Act 3, Scene 2

The same.

[Enter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.]
Luciana
720 And may it be that you have quite forgot
721 A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,
722 Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
723 Shall love, in building, grow so ruinate?
724 If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
725 Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;
726 Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
727 Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;
728 Let not my sister read it in your eye;
729 Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
730 Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
731 Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
732 Bear a fair presence though your heart be tainted;
733 Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
734 Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
735 What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
736 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed
737 And let her read it in thy looks at board:—
738 Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
739 Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
740 Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
741 Being compact of credit, that you love us:
742 Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
743 We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
744 Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
745 Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:
746 'Tis holy sport to be a little vain
747 When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
Antipholus of Syracuse
748 Sweet mistress,—what your name is else, I know not,
749 Nor by what wonder you do hit on mine,—
750 Less, in your knowledge and your grace, you show not
751 Than our earth's wonder: more than earth divine.
752 Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
753 Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
754 Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
755 The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
756 Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
757 To make it wander in an unknown field?
758 Are you a god? would you create me new?
759 Transform me, then, and to your power I'll yield.
760 But if that I am I, then well I know
761 Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
762 Nor to her bed no homage do I owe:
763 Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
764 O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
765 To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears:
766 Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;
767 Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
768 And as a bed I'll take thee, and there lie;
769 And, in that glorious supposition, think
770 He gains by death that hath such means to die:—
771 Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink!
Luciana
772 What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
Antipholus of Syracuse
773 Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
Luciana
774 It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
Antipholus of Syracuse
775 For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
Luciana
776 Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
Antipholus of Syracuse
777 As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
Luciana
778 Why call you me love? call my sister so.
Antipholus of Syracuse
779 Thy sister's sister.
Luciana
780 That's my sister.
Antipholus of Syracuse
781 No;
782 It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
783 Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart;
784 My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
785 My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
Luciana
786 All this my sister is, or else should be.
Antipholus of Syracuse
787 Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee;
788 Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life:
789 Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife;
790 Give me thy hand.
Luciana
791 O, soft, sir, hold you still;
792 I'll fetch my sister to get her good-will.
[Exit LUCIANA.]
[Enter from the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
793 Why, how now, Dromio? where runn'st thou so fast?
Dromio of Syracuse
794 Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?
Antipholus of Syracuse
795 Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
Dromio of Syracuse
796 I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and beside myself.
Antipholus of Syracuse
797 What woman's man? and how besides thyself?
Dromio of Syracuse
798 Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims
799 me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
Antipholus of Syracuse
800 What claim lays she to thee?
Dromio of Syracuse
801 Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse: and she
802 would have me as a beast; not that, I being a beast, she would
803 have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim
804 to me.
Antipholus of Syracuse
805 What is she?
Dromio of Syracuse
806 A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of
807 without he say sir-reverence. I have but lean luck in the match,
808 and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.
Antipholus of Syracuse
809 How dost thou mean?—a fat marriage?
Dromio of Syracuse
810 Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know
811 not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her and run
812 from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in
813 them will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
814 she'll burn week longer than the whole world.
Antipholus of Syracuse
815 What complexion is she of?
Dromio of Syracuse
816 Swart, like my shoe; but her face nothing like so clean kept: for
817 why? she sweats, a man may go over shoes in the grime of it.
Antipholus of Syracuse
818 That's a fault that water will mend.
Dromio of Syracuse
819 No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.
Antipholus of Syracuse
820 What's her name?
Dromio of Syracuse
821 Nell, sir; but her name and three-quarters, that is an ell and
822 three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.
Antipholus of Syracuse
823 Then she bears some breadth?
Dromio of Syracuse
824 No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is
825 spherical, like a globe: I could find out countries in her.
Antipholus of Syracuse
826 In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Dromio of Syracuse
827 Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.
Antipholus of Syracuse
828 Where Scotland?
Dromio of Syracuse
829 I found it by the barrenness, hard in the palm of the hand.
Antipholus of Syracuse
830 Where France?
Dromio of Syracuse
831 In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her hair.
Antipholus of Syracuse
832 Where England?
Dromio of Syracuse
833 I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in
834 them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that
835 ran between France and it.
