Comedy of Errors

Comedy of Errors

ACT III SCENE II	The same.
	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?	5
	If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
	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;	10
	Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
	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;	15
	Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
	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;	20
	Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
	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.	25
	Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
	Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:
	'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
	When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,	30
	Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,--
	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,	35
	Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
	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?	40
	Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield.
	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.	45
	O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
	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,	50
	And in that glorious supposition think
	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?
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.	55
LUCIANA	It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA	Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA	Why call you me love? call my sister so.	60
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Thy sister's sister.
LUCIANA	That's my sister.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	No;
	It is thyself, mine own self's better part,
	Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,	65
	My food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim,
	My sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim.
LUCIANA	All this my sister is, or else should be.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.
	Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:	70
	Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.
	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
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?	75
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man?
	am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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.
ANTIPHOLUS	What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?	80
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.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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	85
	being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
	being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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	90
	but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
	wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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	95
	lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I
	warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
	Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
	she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	What complexion is she of?	100
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
	clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
	shoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	That's a fault that water will mend.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.	105
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	What's her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's
	an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from
	hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Then she bears some breadth?	110
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:
	she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out
	countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.	115
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where France?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war
	against her heir.	120
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no
	whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,
	by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where Spain?	125
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE	Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where America, the Indies?
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	130
	armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
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	135
	privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my
	shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my
	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,	140
	She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made
	me turn i' the wheel.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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:	145
	If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
	Where I will walk till thou return to me.
	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,	150
	So fly I from her that would be my wife.
	Exit
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	There's none but witches do inhabit here;
	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,	155
	Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
	Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
	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.	160
	Enter ANGELO with the chain
ANGELO	Master Antipholus,--
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	Ay, that's my name.
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.	165
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	What is your will that I shall do with this?
ANGELO	What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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;	170
	And soon at supper-time I'll visit you
	And then receive my money for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUSOF 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.	175
	Exit
ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE	What I should think of this, I cannot tell:
	But this I think, there's no man is so vain
	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.	180
	I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay
	If any ship put out, then straight away.
	Exit