I
missed my Shakespeare yesterday, as the day galloped away with me. This day was
almost galloping too, but I sternly said: I can stop and have ten minutes of
beauty. And the very first lines I read were these:
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.
There.
That is beauty for you.
And,
in a wicked twist of genius, Shakespeare then goes from swoony beauty to a
festival of insults. Dromio and Antipholus have a very, very naughty
conversation about a most unattractive woman. It is obviously very unsisterly
of me to find this so funny, but I can’t help it. The whole exchange is much
longer than this, and if you want to look it up, it is Act III, Scene II.
Here is a little taster:
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,
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
Oh,
sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with
rubies,
carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
aspect
to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole
armadoes
of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS
OF SYRACUSE
Where
stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO
OF SYRACUSE
Oh,
sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this
drudge,
or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd 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 transform'd me to a curtal dog and made
me
turn i' the wheel.
Naughty,
naughty, naughty. But irresistible.
There
is another excellent insult later on – ‘thou peevish sheep’. I can just see a
peevish sheep now, all ornery and pissed off.
And
then, one more final line of beauty – ‘here we wander in illusions’. Yes, yes,
that will do.
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