Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare

ACT III - Scene II

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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, 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.

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,
Smoth'red 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 pow'r 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.

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

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

It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

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

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

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

Why call you me love? Call my sister so.

Thy sister's sister.

That's my sister.

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.

All this my sister is, or else should be.

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.

O, soft, sir, hold you still;
I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.

Exit LUCIANA

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou
so fast?

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

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

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

What woman's man, and how besides thyself?

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

What claim lays she to thee?

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.

What is she?

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.

How dost thou mean a fat marriage?

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

What complexion is she of?

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.

That's a fault that water will mend.

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

What's her name?

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

Then she bears some breadth?

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

In what part of her body stands Ireland?

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

Where Scotland?

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

Where France?

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

Where England?

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.

Where Spain?

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

Where America, the Indies?

O, sir, upon her nose, an 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.

Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

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 assur'd 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,
amaz'd, 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' th' wheel.

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.

As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.

Exit

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

Master Antipholus!

Ay, that's my name.

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.

What is your will that I shall do with this?

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

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

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.

I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.

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

Exit

What I should think of this 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