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,3

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.
Luc. All this my sister is, or else should be.
Ant. S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim2 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?

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

1 The first folio reads:

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

2 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.