Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?

Dromio of Syracuse
Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
Am I your man? Am I myself?
Antipholus of Syracuse
Thou art Dromio, thou art
my man, thou art thyself.

But lest myself be guilty to self wrong,
I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

Dromio of Syracuse
I am an ass, I am a woman’s
man, and besides 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 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.
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 a 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 overshoes 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’s 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 heir.
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, all o’erembellished
with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires,
declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of
Spain, who sent whole armadas 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 curtal dog and made me turn i’ th’ wheel.
Antipholus of Syracuse
Go, hie thee presently. Post to the road.
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbor in this town tonight.
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If everyone 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.
 He exits.
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,
Possessed 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.