Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 2
The same.
Luciana : And may it be that you have quite forgot
[p]A husband's office? shall,
Antipholus.
[p]Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs
rot?
[p]Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
[p]If you did wed my
sister for her wealth,
[p]Then for her wealth's sake use her with more
kindness:
[p]Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
[p]Muffle
your false love with some show of blindness:
[p]Let not my sister read
it in your eye;
[p]Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
[p]Look
sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;
[p]Apparel vice like virtue's
harbinger;
[p]Bear a fair presence, though your heart be
tainted;
[p]Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
[p]Be
secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
[p]What simple thief brags
of his own attaint?
[p]'Tis double wrong, to truant with your
bed
[p]And let her read it in thy looks at board:
[p]Shame hath a
bastard fame, well managed;
[p]Ill deeds are doubled with an evil
word.
[p]Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
[p]Being compact of
credit, that you love us;
[p]Though others have the arm, show us the
sleeve;
[p]We in your motion turn and you may move us.
[p]Then, gentle
brother, get you in again;
[p]Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her
wife:
[p]'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
[p]When the sweet breath
of flattery conquers strife.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,
[p]Nor by what
wonder you do hit of mine,--
[p]Less in your knowledge and your grace
you show not
[p]Than our earth's wonder, more than earth
divine.
[p]Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
[p]Lay
open to my earthy-gross conceit,
[p]Smother'd in errors, feeble,
shallow, weak,
[p]The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
[p]Against
my soul's pure truth why labour you
[p]To make it wander in an unknown
field?
[p]Are you a god? would you create me new?
[p]Transform me
then, and to your power I'll yield.
[p]But if that I am I, then well I
know
[p]Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
[p]Nor to her bed no
homage do I owe
[p]Far more, far more to you do I decline.
[p]O, train
me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
[p]To drown me in thy sister's
flood of tears:
[p]Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote:
[p]Spread
o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
[p]And as a bed I'll take them
and there lie,
[p]And in that glorious supposition think
[p]He gains
by death that hath such means to die:
[p]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.
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.
Luciana : That's my sister.
Antipholus of Syracuse : No;
[p]It is thyself, mine own self's better part,
[p]Mine eye's clear
eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
[p]My food, my fortune and my sweet
hope's aim,
[p]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.
[p]Thee will I love and
with thee lead my life:
[p]Thou hast no husband yet nor I no
wife.
[p]Give me thy hand.
Luciana : O, soft, air! hold you still:
[p]I'll fetch my sister, to get her good
will.
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?
[p]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.
Antipholus of Syracuse : What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?
Dromio of Syracuse : Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one
[p]that claims
me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
Antipholus of Syracuse : What claim lays she to thee?
Dromio of Syracuse : Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your
[p]horse; and she would
have me as a beast: not that, I
[p]being a beast, she would have me;
but that she,
[p]being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
Antipholus of Syracuse : What is she?
Dromio of Syracuse : A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may
[p]not speak of
without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have
[p]but lean luck in the match,
and yet is she a
[p]wondrous fat marriage.
Antipholus of Syracuse : How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
Dromio of Syracuse : Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease;
[p]and I know not
what use to put her to but to make a
[p]lamp of her and run from her
by her own light. I
[p]warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will
burn a
[p]Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
[p]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
[p]clean kept: for
why, she sweats; a man may go over
[p]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
[p]an ell and three
quarters, will not measure her from
[p]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:
[p]she is spherical,
like a globe; I could find out
[p]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.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where France?
Dromio of Syracuse : In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war
[p]against her heir.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where England?
Dromio of Syracuse : I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no
[p]whiteness in
them; but I guess it stood in her chin,
[p]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?
Dromio of Syracuse : Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with
[p]rubies,
carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
[p]aspect to the hot
breath of Spain; who sent whole
[p]armadoes of caracks to be ballast
at her nose.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
Dromio of Syracuse : Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this
[p]drudge, or
diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me
[p]Dromio; swore I was assured to
her; told me what
[p]privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of
my
[p]shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my
[p]left arm,
that I amazed ran from her as a witch:
[p]And, I think, if my breast
had not been made of
[p]faith and my heart of steel,
[p]She had
transform'd me to a curtal dog and made
[p]me turn i' the wheel.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Go hie thee presently, post to the road:
[p]An if the wind blow any
way from shore,
[p]I will not harbour in this town to-night:
[p]If any
bark put forth, come to the mart,
[p]Where I will walk till thou
return to me.
[p]If every one knows us and we know none,
[p]'Tis time,
I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
Dromio of Syracuse : As from a bear a man would run for life,
[p]So fly I from her that
would be my wife.
Antipholus of Syracuse : There's none but witches do inhabit here;
[p]And therefore 'tis high
time that I were hence.
[p]She that doth call me husband, even my
soul
[p]Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
[p]Possess'd with
such a gentle sovereign grace,
[p]Of such enchanting presence and
discourse,
[p]Hath almost made me traitor to myself:
[p]But, lest
myself be guilty to self-wrong,
[p]I'll stop mine ears against the
mermaid's song.
Angelo : Master Antipholus,--
Antipholus of Syracuse : Ay, that's my name.
Angelo : I know it well, sir, lo, here is the chain.
[p]I thought to have ta'en
you at the Porpentine:
[p]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.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
Angelo : Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
[p]Go home with it and
please your wife withal;
[p]And soon at supper-time I'll visit
you
[p]And then receive my money for the chain.
Antipholus of Syracuse : I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
[p]For fear you ne'er see
chain nor money more.
Angelo : You are a merry man, sir: fare you well.
Antipholus of Syracuse : What I should think of this, I cannot tell:
[p]But this I think,
there's no man is so vain
[p]That would refuse so fair an offer'd
chain.
[p]I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
[p]When in the
streets he meets such golden gifts.
[p]I'll to the mart, and there for
Dromio stay
[p]If any ship put out, then straight away.
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