Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might’st 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 mad’st thou in this case
Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
Oh Luciana, did he try to seduce you that much? Could you tell from his expression whether he was pleading earnestly or not? Did he look flushed or pale, sad or cheerful? What did you notice about the way his emotions showed in his face?
So Luciana, did he really try it with you? Could you tell if he was being serious about it from his eyes? Did he look flushed, pale, happy, or sad? What was your read on him?
did he really try it was he serious what did his face say
First he denied you had in him no right.
At first he denied that you had any claim on him.
First he said you didn't have any hold over him.
he said u had no claim on him
He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
He meant he didn't owe me anything; which makes me even angrier.
So he's saying he doesn't owe me anything—which just makes me madder.
he doesn't owe me nothing makes me so mad
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
Then he swore he was a stranger in this city.
Then he claimed he was a stranger here.
he said he was a stranger here
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
And he was telling the truth about that, even though he's broken other oaths.
That's the only thing he told the truth about, even though he's lying about everything else.
he was right about that even tho he lied about everything else
Then pleaded I for you.
Then I argued on your behalf.
Then I stuck up for you.
then i defended u
And what said he?
And what did he say?
So what'd he say in response?
what'd he say
That love I begg’d for you he begg’d of me.
He said that instead of showing you the love I asked him to have, he asked me for that love.
He said instead of giving you love like I asked, he wanted it from me.
he wanted love from me not from u
The Comedy of Errors is not usually described as psychologically profound — but Adriana in scene 4-2 is doing something that most of Shakespeare's more famous heroines don't. She knows exactly what she's doing. The lapwing image is not just poetic; it's diagnostic. She tells Luciana: 'I am the lapwing — I cry loudly away from my nest to protect what I care about.' She knows that her anger is a performance designed to conceal her love. She understands her own emotional strategy and names it. This kind of self-aware emotional analysis is rare in Shakespeare's early work and rare in comedy generally. It's the kind of interiority he develops in characters like Angelo in Measure for Measure or Beatrice in Much Ado — characters who understand their own self-deception. Adriana manages this insight in 1594, in a play that's mostly remembered for identical twins and beatings.
With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
How did he try to win your affection?
How'd he try to get with you?
how'd he try to get u
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
With words that would be persuasive in an honest courtship. First he praised my beauty, then my way of speaking.
With words that would work if he actually meant them. He complimented my looks, then the way I talk.
he said i was beautiful then praised my voice
Did’st speak him fair?
Did you respond kindly to him?
Did you encourage him?
u encourage him
Have patience, I beseech.
Please be patient with me.
Can you just let me finish?
chill, let me talk
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-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
I can't and won't stay quiet. My tongue, unlike my heart, will say what it wants. He's deformed, crooked, old and withered, ugly-faced, badly built, misshapen everywhere. He's mean, rude, foolish, blunt, and unkind, marked by vice in body and worse in mind.
I can't help it, I won't shut up. My tongue is going to say what my heart won't. He's twisted, old, decrepit, ugly, badly put together, just wrong everywhere. He's cruel, rude, stupid, tactless, and mean—his whole body is messed up but his mind is even worse.
i gotta say it he's ugly, old, mean totally twisted body AND mind
Who would be jealous then of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
Who would be jealous over someone like that? No one mourns when something bad disappears.
Why would anyone be jealous of him? Nobody cries when evil goes away.
who'd be jealous of him no one misses evil
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.
But the truth is I think he's better than these words suggest. And I wish I saw him as badly as I'm making him sound. Like a lapwing crying away from her nest to protect it, my heart stays true to him even though my tongue curses him.
But actually I think better of him than I'm saying. I wish I could hate him as much as I sound like I do. My heart's loyal to him even though I'm tearing him apart with my words—like a mother bird calling away from where her nest really is.
he's better than i'm saying my heart's loyal but i curse him anyway
Here, go; the desk, the purse, sweet now, make haste.
Here, go. The desk, the purse—come on now, hurry.
Go get it—the desk, the money—come on, move!
go get the money hurry up
The time-debt-sergeant exchange between Adriana and Dromio S (chunks 4-2-033 through 4-2-037) looks like pure comic padding but it isn't. The joke — that if time is a debtor and a thief, it naturally runs from sergeants — literalises what has been happening all play. Time in The Comedy of Errors is actually wrong. Hours don't line up. Events that should be sequential are simultaneous. Things that can't both be true are both true. The play's title refers to 'errors' in the sense of wandering (Latin: errare = to wander) — and in Elizabethan cosmology, the planets were sometimes called 'the erring stars' because they wandered from their fixed positions. Dromio's joke about time turning back is, accidentally, a description of the play's structure. It is also a comment on Ephesus as a place where reality is suspended — a theme the play establishes in Act 1 and maintains through to Act 5's resolution.
How hast thou lost thy breath?
How did you lose your breath?
Why are you so out of breath?
why u so winded
By running fast.
By running fast.
By running fast.
By running fast.
Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?
Where's your master, Dromio? Is he all right?
Where's your master, Dromio? Is he okay?
where's your master is he ok
No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dryfoot well,
One that, before the judgement, carries poor souls to hell.
No, he's in hell, or worse. An officer is holding him—someone with a hard heart, cruel and rough. Like a wolf, or worse—a man in a leather uniform. He's a false friend, an officer who arrests you when you least expect it. He blocks the passages through alleys and narrow streets. He's like a hunting dog that goes the wrong direction but still follows the trail, dragging poor souls to hell before judgment day.
