Printable version of this page

The Comedy of Errors: Act 3 Scene 2

Scene II The same.

[Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse]

LUCIANA

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?

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, be 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 are 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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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 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!

LUCIANA

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

LUCIANA

It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

LUCIANA

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

LUCIANA

Why call you me love? call my sister so.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Thy sister's sister.

LUCIANA

That's my sister.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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.

LUCIANA

All this my sister is, or else should be.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.

Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:

Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.

Give me thy hand.

LUCIANA

O, soft, air! hold you still:

I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.

[Exit]

[Enter DROMIO of Syracuse]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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

am I myself?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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

ANTIPHOLUS

What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one

that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

What claim lays she to thee?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

What is she?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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 is she a

wondrous fat marriage.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

How dost thou mean a fat marriage?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

What complexion is she of?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so

clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over

shoes in the grime of it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

That's a fault that water will mend.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

What's her name?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's

an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from

hip to hip.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Then she bears some breadth?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:

she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out

countries in her.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

In what part of her body stands Ireland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where Scotland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where France?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war

against her heir.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where England?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

I 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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where Spain?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where America, the Indies?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Oh, 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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

Oh, 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 curtal dog and made

me turn i' the wheel.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Go hie 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.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

As from a bear a man would run for life,

So fly I from her that would be my wife.

[Exit]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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 with the chain]

ANGELO

Master Antipholus,--

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Ay, that's my name.

ANGELO

I 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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

What is your will that I shall do with this?

ANGELO

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

ANGELO

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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

I pray you, sir, receive the money now,

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

ANGELO

You are a merry man, sir: fare you well.

[Exit]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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]