1    And may it be that you have quite forgot
2    A husband's office? shall, Antipholus.
3    Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
4    Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
5    If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
6    Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness:
7    Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
8    Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:
9    Let not my sister read it in your eye;
10   Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
11   Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;
12   Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
13   Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
14   Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
15   Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
16   What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
17   'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed
18   And let her read it in thy looks at board:
19   Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
20   Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
21   Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
22   Being compact of credit, that you love us;
23   Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
24   We in your motion turn and you may move us.
25   Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
26   Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:
27   'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,
28   When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

29   Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,
30   Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,--
31   Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
32   Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.
33   Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
34   Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,
35   Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
36   The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
37   Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
38   To make it wander in an unknown field?
39   Are you a god? would you create me new?
40   Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield.
41   But if that I am I, then well I know
42   Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
43   Nor to her bed no homage do I owe
44   Far more, far more to you do I decline.
45   O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
46   To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears:
47   Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote:
48   Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
49   And as a bed I'll take them and there lie,
50   And in that glorious supposition think
51   He gains by death that hath such means to die:
52   Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink!

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

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

55   It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

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

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

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

59   Why call you me love? call my sister so.

60   Thy sister's sister.

61   That's my sister.

62   No;
63   It is thyself, mine own self's better part,
64   Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
65   My food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim,
66   My sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim.

67   All this my sister is, or else should be.

68   Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.
69   Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:
70   Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.
71   Give me thy hand.

72   O, soft, air! hold you still:
73   I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.

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

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

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

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

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

81   What claim lays she to thee?

82   Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your
83   horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I
84   being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
85   being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

86   What is she?

87   A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may
88   not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have
89   but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
90   wondrous fat marriage.

91   How dost thou mean a fat marriage?

92   Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease;
93   and I know not what use to put her to but to make a
94   lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I
95   warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
96   Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
97   she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.

98   What complexion is she of?

99   Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
100  clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
101  shoes in the grime of it.

102  That's a fault that water will mend.

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

104  What's her name?

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

108  Then she bears some breadth?

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

112  In what part of her body stands Ireland?

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

114  Where Scotland?

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

116  Where France?

117  In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war
118  against her heir.

119  Where England?

120  I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no
121  whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,
122  by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

123  Where Spain?

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

125  Where America, the Indies?

126  Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with
127  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
128  aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole
129  armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.

130  Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

131  Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this
132  drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me
133  Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what
134  privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my
135  shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my
136  left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch:
137  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of
138  faith and my heart of steel,
139  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made
140  me turn i' the wheel.

141  Go hie thee presently, post to the road:
142  An if the wind blow any way from shore,
143  I will not harbour in this town to-night:
144  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
145  Where I will walk till thou return to me.
146  If every one knows us and we know none,
147  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.

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

150  There's none but witches do inhabit here;
151  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.
152  She that doth call me husband, even my soul
153  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
154  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
155  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
156  Hath almost made me traitor to myself:
157  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
158  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

159  Master Antipholus,--

160  Ay, that's my name.

161  I know it well, sir, lo, here is the chain.
162  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine:
163  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

164  What is your will that I shall do with this?

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

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

167  Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
168  Go home with it and please your wife withal;
169  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you
170  And then receive my money for the chain.

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

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

174  What I should think of this, I cannot tell:
175  But this I think, there's no man is so vain
176  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.
177  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
178  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
179  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay
180  If any ship put out, then straight away.