THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. William Shakespeare
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Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I’ll take thee, 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 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.
LUCIANA.
O, soft, sir, hold you still;
I’ll fetch my sister to get her goodwill.
[Exit LUCIANA.]
[Enter from the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, 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 beside myself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
What woman’s man? and how 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 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 like 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 is 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, sir, 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 hair.
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. 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 carracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Where stood Belgia,—the Netherlands?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, 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 transformed me to a curtail-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 tonight.
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.