Luc.
And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband's office? shall, Antipholis,
Ev'n in the spring of love, thy love springs rot?
Shall love, in ^{3 note}building, grow so ruinate?
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 shew of blindness;
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
Look sweet, speak fair; become disloyalty:
  Apparel vice, like virtue's harbinger;

Bear a fair presence, tho' your heart be tainted:
  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
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;
  Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word:
Alas, poor women! make us (a) ^notebut believe,
  Being compact of credit, that you love us;
Tho' others have the arm, shew us the sleeve:
  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
  Comfort my sister, chear her, call her wife;
'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

S. Ant.
Sweet mistress, (what your name is else, I know not;
  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,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
  The foulded meaning of your word's 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 pow'r 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.

Oh, 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 thee, and there lye:
  And ^{4 note}in that glorious supposition think,
He gains by death, that hath such means to die;
  Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink.

Luc.
What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

S. Ant.
Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.

Luc.
It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

S. Ant.
For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

Luc.
Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.

S. Ant.
As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

Luc.
Why call you me, love? call my sister so.

S. Ant.
Thy sister's sister.

Luc.
That's my sister.

S. Ant.
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,
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.

Luc.
All this my sister is, or else should be.

S. Ant.
Call thyself sister, sweet; for I mean thee:
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
Give me thy hand.

Luc.
Oh, soft, Sir, hold you still;
I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will. [Exit Luciana.

Previous section

Next section