William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

       I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and beside myself.

       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 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; 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 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?

       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 week longer than the whole world.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF 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 over 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; 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 is an ell 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 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.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       Where Scotland?

       DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

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

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       Where France?

       DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

       In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her hair.

       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, an o’er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes 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 curtail-dog, and made me turn i’ the 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 bark put forth, come to the mart,

       Where I will walk till thou return to me.

       If every one 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.]

       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,

       Possess’d 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.]

       ANGELO.

       Master Antipholus?

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       Ay, that’s my name.

       ANGELO.

       I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain;

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

       The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       What is your will that I shall do with this?

       ANGELO.

       What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.

       ANGELO.

       Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have:

       Go home with it, and please your wife withal;

       And soon at suppertime I’ll visit you,

       And then receive my money for the chain.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       I pray you, sir, receive the money now,

       For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.

       ANGELO.

       You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.

       [Exit.]

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       What I should think of this I cannot tell:

       But this I think, there’s no man is so vain

       That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.

       I see a man here needs not live by shifts,

       When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

       I’ll to the mart, and there