THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Act 3 Scene 2

(Enter from the Phoenix Luciana with Antipholus of Syracuse)
l1l	Luciana	 And may it be that you have quite forgot
l2l		A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,
l3l		Even in the spring of love thy love-springs rot?
l4l		Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
l5l		If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
l6l		Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness#
l7l		Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth:
l8l		Muffle your false love with some show of blindness.
l9l		Let not my sister read it in your eye.
l10l		Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator.
l11l		Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty#
l12l		Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger.
l13l		Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted:
l14l		Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.
l15l		Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?
l16l		What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
l17l		’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed,
l18l		And let her read it in thy looks at board.
l19l		Shame hath a bastard fame, well managèd#
l20l		Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
l21l		Alas, poor women, make us but believe—
l22l		Being compact of credit—that you love us.
l23l		Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve.
l24l		We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
l25l		Then, gentle brother, get you in again.
l26l		Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:
l27l		’Tis holy sport to be a little vain
l28l		When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
l29l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Sweet mistress—what your name is else I know not,
l30l		Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine.
l31l		Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
l32l		Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth divine.
l33l		Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.
l34l		Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
l35l		Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
l36l		The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
l37l		Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you
l38l		To make it wander in an unknown field?
l39l		Are you a god? Would you create me new?
l40l		Transform me, then, and to your power I’ll yield.
l41l		But if that I am I, then well I know
l42l		Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
l43l		Nor to her bed no homage do I owe.
l44l		Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
l45l		O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note
l46l		To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.
l47l		Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote.
l48l		Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
l49l		And as a bed I’ll take them, and there lie,
l50l		And in that glorious supposition think
l51l		He gains by death that hath such means to die.
l52l		Let love, being light, be drownèd if she sink.
l53l	Luciana	What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
l54l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Not mad, but mated—how, I do not know.
l55l	Luciana	It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
l56l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
l57l	Luciana	Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
l58l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
l59l	Luciana	Why call you me “love”? Call my sister so.
l60l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Thy sister’s sister.
	Luciana	That’s my sister.
	Antipholus Of Syracuse	No,
l61l		It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
l62l		Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
l63l		My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
l64l		My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
l65l	Luciana	All this my sister is, or else should be.
l66l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.
l67l		Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life.
l68l		Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
l69l		Give me thy hand.
	Luciana	O soft, sir, hold you still#
l70l		I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will.
		(Exit into the Phoenix)
l71l		(Enter from the Phoenix Dromio of Syracuse)
		 
	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 Why, how now, Dromio! Where
l72l		runn’st thou so fast?
l73l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
l74l		Am I your man? Am I myself?
l75l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Thou art Dromio, thou art my
l76l		man, thou art thyself.
l77l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I am an ass, I am a woman’s man,
l78l		and besides myself.
l79l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	What woman’s man? And how
l80l		besides thyself?
l81l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, sir, besides myself I am due
l82l		to a woman: one that claims me, one that haunts me,
l83l		one that will have me.
l84l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	What claim lays she to thee?
l85l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, sir, such claim as you would
l86l		lay to your horse# and she would have me as a beast—
l87l		not that, I being a beast, she would have me, but that
l88l		she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
l89l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	What is she?
l90l	Dromio Of Syracuse	A very reverend body# ay, such a
l91l		one as a man may not speak of without he say “sir-
l92l		reverence”. I have but lean luck in the match, and yet
l93l		is she a wondrous fat marriage.
l94l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	How dost thou mean, a fat
l95l		marriage?
l96l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench,
l97l		and all grease# and I know not what use to put her to
l98l		but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her
l99l		own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them
l100l		will burn a Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday,
l101l		she’ll burn a week longer than the whole world.
l102l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	What complexion is she of?
l103l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Swart like my shoe, but her face
l104l		nothing like so clean kept. For why?—She sweats a
l105l		man may go overshoes in the grime of it.
l106l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	That’s a fault that water will
l107l		mend.
l108l	Dromio Of Syracuse	No, sir, ’tis in grain. Noah’s flood
l109l		could not do it.
l110l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	What’s her name?
l111l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Nell, sir. But her name and three-
l112l		quarters—that’s an ell and three-quarters—will not
l113l		measure her from hip to hip.
l114l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Then she bears some breadth?
l115l	Dromio Of Syracuse	No longer from head to foot than
l116l		from hip to hip. She is spherical, like a globe. I could
l117l		find out countries in her.
l118l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	In what part of her body stands
l119l		Ireland?
l120l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Marry, sir, in her buttocks. I found
l121l		it out by the bogs.
l122l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where Scotland?
l123l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I found it by the barrenness, hard
l124l		in the palm of her hand.
l125l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where France?
l126l	Dromio Of Syracuse	In her forehead, armed and reverted,
l127l		making war against her heir.
l128l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where England?
l129l	Dromio Of Syracuse	I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I
l130l		could find no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood
l131l		in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France
l132l		and it.
l133l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where Spain?
l134l	Dromio Of Syracuse	Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot
l135l		in her breath.
l136l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where America, the Indies?
l137l	Dromio Of Syracuse	O, sir, upon her nose, all o’er
l138l		embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires,
l139l		declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain,
l140l		who sent whole armadas of carracks to be ballast at
l141l		her nose.
l142l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Where stood Belgia, the
l143l		Netherlands?
l144l	Dromio Of Syracuse	O, sir, I did not look so low. To
l145l		conclude, this drudge or diviner laid claim to me, called
l146l		me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told me what
l147l		privy marks I had about me—as the mark of my
l148l		shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my
l149l		left arm—that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch. And
l150l		I think if my breast had not been made of faith, and
l151l		my heart of steel, she had transformed me to a curtal
l152l		dog, and made me turn i’ th’ wheel.
l153l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 Go, hie thee presently. Post to the road.
l154l		An if the wind blow any way from shore,
l155l		I will not harbour in this town tonight.
l156l		If any barque put forth, come to the mart,
l157l		Where I will walk till thou return to me.
l158l		If everyone knows us, and we know none,
l159l		’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.
l160l	Dromio Of Syracuse	As from a bear a man would run for life,
l161l		So fly I from her that would be my wife.
		(Exit to the bay)
l162l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 There’s none but witches do inhabit here,
l163l		And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence.
l164l		She that doth call me husband, even my soul
l165l		Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
l166l		Possessed with such a gentle sovereign grace,
l167l		Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
l168l		Hath almost made me traitor to myself.
l169l		But lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
l170l		I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.
		(Enter Angelo with the chain)
l171l	Angelo	 Master Antipholus.
	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Ay, that’s my name.
l172l	Angelo	I know it well, sir. Lo, here’s the chain.
l173l		I thought to have ta’en you at the Porcupine.
l174l		The chain unfinished made me stay thus long.
l175l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	(taking the chain)
		 What is your will that I shall do with this?
l176l	Angelo	What please yourself, sir. I have made it for you.
l177l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	Made it for me, sir? I bespoke it not.
l178l	Angelo	Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
l179l		Go home with it, and please your wife withal,
l180l		And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,
l181l		And then receive my money for the chain.
l182l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
l183l		For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
l184l	Angelo	You are a merry man, sir. Fare you well.
		(Exit)
l185l	Antipholus Of Syracuse	 What I should think of this I cannot tell.
l186l		But this I think: there’s no man is so vain
l187l		That would refuse so fair an offered chain.
l188l		I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
l189l		When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
l190l		I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay.
l191l		If any ship put out, then straight away!
		(Exit)
	[[ACT INTERVAL]]