It would make a man mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold.
OF EPHESUS Go fetch me something: I’ll break ope the gate.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Break any breaking here, and I’ll break your
knave’s pate.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind,
Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
It seems thou want’st breaking: out upon
thee, hind!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Here’s too much ‘out upon thee!’ I pray thee,
let me in.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within]
Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin.
OF EPHESUS Well, I’ll break in: go borrow me a crow.
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 together.
OF EPHESUS Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.
BALTHAZAR Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!
Herein you war against your reputation
And draw within the compass of suspect
The unviolated honour of your wife.
Once this,–your long experience of her wisdom,
Her sober virtue, years and modesty,
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown:
And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
Why at this time the doors are made against you.
Be ruled by me: depart in patience,
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner,
And about evening come yourself alone
To know the reason of this strange restraint.
If by strong hand you offer to break in
Now in the stirring passage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it,
And that supposed by the common rout
Against your yet ungalled estimation
That may with foul intrusion enter in
And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;
For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.
OF EPHESUS You have prevailed: I will depart in quiet,
And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry.
I know a wench of excellent discourse,
Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle:
There will we dine. This woman that I mean,
My wife–but, I protest, without desert–
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal:
To her will we to dinner.
To Angelo
Get you home
And fetch the chain; by this I know ’tis made:
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;
For there’s the house: 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 me,
I’ll knock elsewhere, to see if they’ll disdain me.
ANGELO I’ll meet you at that place some hour hence.
OF EPHESUS Do so. This jest shall cost me some expense.
Exeunt
Scene 2
The same.
Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse
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 rot?
Shall love, in building, 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, do it by stealth;
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;
Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger;
Bear a fair presence, 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 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.
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.
OF SYRACUSE Sweet mistress–what your name is else, I know not,
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,
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 them 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?
OF SYRACUSE Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
LUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
OF SYRACUSE For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
OF SYRACUSE As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA Why call you me love? call my sister so.
OF SYRACUSE Thy sister’s sister.
LUCIANA That’s my sister.
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.
OF SYRACUSE 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.
LUCIANA O, soft, air! hold you still:
I’ll fetch my sister, to get her good will.
Exit
Enter DROMIO of Syracuse
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?
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.
ANTIPHOLUS What woman’s man? and how besides thyself? 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.
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.
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.
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 a week longer than the whole world.
OF SYRACUSE What complexion is she of?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
shoes in the grime of it.
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.
OF SYRACUSE What’s her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that’s
an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from
hip to hip.
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.
OF SYRACUSE In what part of her body stands Ireland?