Antipholus of Syracuse.
Luc.
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 11Q01425 note
?
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;
-- 141 --
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty6 note;
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?
'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 but believe7 note,
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:
Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.
'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
Ant. 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 earthly gross conceit,
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?
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,
-- 142 --
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe:
Far more, far more, to you do I decline 11Q01438 note.
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears9 note.
Sing, syren, for thyself, and I will dote:
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take thee1 note, and there lie;
And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death, that hath such means to die:
Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink2 note!
Luc.
What! are you mad, that you do reason so?
Ant. S.
Not mad, but mated3 note; how, I do not know.
Luc.
It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
Ant. S.
For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
Luc.
Gaze where you should4 note, and that will clear your sight.
Ant. S.
As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
Luc.
Why call you me love? call my sister so.
Ant. S.
Thy sister's sister.
Luc.
That's my sister.
Ant. S.
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.
-- 143 --
Ant. S.
Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee5 note.
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 of Syracuse hastily.
Ant. S.
Why, how now, Dromio! where run'st thou
so fast?
Dro. S.
Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I
your man? am I myself?
Ant. S.
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art
thyself.
Dro. S.
I am an ass; I am a woman's man, and
besides myself.
Ant. S.
What woman's man? and how besides thyself?
Dro. S.
Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a
woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one
that will have me.
Ant. S.
What claim lays she to thee?
Dro. 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.
Ant. S.
What is she?
Dro. S.
A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a
man may not speak of, without he say, sir-reverence6 note.
I have but lean luck in the match, and yet she is a
wondrous fat marriage.
Ant. S.
How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
Dro. S.
Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all
-- 144 --
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.
Ant. S.
What complexion is she of? 11Q0144
Dro. 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.
Ant. S.
That's a fault that water will mend.
Dro. S.
No, sir; 'tis in grain: Noah's flood could
not do it.
Ant. S.
What's her name?
Dro. S.
Nell, sir; but her name is three quarters,
that is, an ell7 note; and three quarters will not measure her
from hip to hip.
Ant. S.
Then she bears some breadth?
Dro. S.
No longer from head to foot, than from hip
to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out
countries in her.
Ant. S.
In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Dro. S.
Marry, sir, in her buttocks: I found it out
by the bogs.
Ant. S.
Where Scotland?
Dro. S.
I found it by the barrenness8 note, hard, in the
palm of the hand.
Ant. S.
Where France?
Dro. S.
In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making
war against her heir9 note.
-- 145 --
Ant. S.
Where England?
Dro. S.
I look'd 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.
Ant. S.
Where Spain?
Dro. S.
Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her
breath.
Ant. S.
Where America, the Indies?
Dro. S.
O! 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 carracks to be ballast at her nose. note
Ant. S.
Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
Dro. S.
O! 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
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 curtail-dog,
and made me turn i' the wheel1 note.
Ant. S.
Go, hie thee presently post to the road,
-- 146 --
And 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 begone.
Dro. S.
As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
[Exit.
Ant. S.
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,
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.
Enter Angelo.
Ang.
Master Antipholus?
Ant. S.
Ay, that's my name.
Ang.
I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.
I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine;
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.
Ant. S.
What is your will that I shall do with this?
Ang.
What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you.
Ant. S.
Made it for me, sir? I bespoke it not.
Ang.
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.
Ant. S.
I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
For fear you ne'er see chain, nor money, more.
Ang.
You are a merry man, sir. Fare you well.
[Exit.
-- 147 --
Ant. S.
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.
I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay:
If any ship put out, then straight away.
[Exit.
J. Payne Collier [1842–1844], The works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an entirely new collation of the old editions: with the various readings, notes, a life of the poet, and a history of the Early English stage. By J. Payne Collier, Esq. F.S.A. In eight volumes (Whittaker & Co. [etc.], London) [word count] [S10101].
