LUCIANA And may it be that you have q...

LUCIANA

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 building, grow so ruinous?

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, be fair, become disloyalty;

Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;

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 d eeds are doubled with an evil word.

Alas, poor women! make us but 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.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not,

Nor by what wonder you do hit of 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 earthy-gross conceit,

Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded meaning of your words' deceit.

Against my soul's pure truth why labour 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 them 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!

LUCIANA

What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.

LUCIANA

It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

LUCIANA

Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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

LUCIANA

Why call you me love? call my sister so.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Thy sister's sister.

LUCIANA

That's my sister.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

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.

LUCIANA

All this my sister is, or else should be.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.

Thee will I love and with thee lead my life:

Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife.

Give me thy hand.

LUCIANA

O, soft, air! hold you still:

I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.