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?

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 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, sir, hold you still;

I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will.

Exit ⌈into the Phoenix⌉

Enter ⌈from the Phoenix⌉ Dromio of Syracuse

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, how now, Dromiol 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 or 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 or 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 or 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 reverend 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? 95 5

DROMIO or 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.

ANTIPHOLUS or 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 overshoes 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’s an ell and three-quarters—will not measure her from hip to hip.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Then she bears some breadth?

DROMIO or 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 or SYRACUSE In what part of her body stands Ireland?

DROMIO or 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 her hand.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where France?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE In her forehead, armed and reverted, making war against her heir.

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, all o’er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadas 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 curtal dog, and made me turn i’th’ 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 tonight.

If any barque put forth, 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, 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 ⌈to the bay⌉

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,

Possessed 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 with the chain

ANGELO

Master Antipholus.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Ay, that’s my name.

ANGELO

I know it well, sir. Lo, here’s the chain.

I thought to have ta’en you at the Porcupine.

The chain unfinished made me stay thus long.