120 My wife (but, I protest, without desert) hence. E. Ant. Do so; This jest shall cost me some expence. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The House of ANTIPHOLIS of Ephesus. Enter LƯ CIANA with ANTIPHOLiS of Syracuse. Luc. And may it be that you have quite forgot 131 A husbands's office? shall, Antipholis, hate, Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot? Shall love, in building, grow so ruinate? 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, do it by stealth ; Muffle your false love with some shew of blindness : Let 1 Let not my sister read it in your eye; Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Apparel vice; like virtue's harbinger: Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; What siinple thief brags of his own attaint ? And let her read it in thy looks at board: Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. Being compact of credit, that you love us;] We in your motion turn, and you may move us. my sister, cheer her, call her wife : When the sweet breath of flattery conquers st know not; not Than our earth's wonder ; more than earth diTeach me, dear creature, how to think and spe Lay open to my earthy gross conceit, Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words' deceit. 171 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. Oh, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears; Sing, syren, 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 180 He gains by death, that hath such means to die : Let love, being light, be drowned if he sink! by. Luc. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight. S. Ant. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night. Luc. Why call you me, love? call my sister so. S. Ant. Thy sister's sister. 190 Luc. That's my sister. S. Ant. No; Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer hea: Luc. All this my sister is, or else should be. Ant. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I mean ti Luc. Oh, soft, sir, hold you still; Enter DROMIO of Syracuse. S. Ant. Why, how now, Dromio? where i thou so fast ? S. Dro. Do you know me, sir ? am I Dromio I your man? am I myself? S. Ant. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, art thyself. S. Dro. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, ai sides myself. S. Ant. What woman's man? and how 1 thyself? S. Dro. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am d woman; one that claims me, one that haw one that will have me. S. Ant. What claim lays she to thee? S. Dro. Marry, sir; such a claim as you wa to your horse; and she would have me as á not that, I being a beast, she would have T clear k on 190 222 that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. S. Ant. What is she? S. Dro. 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. S. Ant. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage? S. Dro. 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 a week longer than the whole world. S. Ant. What complexion is she of? S. Dro. 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. S. Ant. That's a fault that water will mend. 240 S. Dro. No, sir, 'tis in grain ; Noah's flood could not do it. S. Ant. What's her name? S. Dro. Nell, sir ;- but her name and three quarters (that is, an ell and three quarters) will not ineasure her from hip to hip. S. Ant. Then she bears some breadth ? S. Dro. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. 250 S. Ant. |