ARKCODEX
Act III, Scene 2
1The same.
2Enter Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse.
3LucianaAnd 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?
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;
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?
’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 is 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.
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.
4Antipholus of SyracuseSweet 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 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 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 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,
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!
5LucianaWhat, are you mad, that you do reason so?
6Antipholus of SyracuseNot mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
7LucianaIt is a fault that springeth from your eye.
8Antipholus of SyracuseFor gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
9LucianaGaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
10Antipholus of SyracuseAs good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
11LucianaWhy call you me love? call my sister so.
12Antipholus of SyracuseThy sister’s sister.
13LucianaThat’s my sister.
14Antipholus of SyracuseNo;
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.
15LucianaAll this my sister is, or else should be.
16Antipholus of SyracuseCall thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee.
Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:
Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.
Give me thy hand.
17LucianaO, soft, sir! hold you still:
I’ll fetch my sister, to get her good will. Exit.
18Enter Dromio of Syracuse.
19Antipholus of SyracuseWhy, how now, Dromio! where runn’st thou so fast?
20Dromio of SyracuseDo you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?
21Antipholus of SyracuseThou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
22Dromio of SyracuseI am an ass, I am a woman’s man and besides myself.
23Antipholus of SyracuseWhat woman’s man? and how besides thyself?
24Dromio of SyracuseMarry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
25Antipholus of SyracuseWhat claim lays she to thee?
26Dromio of SyracuseMarry, 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.
27Antipholus of SyracuseWhat is she?
28Dromio of SyracuseA 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 is she a wondrous fat marriage.
29Antipholus of SyracuseHow dost thou mean a fat marriage?
30Dromio of SyracuseMarry, 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.
31Antipholus of SyracuseWhat complexion is she of?
32Dromio of SyracuseSwart, 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.
33Antipholus of SyracuseThat’s a fault that water will mend.
34Dromio of SyracuseNo, sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it.
35Antipholus of SyracuseWhat’s her name?
36Dromio of SyracuseNell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that’s an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.
37Antipholus of SyracuseThen she bears some breadth?
38Dromio of SyracuseNo longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
39Antipholus of SyracuseIn what part of her body stands Ireland?
40Dromio of SyracuseMarry, sir, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
41Antipholus of SyracuseWhere Scotland?
42Dromio of SyracuseI found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
43Antipholus of SyracuseWhere France?
44Dromio of SyracuseIn her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her hair.
45Antipholus of SyracuseWhere England?
46Dromio of SyracuseI 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.
47Antipholus of SyracuseWhere Spain?
48Dromio of SyracuseFaith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
49Antipholus of SyracuseWhere America, the Indies?
50Dromio of SyracuseOh, 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 caracks to be ballast at her nose.
51Antipholus of SyracuseWhere stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
52Dromio of SyracuseOh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me; called 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 curtal dog and made me turn i’ the wheel.
53Antipholus of SyracuseGo hie thee presently, post to the road:
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town tonight:
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If everyone knows us and we know none,
’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
54Dromio of SyracuseAs from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. Exit.
55Antipholus of SyracuseThere’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.
56Enter Angelo with the chain.
57AngeloMaster Antipholus—
58Antipholus of SyracuseAy, that’s my name.
59AngeloI 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.
60Antipholus of SyracuseWhat is your will that I shall do with this?
61AngeloWhat please yourself, sir: I have made it for you.
62Antipholus of SyracuseMade it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
63AngeloNot 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.
64Antipholus of SyracuseI pray you, sir, receive the money now,
For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
65AngeloYou are a merry man, sir: fare you well. Exit.
66Antipholus of SyracuseWhat 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.