The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare [love letters to the dead TXT] 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
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15 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;
20 Ill deeds are 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.
25 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.
Ant. S. Sweet mistress,—what your name is else, I know not,
30 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,
35 Smother’d 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?
40 Transform me, then, and to your power 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.
45 O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister 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;
50 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!
Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
Ant. S. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
55 Luc. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
Ant. S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
Luc. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
Ant. S. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
Luc. Why call you me love? call my sister so.
Ant. S. Thy sister’s sister.
Luc.
That’s my sister.
60 Ant. S.
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.
65 Luc. All this my sister is, or else should be.
Ant. S. 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.
Luc.
O, soft, sir! hold you still:
70 I’ll fetch my sister, to get her good will. Exit.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse.Ant. S. Why, how now, Dromio! where runn’st thou so fast?
Dro. S. Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?
75 Ant. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
Dro. S. I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides myself.
Ant. S. What woman’s man? and how besides thyself?
80 Dro. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
Ant. S. What claim lays she to thee?
Dro. S. Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to 85 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.
Ant. S. What is she?
Dro. S. A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man 90 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.
Ant. S. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
Dro. S. Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen-wench, and all 95 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 a week longer than the whole world.
100 Ant. S. What complexion is she of?
Dro. S. 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.
Ant. S. That’s a fault that water will mend.
105 Dro. S. No, sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it.
Ant. S. What’s her name?
Dro. S. Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that’s an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from 110 hip to hip.
Ant. S. Then she bears some breadth?
Dro. S. No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
115 Ant. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Dro. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
Ant. S. Where Scotland?
Dro. S. I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm 120 of the hand.
Ant. S. Where France?
Dro. S. In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir.
Ant. S. Where England?
125 Dro. S. 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.
Ant. S. Where Spain?
Dro. S. Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her 130 breath.
Ant. S. Where America, the Indies?
Dro. S. Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o’er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes 135 of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
Ant. S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
Dro. S. Oh, 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 140 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 transform’d me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i’ the wheel.
145 Ant. S. 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.
150 If every one knows us, and we know none,
’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone.
Dro. S. As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. Exit.
Ant. S. There’s none but witches do inhabit here;
155 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,
160 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.Ang. Master Antipholus,—
Ant. S.
Ay, that’s my name.
Ang. I know it well, sir:—lo, here is the chain.
165 I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine:
The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.
Ant. S. What is your will that I shall do with this?
Ang. What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you.
Ant. S. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
170 Ang. 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.
Ant. S. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
175 For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
Ang. You are a merry man, sir: fare you well. Exit.
Ant. S. What I should think of this, I cannot tell:
But this I think, there’s no man is so vain
That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.
180 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.
ACT IV. IV. 1 Scene I. A public place. Enter Second Merchant, Angelo, and an Officer.Sec. Mer. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,
And since I have not much importuned you;
Nor now I had not, but that I am bound
To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage:
5 Therefore make present satisfaction,
Or I’ll attach you by this officer.
Ang. Even just the sum that I do owe to you
Is growing to me by Antipholus;
And in the instant that I met with you
10 He had of me a chain: at five o’clock
I shall receive the money for the same.
Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.
Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus from the courtezan’s.Off. That labour may you save: see where he comes.
15 Ant. E. While I go to the goldsmith’s house, go thou
And buy a rope’s end: that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates,
For locking me out of my doors by day.—
But, soft! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;
20 Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.
Dro. E. I buy a thousand pound a year: I buy a rope. Exit.
Ant. E. A man is well holp up that trusts to you:
I promised your presence and the chain;
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
25 Belike you thought our
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