Luc.
And may it be, that you have quite forgot
  A husband's office? shall, Antiphilus,
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?14Q0139
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, though 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 ^note?
'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 doubl'd ^note with an evil word.
Alas, poor women! make us but believe ^note,
  Being compact of credit, that you love us;
Though 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.

A. S.
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, ^note
  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.
But if that I am I, then, well I know,
  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine;
Nor to her bed no homage ^note do I owe;
  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
O train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
  To drown me in thy sister's flood ^note of tears;
Sing, syren, for thy self, and I will dote:
  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed ^note I'll take them ^note, and there lye;
  And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death, that hath such means to dye:
  Let love, being light, be drowned if he sink ^note!

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

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

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

A. S.
For gazing ^note on your beams, fair sun, being by.

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

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

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

A. S.
Thy sister's sister.

Luc.
That's my sister.

A. S.
No;
It is thy self, 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.

A. S.
Call thy self sister, sweet, for I aim thee ^note:14Q0140
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife:
Give me thy hand.

Luc.
O, soft, sir, hold you still;
I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will. [Exit. Enter Dromio Syracusan.

A. S.

Why, how now, Dromio?14Q0141 where run'st thou so fast?

D. S.

Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?

A. S.

Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

D. S.

I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides myself.

A. S.

What woman's man? and how besides thyself?

D. S.

Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

A. S.

What claim lays she to thee?

D. S.

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.

A. S.

What is she?

D. S.

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 she is a wondrous fat marriage.

A. S.

What dost thou mean, a fat marriage?

D. S.

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 Poland winter: if she lives 'till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.

A. S.

What complexion is she of?

D. S.

Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept; For why? she sweats, a man may go over-shoes in the grime of it.

A. S.

That's a fault, that water will mend.

D. S.

No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.

A. S.

What's her name?

D. S.

Nell, sir: but her name and three quarters ^note,— that's, an ell and three quarters, will ^note not measure her from hip to hip.

A. S.

Then she bears some breadth.

D. S.

No longer from head to foot, then ^note from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.

A. S.

In what part of her body stands Ireland?

D. S.

Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out

by the bogs.

A. S.

Where Scotland?

D. S.

I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand.

A. S.

Where France?

D. S.

In her forehead; arm'd, and reverted, making war against her heir. ^note

A. S.

Where England?

D. S.

I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them: but ^note I guess, it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

A. S.

Where Spain?

D. S.

Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it, hot in her breath.

A. S.

Where America, the Indies?

D. S.

O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, saphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballasted ^note at her nose.

A. S.

Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

D. S.

O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge ^note, or diviner, lay'd claim to me; call'd me Dromio; swore, I was assur'd to her; told me what privy marks ^note I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I amaz'd ran from her as a witch: And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and ^note my heart of steel, she had transformed me to a curtail dog, and made me turn i' the wheel.

A. S.
Go hye 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.
If every one knows us, and we know none,
'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.

D. S.
As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit Dromio.

A. S.
There's none but witches do inhabit here;
And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.
She, that doth call me husband, ev'n my soul
Doth for a wife abhor: but her fair sister,
Possest with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
Hath almost made me traitor to my self:
But, lest my self be guilty to self wrong,
I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song. Enter the Goldsmith.

Gol.
Master Antiphilus?

A. S.
Ay, that's my name.

Gol.
I know it well, sir: Lo, here is &dagger2; the chain;
I thought to have ta'en you at the porcupine;
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

A. S.
What is your will, that I shall do with this?

Gol.
What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.

A. S.
Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.

Gol.
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.

A. S.
I pray you, sir, receive the money now,

For fear you ne'er see chain, nor money, more.

Gol.
You are a merry man, sir; fare you well. [Exit Goldsmith.

A. S.
What I ^note 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 ^note he meets such golden gifts.
I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit.

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