The Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare (top novels txt) 📗

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 bastard 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 on 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,
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?
  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.
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 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 good-will.

[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 to-night.
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.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.

[Exit.]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
There's none but witches do inhabit here;
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,
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.]

ANGELO.
Master Antipholus?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Ay, that's my name.

ANGELO.
I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain;
I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine:
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
What is your will that I shall do with this?

ANGELO.
What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.

ANGELO.
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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.

ANGELO.
You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.

[Exit.]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
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.
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. SCENE 1. The same.

[Enter a MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER.]

MERCHANT.
You know, since Pentecost the sum is due,
And since I have not much importun'd you;
Nor now I had not, but that I am bound
To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage;
Therefore make present satisfaction,
Or I'll attach you by this officer.

ANGELO.
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
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.]

OFFICER.
That labour may you save: see where he comes.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
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;
Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.

DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
I buy a thousand pound a year! I buy a rope!

[Exit DROMIO.]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
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:
Belike you thought our love would last too long,
If it were chain'd together; and therefore came not.

ANGELO.
Saving your merry humour, here's the note,
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat;
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion;
Which doth amount to three odd ducats more
Than I stand debted to this gentleman:
I pray you, see him presently discharg'd,
For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
I am not furnished with the present money;
Besides I have some business in the town:
Good Signior, take the stranger to my house,
And with you take the chain, and bid my wife
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof;
Perchance I will be there as soon as you.

ANGELO.
Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.

ANGELO.
Well, sir, I will: have you the chain about you?

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
An if I have not, sir, I hope you have,
Or else you may return without your money.

ANGELO.
Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;
Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
And I, to blame, have held him here too long.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Good Lord, you use this dalliance to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porcupine:
I should have chid you for not bringing it,
But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.

MERCHANT.
The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, despatch.

ANGELO.
You hear how he importunes me: the chain,—

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.

ANGELO.
Come, come, you know I gave it you even now;
Either send the chain or send by me some token.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
Fie! now you run this humour out of breath:
Come, where's the chain? I pray you, let me see it.

MERCHANT.
My business cannot brook this dalliance:
Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;
If not, I'll leave him to the officer.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
I answer you! What should I answer you?

ANGELO.
The money that you owe me for the chain.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
I owe you none till I receive the chain.

ANGELO.
You know I gave it you half-an-hour since.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
You gave me none: you wrong me much to say so.

ANGELO.
You wrong me more, sir, in denying it:
Consider how it stands upon my credit.

MERCHANT.
Well, officer,