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.-Get you home,
And fetch the chain; by this,' I know, 'tis made.
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine ;

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.
Ang. I'll meet you at that place, some hour hence.
Ant. E. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter LUCIANA, and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse.
Luc. And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband's office? Shall Antipholus' hate,
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous? 2
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, speak fair, become disloyalty; Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;

1 By this time.

2 In the old copy the first four lines stand thus:

"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 buildings grow so ruinate?"

The present emendation was proposed by Steevens, though he admitted Theobald's into his own text. Love-springs are the buds of love, or rather the young shoots. "The spring, or young shoots that grow out of the stems or roots of trees."-Baret.

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 but1 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. Ant. S. 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 earthly, gross conceit,
Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
Against my soul's pure truth why labor 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,

1 Old copy, not.

2 i. e. being made altogether of credulity.

3 Vain is light of tongue, not veracious.

4 "To decline; to turne or hang toward some place or thing."-Baret.

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!
Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
Ant. S. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
Luc. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
Ant. S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
Luc. Gaze where you should, and that will clear
your sight.

Ant. S. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

Luc. Why call you me love? call my sister so.
Ant. S. Thy sister's sister.

Luc.

Ant. S.

That's my sister.

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.

2

Luc. All this my sister is, or else should be.
Ant. S. 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.

Luc.
O, soft, sir, hold you still;
I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.

[Exit Luc.

Enter, from the House of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Syracuse.

Ant. S. Why, how now, Dromio? where run'st thou so fast?

I

Dro. S. Do you know me. sir? am I Dromio? am your man? am I myself?

1 The first folio reads:

"And as a bud I'll take thee, and there lie."

? The old copy reads, I am thee. The present reading is Steevens's. Others have proposed I mean thee; but aim, for aim at, was sometimes used.

Ant. S. Thou art Dromio; thou art my man; thou art thyself.

Dro. S. I am an ass; I am a woman's man, and besides myself.

Ant. S. What woman's man? and how besides thyself?

Dro. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

Ant. S. What claim lays she to thee?

Dro. S. 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. Ant. S. What is she?

Dro. S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say, sir-reverence.1 I have but lean luck in the match, and yet she is a wondrous fat marriage.

Ant. S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage?

Dro. S. 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.

Ant. S. What complexion is she of?

Dro. S. 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.

Ant. S. That's a fault that water will mend.

Dro. S. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.

Dro. S. Nell, sir ;-but her name and three quarters, that is, an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.

1 This is a very old corruption of save reverence, salva reverentia. See Blount's Glossography, 1682.

2 Swart, or swarth, i. e. dark, dusky, infuscus.

Ant. S. Then she bears some breadth?

Dro. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip; she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.

Ant. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland? Dro. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.

Ant. S. Where Scotland?

Dro. S. I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand.

Ant. S. Where France?

Dro. S. In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir.1

Ant. S. Where England?

Dro. S. 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. Ant. S. Where Spain?

Dro. S. 'Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.

Ant. S. Where America, the Indies?

Dro. S. 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 2 to be ballast at her nose.

Ant. S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? Dro. S. 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 shoul

1 An equivoque," says Theobald, "is intended. In 1589, Henry III. of France, being stabbed, was succeeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he had appointed his successor; but whose claim the states of France resisted on account of his being a Protestant. This I take to be what is meant by France making war against her heir. Elizabeth had sent over the earl of Essex with four thousand men to the assistance of Henry of Navarre, in 1591. This oblique sneer at France was, therefore, a compliment to the Poet's royal mistress."

2 Carracks, large ships of burthen (caraca, Span.). Ballast is merely a contraction of ballassed; to balase being the old orthography; as we write drest for dressed, embost for embossed, &c.

3 i. e. affianced.

1