Comedy Of Errors

ANGELO


See where they come: we will behold his death.
 
LUCIANA


Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.

Enter DUKE SOLINUS, attended; AEGEON bareheaded; with the Headsman and other Officers
 
DUKE SOLINUS


Yet once again proclaim it publicly,
If any friend will pay the sum for him,
He shall not die; so much we tender him.
 
ADRIANA


Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess!
 
DUKE SOLINUS


She is a virtuous and a reverend lady:
It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.
 
ADRIANA


May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband,
Whom I made lord of me and all I had,
At your important letters,--this ill day
A most outrageous fit of madness took him;
That desperately he hurried through the street,
With him his bondman, all as mad as he--
Doing displeasure to the citizens
By rushing in their houses, bearing thence
Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like.
Once did I get him bound and sent him home,
Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,
That here and there his fury had committed.
Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,
He broke from those that had the guard of him;
And with his mad attendant and himself,
Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,
Met us again and madly bent on us,
Chased us away; till, raising of more aid,
We came again to bind them. Then they fled
Into this abbey, whither we pursued them:
And here the abbess shuts the gates on us
And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.
 
DUKE SOLINUS


Long since thy husband served me in my wars,
And I to thee engaged a prince's word,
When thou didst make him master of thy bed,
To do him all the grace and good I could.
Go, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate
And bid the lady abbess come to me.
I will determine this before I stir.

Enter a Servant
 
Servant


O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!
My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor
Whose beard they have singed off with brands of fire;
And ever, as it blazed, they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:
My master preaches patience to him and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool,
And sure, unless you send some present help,
Between them they will kill the conjurer.
 
ADRIANA


Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,
And that is false thou dost report to us.
 
Servant


Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;
I have not breathed almost since I did see it.
He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,
To scorch your face and to disfigure you.

Cry within

Hark, hark! I hear him, mistress. fly, be gone!
 
DUKE SOLINUS


Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds!
 
ADRIANA


Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you,
That he is borne about invisible:
Even now we housed him in the abbey here;
And now he's there, past thought of human reason.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus

ANTIPHOLUS
 
OF EPHESUS


Justice, most gracious duke, O, grant me justice!
Even for the service that long since I did thee,
When I bestrid thee in the wars and took
Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood
That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.
 
AEGEON


Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,
I see my son Antipholus and Dromio.
ANTIPHOLUS
 
OF EPHESUS


Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there!
She whom thou gavest to me to be my wife,
That hath abused and dishonour'd me
Even in the strength and height of injury!
Beyond imagination is the wrong
That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.
 
DUKE SOLINUS


Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.
ANTIPHOLUS
 
OF EPHESUS


This day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me,
While she with harlots feasted in my house.
 
DUKE SOLINUS


A grievous fault! Say, woman, didst thou so?
 
ADRIANA


No, my good lord: myself, he and my sister
To-day did dine together. So befall my soul
As this is false he burdens me withal!
 
LUCIANA


Ne'er may I look on day, nor sleep on night,
But she tells to your highness simple truth!
 
ANGELO


O perjured woman! They are both forsworn:
In this the madman justly chargeth them.
ANTIPHOLUS
 
OF EPHESUS


My liege, I am advised what I say,
Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
Nor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire,
Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner:
That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,
Could witness it, for he was with me then;
Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,
Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,
Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
I went to seek him: in the street I met him
And in his company that gentleman.
There did this perjured goldsmith swear me down
That I this day of him received the chain,
Which, God he knows, I saw not: for the which
He did arrest me with an officer.
I did obey, and sent my peasant home
For certain ducats: he with none return'd
Then fairly I bespoke the officer
To go in person with me to my house.
By the way we met
My wife, her sister, and a rabble more
Of vile confederates. Along with them
They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A dead-looking man: this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,
And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possess'd. Then all together
They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence
And in a dark and dankish vault at home
There left me and my man, both bound together;
Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
I gain'd my freedom, and immediately
Ran hither to your grace; whom I beseech
To give me ample satisfaction
For these deep shames and great indignities.
 
ANGELO


My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,
That he dined not at home, but was lock'd out.
 
ANGELO


He had, my lord: and when he ran in here,
These people saw the chain about his neck.
 
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