The Comedy Of Errors

1 Enter Luciana with Antipholus of Syracuse.
2 LUCIANA.
3 And may it be that you have quite forgot
4 A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,
5 Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
6 Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
7 If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
8 Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness;
9 Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth,
10 Muffle your false love with some show of blindness.
11 Let not my sister read it in your eye;
12 Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;
13 Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
14 Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger;
15 Bear a fair presence though your heart be tainted;
16 Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint,
17 Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?
18 What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
19 ’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed
20 And let her read it in thy looks at board.
21 Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
22 Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
23 Alas, poor women, make us but believe,
24 Being compact of credit, that you love us.
25 Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
26 We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
27 Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
28 Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.
29 ’Tis holy sport to be a little vain
30 When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
31 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
32 Sweet mistress, what your name is else, I know not,
33 Nor by what wonder you do hit on mine;
34 Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
35 Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth divine.
36 Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
37 Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
38 Smother’d in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
39 The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
40 Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you
41 To make it wander in an unknown field?
42 Are you a god? would you create me new?
43 Transform me, then, and to your power I’ll yield.
44 But if that I am I, then well I know
45 Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
46 Nor to her bed no homage do I owe.
47 Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
48 O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note
49 To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.
50 Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;
51 Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
52 And as a bed I’ll take thee, and there lie,
53 And, in that glorious supposition think
54 He gains by death that hath such means to die.
55 Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink!
56 LUCIANA.
57 What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
58 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
59 Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
60 LUCIANA.
61 It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
62 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
63 For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
64 LUCIANA.
65 Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
66 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
67 As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
68 LUCIANA.
69 Why call you me love? Call my sister so.
70 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
71 Thy sister’s sister.
72 LUCIANA.
73 That’s my sister.
74 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
75 No,
76 It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
77 Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
78 My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
79 My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
80 LUCIANA.
81 All this my sister is, or else should be.
82 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
83 Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee;
84 Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
85 Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
86 Give me thy hand.
87 LUCIANA.
88 O, soft, sir, hold you still;
89 I’ll fetch my sister to get her goodwill.
90 [_Exit Luciana._]
91 Enter Dromio of Syracuse.
92 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
93 Why, how now, Dromio? where runn’st thou so fast?
94 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
95 Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?
96 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
97 Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
98 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
99 I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides myself.
100 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
101 What woman’s man? and how besides thyself?
102 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
103 Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman, one that claims me,
104 one that haunts me, one that will have me.
105 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
106 What claim lays she to thee?
107 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
108 Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse, and she would
109 have me as a beast; not that I being a beast she would have me, but
110 that she being a very beastly creature lays claim to me.
111 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
112 What is she?
113 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
114 A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without
115 he say “sir-reverence”. I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is
116 she a wondrous fat marriage.
117 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
118 How dost thou mean a “fat marriage”?
119 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
120 Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all grease, and I know not
121 what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by
122 her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
123 Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a week longer
124 than the whole world.
125 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
126 What complexion is she of?
127 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
128 Swart like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept. For why?
129 she sweats, a man may go overshoes in the grime of it.
130 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
131 That’s a fault that water will mend.
132 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
133 No, sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it.
134 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
135 What’s her name?
136 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
137 Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that’s an ell and three
138 quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.
139 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
140 Then she bears some breadth?
141 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
142 No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip. She is spherical,
143 like a globe. I could find out countries in her.
144 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
145 In what part of her body stands Ireland?
146 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
147 Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.
148 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
149 Where Scotland?
150 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
151 I found it by the barrenness, hard in the palm of the hand.
152 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
153 Where France?
154 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
155 In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her hair.
156 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
157 Where England?
158 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
159 I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them.
160 But I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between
161 France and it.
162 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
163 Where Spain?
164 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
165 Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
166 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
167 Where America, the Indies?
168 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
169 O, sir, upon her nose, all o’er-embellished with rubies, carbuncles,
170 sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who
171 sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose.
172 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
173 Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
174 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
175 O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude: this drudge or diviner laid
176 claim to me, called me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told me what
177 privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my
178 neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a
179 witch. And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my
180 heart of steel, she had transformed me to a curtal dog, and made me
181 turn i’ the wheel.
182 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
183 Go, hie thee presently, post to the road;
184 And if the wind blow any way from shore,
185 I will not harbour in this town tonight.
186 If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
187 Where I will walk till thou return to me.
188 If everyone knows us, and we know none,
189 ’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
190 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
191 As from a bear a man would run for life,
192 So fly I from her that would be my wife.
193 [_Exit._]
194 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
195 There’s none but witches do inhabit here,
196 And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence.
197 She that doth call me husband, even my soul
198 Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
199 Possess’d with such a gentle sovereign grace,
200 Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
201 Hath almost made me traitor to myself.
202 But lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
203 I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.
204 Enter Angelo with the chain.
205 ANGELO.
206 Master Antipholus.
207 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
208 Ay, that’s my name.
209 ANGELO.
210 I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain;
211 I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine,
212 The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.
213 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
214 What is your will that I shall do with this?
215 ANGELO.
216 What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.
217 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
218 Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
219 ANGELO.
220 Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
221 Go home with it, and please your wife withal,
222 And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,
223 And then receive my money for the chain.
224 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
225 I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
226 For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
227 ANGELO.
228 You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.
229 [_Exit._]
230 ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
231 What I should think of this I cannot tell,
232 But this I think, there’s no man is so vain
233 That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.
234 I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
235 When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
236 I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
237 If any ship put out, then straight away.
238 [_Exit._]