QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: The Comedy of Errors ACT/SCENE: 3.2 SPEAKER: Antipholus of Syracuse CONTEXT: 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,
Smothered 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 drownèd if she sink. DUTCH: Zijt ge een godin, die mij vervormen wil?
Vervorm mij dan! ik geef mij in uw hand. MORE: Hit=Guess, discover
Gross conceit=Weak intellect
Folded=Concealed
Compleat:
To hit (succeed, happen)=Aankomen, gelukken, ontmoeten; (agree) over eens worden
I can’t hit of his name=Ik an niet op zyn naam komen
To conceit=Zich verbeelden, achten
Conceit=Waan, bevatting, opvatting, meening Topics: understanding, error, intellect, learning/education, respect