The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 63

DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you, sir; and words are but wind; Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] It seems thou want'st breaking; out upon thee, hind!

DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let me in.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.

DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?

For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather; If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.

BALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!

Herein you war against your reputation, And draw within the compa.s.s of suspect Th' unviolated honour of your wife.

Once this-your long experience of her wisdom, Her sober virtue, years, and modesty, Plead on her part some cause to you unknown; And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse Why at this time the doors are made against you.

Be rul'd by me: depart in patience, And let us to the Tiger all to dinner; And, about evening, come yourself alone To know the reason of this strange restraint.

If by strong hand you offer to break in Now in the stirring pa.s.sage of the day, A vulgar comment will be made of it, And that supposed by the common rout Against your yet ungalled estimation That may with foul intrusion enter in And dwell upon your grave when you are dead; For slander lives upon succession, For ever hous'd where it gets possession.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet, And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.

I know a wench of excellent discourse, Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle; There will we dine. This woman that I mean, My wife-but, I protest, without desert- Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal; To her will we to dinner. [To ANGELO] Get you home And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.

Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine; For there's the house. That chain will I bestow- Be it for nothing but to spite my wife- Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.

Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.

ANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.

SCENE 2

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter LUCIANA with 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; m.u.f.fle 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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.

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, 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 G.o.d? 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 he; 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, sir, hold you still; I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'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 a.s.s, I am a woman's man, and besides 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 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'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, sir, in her b.u.t.tocks; 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, arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 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.

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 caracks 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; call'd me Dromio; swore I was a.s.sur'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.