QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: The Comedy of Errors ACT/SCENE: 1.2 SPEAKER: Antipholus of Syracuse CONTEXT: ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
I am not in a sportive humour now.
Tell me, and dally not: where is the money?
We being strangers here, how dar’st thou trust
So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.
I from my mistress come to you in post;
If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will scour your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season.
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me!
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge. DUTCH: Kom, Dromio, kom, ontijdig is die scherts;
Bewaar ze tot ik vroolijker gestemd ben.
Waar is het goud, dat ik u toevertrouwde? MORE: Out of season=Badly timed, inconvenient
Jest=Each believes the other to be joking (in ‘sportive humour’). The confusion about the delivery of a gold chain is a reference to a cause célèbre case in 1591 and 1592, Underwood v Manwood. This would have been appreciated by an audience in Gray’s Inn in 1594.
Maw=appetite
Compleat:
Maw=Maag
Out of season=Uit de tyd
To jest=Boerten, schertsen, jokken, gekscheeren Topics: time, debt/obligation, misunderstanding, dispute