last
215 To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper;—
216 The saddler had it, sir, I kept it not.
Antipholus of Syracuse
217 I am not in a sportive humour now;
218 Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
219 We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust
220 So great a charge from thine own custody?
Dromio of Ephesus
221 I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner:
222 I from my mistress come to you in post:
223 If I return, I shall be post indeed;
224 For she will score your fault upon my pate.
225 Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
226 And strike you home without a messenger.
Antipholus of Syracuse
227 Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;
228 Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
229 Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
Dromio of Ephesus
230 To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me!
Antipholus of Syracuse
231 Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
232 And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.
Dromio of Ephesus
233 My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
234 Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner:
235 My mistress and her sister stay for you.
Antipholus of Syracuse
236 Now, as I am a Christian, answer me,
237 In what safe place you have bestow'd my money:
238 Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,
239 That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd;
240 Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
Dromio of Ephesus
241 I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
242 Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
243 But not a thousand marks between you both.—
244 If I should pay your worship those again,
245 Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
Antipholus of Syracuse
246 Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou?
Dromio of Ephesus
247 Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
248 She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
249 And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
Antipholus of Syracuse
250 What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
251 Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
Dromio of Ephesus
252 What mean you, sir? for God's sake hold your hands!
253 Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.
[Exit DROMIO.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
254 Upon my life, by some device or other,
255 The villain is o'er-raught of all my money.
256 They say this town is full of cozenage;
257 As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
258 Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
259 Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
260 Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
261 And many such-like liberties of sin:
262 If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
263 I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave:
264 I greatly fear my money is not safe.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 160historical topical
“give out you are of Epidamnum”
The Merchant warns Antipholus of Syracuse to pretend he is from Epidamnum, not Syracuse, because a Syracusan merchant has just been arrested and faces execution under Ephesus's law against enemy nationals (established in 1.1). Antipholus is in the same danger and must conceal his identity — the irony being that the play will hinge on his identity being constantly mistaken by others.
classical Plautus and Roman comedy
TLN 168cultural context
“bear it to the Centaur, where we host”
The Centaur is the name of the inn where Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio are staying. Elizabethan inns commonly took their names from heraldic badges or mythological creatures — the Centaur (a half-man, half-horse creature of Greek myth) was a real inn-sign type. 'Where we host' means 'where we are lodging.' The money he tells Dromio to take there is the gold that will soon go missing.
TLN 194rhetorical device
“I to the world am like a drop of water”
Antipholus of Syracuse describes his search for his lost family with an extended simile: he is a drop of water trying to find another drop in the ocean — which, if it fails, is absorbed and lost, unseen and unindividuated. The image captures both his quest ('to find a mother and a brother') and his fear that in searching he will lose himself entirely. This is one of the play's few moments of genuine emotional depth amid the farce.
TLN 200wordplay
“Here comes the almanac of my true date”
Antipholus of Syracuse sees Dromio of Ephesus enter — but thinks it is his own Dromio of Syracuse — and calls him 'the almanac of my true date,' meaning 'a living calendar that records my real age.' Because they were born the same day to the same parents (Dromio S is the twin of Dromio E), seeing Dromio confirms Antipholus's own birth-date as surely as an almanac confirms the calendar. The joke is that the Dromio arriving is the wrong one — the first instance of the play's central engine: a character correctly identifying someone and being completely wrong.
TLN 202stage direction note
“Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late”
The play's first mistaken-identity collision. The Dromio who enters is Dromio of Ephesus, sent to fetch his own master, Antipholus of Ephesus, home to dinner; he has never met Antipholus of Syracuse. The Syracusan, thinking this is his own Dromio (just sent to the Centaur), is baffled that he has 'returned' so quickly — but this Dromio never left. Everything he says (the burning capon, the angry mistress, the dinner) is perfectly true, and perfectly meaningless to a Syracusan who has no wife and no dinner waiting.
classical Plautus and Roman comedy
TLN 203wordplay
“The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit”
Dromio of Ephesus delivers a comic chain of cause and effect for why dinner is ruined: the capon (a fattened roasting hen) burns, the pig falls off the spit, the clock has struck twelve, his mistress struck him, the meat is cold because the master is absent, and the household fasts for his lateness. The chain puns on 'one': the clock struck twelve, but the mistress made it 'one' (one blow on his face). The overelaboration is pure Plautine style — a torrent of words that says nothing useful.
TLN 222wordplay
“I from my mistress come to you in post”
Dromio of Ephesus puns on three meanings of 'post' in two lines: (1) he has come 'in post,' meaning in great haste (like a post-horse, a fresh horse kept at posting-stages for fast travel); (2) if he returns empty-handed, he will 'be post indeed' — beaten like a whipping-post; and (3) his mistress will 'score your fault upon my pate,' meaning she will chalk up the master's fault as a debt by tallying it on his head with blows, as a score-keeper chalked debts on a post. All three meanings collapse into the image of a servant beaten for his master's sins.
TLN 240wordplay
“Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me”
Antipholus of Syracuse demands the thousand marks he gave his own Dromio to deposit at the Centaur. Dromio of Ephesus (who never received any money) pivots on the word 'marks': a mark was a unit of English currency worth two-thirds of a pound, but a 'mark' was also a bruise or welt. He says he has 'some marks of yours upon my pate' — meaning bruises from the master's earlier blows — and his mistress's marks on his shoulders, but 'not a thousand marks between you both.' He turns a financial reckoning into a catalogue of beatings.
TLN 256biblical allusion
“this town is full of cozenage”
After Dromio of Ephesus flees, Antipholus of Syracuse concludes he has been robbed by magic. His list — 'nimble jugglers,' 'dark-working sorcerers,' 'soul-killing witches,' 'disguised cheaters,' 'prating mountebanks' — echoes the biblical reputation of Ephesus as a city of sorcery and exorcists described in Acts 19, where St Paul found the city so full of magic that converts publicly burned their spell-books. Shakespeare's Ephesus is built on that scriptural memory: the characters blame every inexplicable event on witchcraft throughout the play.
biblical St Paul's Ephesus: magic and marriage