Antipholus of Syracuse
836 Where Spain?
Dromio of Syracuse
837 Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
Antipholus of Syracuse
838 Where America,—the Indies?
Dromio of Syracuse
839 O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with rubies,
840 carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot
841 breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be
842 ballast at her nose.
Antipholus of Syracuse
843 Where stood Belgia,—the Netherlands?
Dromio of Syracuse
844 O, sir, I did not look so low.—To conclude: this drudge or
845 diviner laid claim to me; called me Dromio; swore I was assured
846 to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of
847 my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm,
848 that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch: and, I think, if my
849 breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel, she had
850 transformed me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i' the wheel.
Antipholus of Syracuse
851 Go, hie thee presently post to the road;
852 An if the wind blow any way from shore,
853 I will not harbour in this town to-night.
854 If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
855 Where I will walk till thou return to me.
856 If every one knows us, and we know none,
857 'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
Dromio of Syracuse
858 As from a bear a man would run for life,
859 So fly I from her that would be my wife.
[Exit.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
860 There's none but witches do inhabit here;
861 And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.
862 She that doth call me husband, even my soul
863 Doth for a wife abhor; but her fair sister,
864 Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
865 Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
866 Hath almost made me traitor to myself:
867 But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
868 I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.
[Enter ANGELO.]
Angelo
869 Master Antipholus?
Antipholus of Syracuse
870 Ay, that's my name.
Angelo
871 I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain;
872 I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine:
873 The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.
Antipholus of Syracuse
874 What is your will that I shall do with this?
Angelo
875 What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.
Antipholus of Syracuse
876 Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
Angelo
877 Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have:
878 Go home with it, and please your wife withal;
879 And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,
880 And then receive my money for the chain.
Antipholus of Syracuse
881 I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
882 For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.
Angelo
883 You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.
[Exit.]
Antipholus of Syracuse
884 What I should think of this I cannot tell:
885 But this I think, there's no man is so vain
886 That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.
887 I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
888 When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
889 I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
890 If any ship put out, then straight away.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 723syntax grammar
“Shall love, in building, grow so ruinate”
Luciana is not lecturing the man she thinks is Adriana's husband for being unfaithful; she is urging him to hide it better. Her whole opening speech (TLN 720-747) advises Antipholus of Syracuse — whom she believes to be the Ephesian Antipholus — to dissemble rather than flaunt his straying. The comic complication is that he has never seen Luciana before, so the entire lecture lands on the wrong person.
TLN 741archaic vocab
“Being compact of credit, that you love us”
'Compact of credit' means 'made entirely of trust' or 'constituted out of credulity.' Luciana is saying that women are so naturally trusting that they will believe a man's word of love even if it is false — all they ask is to be kept believing.
TLN 743historical topical
“We in your motion turn, and you may move us”
Luciana is drawing on the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, in which the planets revolve in fixed 'motions' around the earth, each outer sphere carrying the inner ones with it. Women, she says, are like inner planets: they are moved by whatever sphere (man) contains them. The comparison is sincere within the speech but quietly ironic given that she is delivering it to the wrong man.
TLN 748stage direction note
“Sweet mistress,—what your name is else, I know not”
Antipholus of Syracuse has no idea who Luciana is, which is why he says he does not know her name; she, in turn, has mistaken him for his twin brother Antipholus of Ephesus, Adriana's husband. The whole wooing scene (TLN 748-791) runs on cross-purposes: she thinks she is reproving a straying husband, while he has fallen genuinely in love with a stranger who inexplicably knows his name and treats him as family.
classical Plautus and Roman comedy
TLN 758historical topical
“Are you a god? would you create me new? Transform me, then”
Antipholus of Syracuse's plea to be 'transformed' carries extra weight in Ephesus. Throughout the play the bewildered Syracusans keep worrying that they are being bewitched or literally transformed by the city's sorcerers. His willingness here to be transformed by Luciana is the one transformation he would welcome — the rest fill him with dread.
biblical St Paul's Ephesus: magic and marriage
TLN 764classical allusion
“O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears: Sing, siren, for thyself”
Sirens in Greek myth were sea-creatures (part woman, part bird or fish) who sang so beautifully that sailors forgot where they were going and drowned. Odysseus had himself lashed to the mast to hear them safely. Antipholus of Syracuse calls Luciana a 'mermaid' and a 'siren' because her voice is drawing him dangerously off course — toward her sister, his supposed wife — but he begs her to sing for herself instead so he can 'dote' on her without drowning.
