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I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your Worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently. (1.2.83–87)
Dromio of Ephesus addresses these lines to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus has become upset that his Dromio seems to be pretending not to be aware that he was supposed to secure their money at the guesthouse where they will stay the night. Dromio E. insists (rightly) that his only task was to fetch his master and bring him home for the midday meal. He also comically undermines the man he thinks is his master by making a joke that puns on the word “marks,” which is both a form of currency and the physical impression left from a beating. He doesn’t have a purse full of marks, Dromio E. says, but he certainly has many marks on his body where his master has beat him.
ADRIANA Why should their liberty than ours be more?
LUCIANA Because their business still lies out o’ door.
ADRIANA Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
LUCIANA O, know he is the bridle of your will.
ADRIANA There’s none but asses will be bridled so. (2.1.10–14)
This exchange between the two sisters stems from Adriana’s irritation that her husband hasn’t come home in time for the midday meal. She’s frustrated by the liberties he takes with time, and she wonders aloud why men should enjoy so much freedom. Adriana longs to have similar liberty; in her view, it isn’t fair that there should be such a rigid hierarchy between men and women. Luciana, by contrast, voices a more conservative view about it being proper for a wife to obey her husband. This brief debate about domestic authority concludes with Adriana asserting that only “asses” would allow themselves to be “bridled” by a man. This reference to asses may allude to the biblical story of Balaam’s ass. In that story, Balaam severely—and unjustly—beats his donkey when she stops and refuses to move. Adriana is thus pointing out the unmerited violence involved in men’s domestic authority.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;
If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I think thou art an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Marry, so it doth appear
By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick being kicked and, being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass. (3.1.12–21)
In this exchange from act 3, Dromio of Ephesus confronts his master for the ceaseless beatings he dishes out. As it happens, Dromio E. unwittingly complains about a beating he received from Antipholus of Syracuse. This puts the Ephesian Antipholus on the defensive, which in turn makes Dromio keen to show that his skin is covered in marks like parchment is covered with writing. But Dromio’s point here is ultimately a larger one related to the nature of the relationship between a master and a servant. Just as a man is sanctioned to beat his donkey, so too is a master is sanctioned with the authority to beat his servant.
