| ACT III SCENE II | Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. | |
| [Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse] |
| LUCIANA | And may it be that you have quite forgot |
| A husband's office? shall, Antipholus. |
| Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot? |
| Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous? |
| If you did wed my sister for her wealth, | 5 |
| Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness: |
| Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth; |
| Muffle your false love with some show of blindness: |
| Let not my sister read it in your eye; |
| Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; | 10 |
| Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty; |
| Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger; |
| Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; |
| Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; |
| Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted? | 15 |
| What simple thief brags of his own attaint? |
| 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed |
| And let her read it in thy looks at board: |
| Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed; |
| Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. | 20 |
| Alas, poor women! make us but believe, |
| Being compact of credit, that you love us; |
| Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve; |
| We in your motion turn and you may move us. |
| Then, gentle brother, get you in again; | 25 |
| Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife: |
| 'Tis holy sport to be a little vain, |
| When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not, |
| Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,-- | 30 |
| Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not |
| Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine. |
| Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; |
| Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, |
| Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, | 35 |
| The folded meaning of your words' deceit. |
| Against my soul's pure truth why labour you |
| To make it wander in an unknown field? |
| Are you a god? would you create me new? |
| Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield. | 40 |
| But if that I am I, then well I know |
| Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, |
| Nor to her bed no homage do I owe |
| Far more, far more to you do I decline. |
| O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, | 45 |
| To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears: |
| Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote: |
| Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, |
| And as a bed I'll take them and there lie, |
| And in that glorious supposition think | 50 |
| He gains by death that hath such means to die: |
| Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink! |
| LUCIANA | What, are you mad, that you do reason so? |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know. |
| LUCIANA | It is a fault that springeth from your eye. | 55 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by. |
| LUCIANA | Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night. |
| LUCIANA | Why call you me love? call my sister so. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Thy sister's sister. | 60 |
| LUCIANA | That's my sister. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | No; |
| It is thyself, mine own self's better part, |
| Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart, |
| My food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim, | 65 |
| My sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim. |
| LUCIANA | All this my sister is, or else should be. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee. |
| Thee will I love and with thee lead my life: |
| Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife. | 70 |
| Give me thy hand. |
| LUCIANA | O, soft, air! hold you still: |
| I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will. |
| [Exit] |
| [Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? | 75 |
| am I myself? |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one |
| that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. | 80 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What claim lays she to thee? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your |
| horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I |
| being a beast, she would have me; but that she, |
| being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. | 85 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What is she? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may |
| not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have |
| but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a |
| wondrous fat marriage. | 90 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | How dost thou mean a fat marriage? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; |
| and I know not what use to put her to but to make a |
| lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I |
| warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a | 95 |
| Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, |
| she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What complexion is she of? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so |
| clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over | 100 |
| shoes in the grime of it. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | That's a fault that water will mend. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What's her name? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's | 105 |
| an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from |
| hip to hip. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Then she bears some breadth? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: |
| she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out | 110 |
| countries in her. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | In what part of her body stands Ireland? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where Scotland? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand. | 115 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where France? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war |
| against her heir. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where England? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no | 120 |
| whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, |
| by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where Spain? |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where America, the Indies? | 125 |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with |
| rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich |
| aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole |
| armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? | 130 |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this |
| drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me |
| Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what |
| privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my |
| shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my | 135 |
| left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch: |
| And, I think, if my breast had not been made of |
| faith and my heart of steel, |
| She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made |
| me turn i' the wheel. | 140 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Go hie thee presently, post to the road: |
| An if the wind blow any way from shore, |
| I will not harbour in this town to-night: |
| If any bark put forth, come to the mart, |
| Where I will walk till thou return to me. | 145 |
| If every one knows us and we know none, |
| 'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone. |
| DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | As from a bear a man would run for life, |
| So fly I from her that would be my wife. |
| [Exit] |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | There's none but witches do inhabit here; | 150 |
| And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence. |
| She that doth call me husband, even my soul |
| Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, |
| Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace, |
| Of such enchanting presence and discourse, | 155 |
| Hath almost made me traitor to myself: |
| But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, |
| I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song. |
| [Enter ANGELO with the chain] |
| ANGELO | Master Antipholus,-- |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Ay, that's my name. | 160 |
| ANGELO | I know it well, sir, lo, here is the chain. |
| I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine: |
| The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long. |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What is your will that I shall do with this? |
| ANGELO | What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you. | 165 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not. |
| ANGELO | Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have. |
| Go home with it and please your wife withal; |
| And soon at supper-time I'll visit you |
| And then receive my money for the chain. | 170 |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | I pray you, sir, receive the money now, |
| For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more. |
| ANGELO | You are a merry man, sir: fare you well. |
| [Exit] |
| ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE | What I should think of this, I cannot tell: |
| But this I think, there's no man is so vain | 175 |
| That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain. |
| I see a man here needs not live by shifts, |
| When in the streets he meets such golden gifts. |
| I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay |
| If any ship put out, then straight away. | 180 |
| [Exit] |