Antipholus proceeds to play with his servant in a fencing match of
wit--a practice Shakespeare seems to have delighted in. But it is when
Antipholus falls in love with Luciana that he shows us Shakespeare at
his most natural as a lover. Luciana has just taken him to task for not
loving her sister Adriana, who, she thinks, is his wife. Antipholus
answers her thus:
"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 face 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. ..."
He declares, in fact, that he loves her and not her sister:
"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;
* * * * *
It is thyself, mine own self's better part,
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart.
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