The Comedy of Errors (8 page)

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
    Well, I’ll break in. Go borrow me a
crow.
⁸⁶

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
⁸⁹
together.

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

BALTHASAR
    Have patience, sir, O, let it not be so!

Herein
⁹²
you war against your reputation,

And draw within the
compass of suspect
⁹³

Th’unviolated honour of your wife.

Once this
⁹⁵
, your long experience of her wisdom,

Her sober virtue, years and modesty,

Plead on her part some cause to you unknown.
⁹⁷

And doubt not, sir, but she will well
excuse
⁹⁸

Why at this time the doors are
made
⁹⁹
against you.

Be ruled by me, depart in patience,

And let us to
the Tiger
¹⁰¹
all to dinner,

And
about
¹⁰²
evening, come yourself alone

To know the reason of this strange restraint.

If by
strong hand
you
offer
¹⁰⁴
to break in

Now in the
stirring passage
¹⁰⁵
of the day,

A
vulgar comment
will be made
of
¹⁰⁶
it,

And that
supposed
by the common
rout
¹⁰⁷

Against your yet
ungalled
estimation
¹⁰⁸
,

That may with foul intrusion enter in,

And dwell upon your grave when you are dead,

For slander lives
upon succession
¹¹¹
,

Forever
housed
where it
gets possession.
¹¹²

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
    You have prevailed. I will depart in quiet,

And in
despite of mirth
mean to be
merry.
¹¹⁴

I know a wench of excellent discourse,

Pretty and witty,
wild
, and yet, too,
gentle.
¹¹⁶

There will we dine. This woman that I mean,

My wife — but I
protest
,
without desert
¹¹⁸
—

Hath oftentimes upbraided me
withal.
¹¹⁹

To her will we to dinner.— Get you home

And fetch the chain, by
this
¹²¹
I know ’tis made.

Bring it, I pray you, to the
Porpentine
¹²²
,

For
there’s the house.
¹²³
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
¹²⁶
me,

I’ll
knock
¹²⁷
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.

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
³
rot?

Shall love in
building
⁴
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
⁷
, do it by stealth:

Muffle
your
false
love with some show of
blindness.
⁸

Let not my sister read it in your eye,

Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s
orator.
¹⁰

Look sweet, speak fair,
become disloyalty
¹¹
,

Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger
¹²
,

Bear a
fair
¹³
presence though your heart be tainted,

Teach sin the
carriage
¹⁴
of a holy saint,

Be
secret-false.
¹⁵
What need she be acquainted?

What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
¹⁶

’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed

And let her read it in thy looks at
board.
¹⁸

Shame hath a
bastard fame
¹⁹
, well managèd,

Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.

Alas, poor women, make us but believe —

Being
compact of credit
²²
— that you love us.

Though
others have the arm, show us the sleeve.
²³

We in your
motion
turn, and you may
move
²⁴
us.

Then, gentle brother, get you in again,

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:

’Tis holy sport to be a little
vain
²⁷
,

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Sweet mistress,
what your name is else
²⁹
I know not,

Nor by what
wonder
you do hit
of
³⁰
mine,

Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
³¹

Than our
earth
³²
’s wonder, more than earth divine.

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.

Lay open to my
earthy-gross conceit
³⁴
,

Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The
folded
³⁶
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?
³⁹

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
⁴³
do I owe.

Far more, far more to you do I
decline.
⁴⁴

O,
train
me not,
sweet mermaid, with thy note
⁴⁵
,

To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will
dote.
⁴⁷

Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,

And as a bed I’ll take them, and there lie,

And in that glorious
supposition
⁵⁰
think

He gains by death
that
hath such means to
die.
⁵¹

Let love, being light, be drownèd if she sink.
⁵²

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Not mad, but
mated
⁵⁴
, how, I do not know.

LUCIANA
    It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

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

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    As good to
wink
⁵⁸
, 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.
⁶⁶

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

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    
Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.
⁶⁸

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.
⁷³

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

besides myself.
⁸⁰

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
⁸⁶
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
⁸⁹
— 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
⁹³
body: ay, such a one as a

man may not speak of, without he say
‘sir-reverence’.
⁹⁴
I have

but
lean
⁹⁵
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
⁹⁸
and all

grease
⁹⁹
, 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.
¹⁰¹
If she

lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a
week
¹⁰²
longer than the whole

world.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    What
complexion
¹⁰⁴
is she of?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    
Swart
¹⁰⁵
, like my shoe, but her face nothing

like so clean kept: for why? She
sweats
; a man may
go over
¹⁰⁶

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.
¹⁰⁹
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
¹¹³
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
¹¹⁷
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.
¹²¹

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Where Scotland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    I found it by the
barrenness, hard in the
¹²³

palm of the hand.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Where France?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    In her forehead,
armed and reverted
¹²⁶
,

making war against her hair.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Where England?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    I looked for the
chalky cliffs
¹²⁹
, but I could find

no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood in her chin, by the

salt rheum
¹³¹
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
¹³³

breath.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Where America, the Indies?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    O sir, upon her nose, all o’er embellished

with
rubies, carbuncles, sapphires
,
declining their rich
¹³⁷

aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole
armadoes
¹³⁸

of carracks to be ballast at her nose.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Where stood
Belgia
, the
Netherlands?
¹⁴⁰

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
    O sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this

drudge
or
diviner
¹⁴²
laid claim to me, called me Dromio, swore I

was
assured
to her, told me what
privy
¹⁴³
marks I had about

me, as the mark
of
¹⁴⁴
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
curtal
¹⁴⁷

dog and made me
turn i’th’wheel.
¹⁴⁸

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
    Go,
hie
thee
presently
,
post
to the
road
¹⁴⁹
,

An if
the wind blow any way
from shore
¹⁵⁰
,

I will not
harbour
¹⁵¹
in this town tonight.

If any
bark put forth
¹⁵²
, come to the mart,

Where I will walk till thou return to me.

If everyone knows us and we know none,

’Tis time, I think, to
trudge
¹⁵⁵
, 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.