TLN 773wordplay
“Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know”
'Mated' means both 'confounded, bewildered' (the usual Elizabethan sense in the phrase 'checkmate') and 'paired, wedded.' Luciana has just asked if Antipholus of Syracuse is mad; he denies it but says he is 'mated' — dumbfounded by her beauty, and also, perhaps, already half-willing to be matched with her as a partner.
TLN 782rhetorical device
“It is thyself, mine own self's better part”
Antipholus of Syracuse answers Luciana's 'That's my sister' with the rhetorical figure of the beloved as the other half or better part of the lover's own soul. The convention (drawn from Aristotle's account of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics: a friend is 'another self') was a standard of Renaissance love poetry — the beloved is described as the lover's soul, eyes, heart, and heaven in quick sequence (TLN 782-785), running the gamut of the Petrarchan blazon.
TLN 794stage direction note
“am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself”
Dromio of Syracuse's rapid triple question is the play's identity-crisis in miniature. He has been addressed all day as his Ephesian twin — given orders he did not receive, accused of lying about errands he never ran — and now a kitchen-maid claims him as her husband. Dromio's 'am I myself?' echoes his master's bewilderment and the play's core question: in a city where everyone is someone else, who are you?
classical Plautus and Roman comedy
TLN 819biblical allusion
“'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it”
'In grain' meant dyed with a fast, permanent dye (from kermes, known as 'grain') — something so thoroughly coloured it cannot be washed out. Dromio of Syracuse uses it to say the kitchen-maid Nell's griminess is indelible. His hyperbole — that not even Noah's flood could clean her — invokes the greatest deluge of the Bible (Genesis 6-8) as the standard for unstoppable water.
TLN 821wordplay
“her name and three-quarters, that is an ell and three quarters”
An 'ell' was an English unit of cloth measurement, 45 inches (roughly 114 cm). Dromio of Syracuse puns on 'Nell' and 'ell': even her name plus an extra three-quarters of a letter (Nell = N + ell) cannot measure her girth from hip to hip. The joke mocks Nell's enormous size by turning her name into a unit of measurement that still comes up short.
TLN 844historical topical
“this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; called me Dromio”
That Nell knows Dromio of Syracuse's name, her claim that he is 'assured' (betrothed) to her, and above all her knowledge of his private body-marks (a shoulder-mark, a mole on the neck, a wart on the left arm) terrifies him: only a witch or sorceress could know such things about a stranger. This is the scene's contribution to the play's running theme that Ephesus is a city of magic and transformation.
biblical St Paul's Ephesus: magic and marriage
TLN 860historical topical
“There's none but witches do inhabit here”
Antipholus of Syracuse's closing soliloquy crystallises the play's Ephesus-as-magic-city theme. He has been given free dinners, money, and now a gold chain by complete strangers who treat him as their master. The only rational explanation he can find is that the whole city is full of witches. His decision to flee at the first available ship echoes the same impulse he will voice at TLN 851-857.
biblical St Paul's Ephesus: magic and marriageclassical Circe and her cup
TLN 871stage direction note
“Lo, here is the chain; I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine”
Angelo the goldsmith delivers to Antipholus of Syracuse the gold chain that Antipholus of Ephesus actually ordered and paid for. The Porcupine is the inn where Antipholus of Ephesus was dining after being locked out of his house. This is the error that will drive the second half of the play: Angelo will later demand payment from the Ephesian Antipholus, who will truthfully deny receiving the chain, and Angelo will have him arrested for debt.
classical Plautus and Roman comedy
TLN 887archaic vocab
“I see a man here needs not live by shifts, When in the streets he meets such golden gifts”
'Shifts' in Elizabethan English meant tricks, expedients, or dodges — the petty stratagems a poor man uses to survive. Antipholus of Syracuse is joking that in Ephesus even an honest stranger gets given gold chains for nothing, so there is no need to scheme or hustle. The pun on 'golden gifts' (the chain is literally gold) is part of the comic point.