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Nor by what wonder you do hit on mine)

Less, in your knowlege 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 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,
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; 1 how, I do not

know.

Confounded.

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.1
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?

1 All the happiness that I wish for on earth, and all that I claim from heaven hereafter.

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

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: I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she 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.

Ant. S. What 's her name?

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.

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.

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 armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose.

1

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 2 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,3 and made me turn i' the wheel.

Ant. S. Go, hie thee presently post to the road;
And if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbor in this town to-night.
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.

Dro. S. As from a bear a man would run for life,

So fly I from her that would be my wife.

[Exit.

1 Large ships of burden, the same as those called galleons. 2 Affianced.

3 A dog that misses his game; and, being of small value, is used as a turn-spit.

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