No, he's in hell. An officer's got him—some guy with a heart of steel, totally merciless. Like a wolf, but worse. He's wearing that buff uniform and acting all official. He's a total fake, pops up out of nowhere to arrest you. He blocks all the back alleys and side streets. He's like a crazy hunting dog that goes backward but still catches you. He's dragging people to hell before they even get judged.
he's in hell an officer got him cruel guy in uniform no way out
Why, man, what is the matter?
What on earth is going on?
What's going on?
what happened
I do not know the matter. He is ’rested on the case.
I don't know the details. He's been arrested in the matter.
I don't know all the details. He got arrested over this whole thing.
arrested over the whole thing
What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit?
He's been arrested? Tell me who filed the suit against him.
He's arrested? Who sued him?
no who arrested him who sued
I know not at whose suit he is arrested, well;
But he’s in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell.
Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?
I don't know which lawsuit arrested him, but I can tell you he's wearing a buff uniform that's keeping him locked up. Will you send him bail, mistress? The money's in his desk.
I don't know whose suit—I mean lawsuit—he's in. But I know it's that buff uniform the officer's wearing that's got him stuck. Will you send him some bail money, ma'am? He said it's in his desk.
i dunno whose suit but the officer's got him send bail money
Go fetch it, sister. This I wonder at,
Go get it, sister. This surprises me,
Go grab it. This is weird—
get the money this is wild
The word 'conceit' at the end of scene 4-2 is doing triple work. It means: (1) mental image, thought, imagination — the Elizabethan primary meaning; (2) a poetic conceit — an elaborate metaphor or extended figure; (3) pride, self-opinion — a secondary Elizabethan meaning. Adriana is crushed by her mental images of her husband and Luciana. She is also crushed by her own conceits — the story she is telling herself. And she is, finally, crushed by a kind of pride: the pride that makes her insult her husband to her sister when she loves him. The word gathers all three meanings in its final position and makes them simultaneous. It is also, structurally, the scene's exit line — turning what has been a scene of frantic logistics (bail money, sergeants, time-jokes) into a quiet lyric close. Shakespeare frequently does this: ends a hectic scene with a couplet of startling compression that reframes everything that came before.
Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.
Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
So he's in debt without my knowledge? Tell me, was the arrest based on a bond?
How could he owe money and I wouldn't know about it? Was he arrested over some debt agreement?
he owes money i didn't know was it on a bond
Not on a band, but on a stronger thing;
A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?
Not arrested by a band or ribbon, but by something stronger. A chain! A chain! Can't you hear it ringing?
Not some little band—something way worse. A chain! A chain! Can you hear it?
not a band a chain hear it ring
What, the chain?
What, the chain?
What, the chain?
What, the chain?
No, no, the bell, ’tis time that I were gone.
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
No, no, the bell—it's time I was leaving. It was two o'clock when I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
No, it's just the bell. It's time I got out of here. When I left him it was two, and now it's only one.
it's the bell i gotta go it was 2, now it's 1
The hours come back! That did I never hear.
The hours are going backward? I've never heard of that.
Time's going backward? That's new to me.
time goes backward never heard that
O yes, if any hour meet a sergeant, ’a turns back for very fear.
Oh yes, any hour will turn back if it meets a sergeant—they're so frightening that even time runs away from them.
Oh yeah, if time meets up with a sergeant it runs the other way. Even hours are scared of them.
yeah time runs from sergeants even hours are scared
As if time were in debt. How fondly dost thou reason!
As if time itself owed money. How foolishly you're reasoning!
Like time owes somebody money. You're being ridiculous.
like time's in debt lol u're trippin
Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he’s worth to season.
Nay, he’s a thief too. Have you not heard men say
That time comes stealing on by night and day?
If he be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?
Time is bankrupt and owes more than he's worth. He's also a thief—haven't you heard people say time steals everything? If time is in debt and guilty of theft, and a sergeant is in his way, doesn't he have good reason to turn back an hour?
Time's broke—broke and in debt. Plus he's a thief. You know how people say time steals everything? If time's poor and criminal and there's a sergeant after him, wouldn't he turn back just to avoid getting arrested?
time's broke and steals if a sergeant's looking time would run backward
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.
Go, Dromio, there's the money—take it right now and bring your master home as fast as you can. Come, sister. I'm weighed down by thoughts of him. My feelings about him are both my comfort and my pain.
Go, Dromio—here's the money. Take it and get your master back here immediately. Come on, sister. I'm crushed by all this—thinking about him is both what keeps me going and what's destroying me.
take the money get him home i'm torn up thinking about him
The Reckoning
The scene serves two functions: emotional and logistical. The emotional work — Adriana's alternating fury and love — is the most psychologically complex writing in the play for any character. The lapwing image (a bird that cries away from its nest to distract predators) is a beautiful gloss on her own behaviour: she insults her husband loudly to protect the love she cannot quite express. The logistical work — Dromio arriving with arrest news, money fetched, bail sent — keeps the plot moving. The Dromio time-banter in the middle is Shakespeare's tonal palate-cleanser between those two jobs.
If this happened today…
Your sister comes home and tells you that your husband (who you've been furious at for days) was flirting with her. You immediately list every single flaw you've ever seen in him — ugly, old, rude, useless. Your sister points out that if he's that bad, maybe it's not worth being upset. And then you say: 'Yeah but I actually love him way more than I'm letting on. I'm just protecting myself.' Then the doorbell rings and it's his assistant saying he's been arrested. You shift from heartbreak to logistics in four seconds flat.