:
I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will.
Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?
Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man?
am I myself?
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself.
What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?
Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one
that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
What claim lays she to thee?
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.
What is she?
A very reverent 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.
How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
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.
What complexion is she of?
Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
shoes in the grime of it.
That's a fault that water will mend.
No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.
What's her name?
Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's
an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from
hip to hip.
Then she bears some breadth?
No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:
she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out
countries in her.
In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
Where Scotland?
I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
Where France?
In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war
against her heir.
Where England?
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.
Where