Page 1701 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

ADRIANA

And what said he?

LUCIANA

That love I begged for you, he begged of me.

ADRIANA

With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?

LUCIANA

With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech. [15]

ADRIANA

Didst speak him fair?

LUCIANA

Have patience, I beseech.

ADRIANA

I cannot nor I will not hold me still.
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformèd, crooked, old, and sere;
Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere; [20]
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.

LUCIANA

Who would be jealous, then, of such a one?
No evil lost is wailed when it is gone.

ADRIANA

Ah, but I think him better than I say, [25]
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.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse.

DROMIO S.