prove I'll mine honour and mine honesty Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand. MER. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain. [They draw. Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, Courtezan, and others. ADR. Hold!-hurt him not, for God's sake! -he is mad; Some get within him; take his sword away;Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house. DRO. S. Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house ; This is some priory ;-in, or we are spoil'd. [Exeunt ANT. S. and DRO. S. to the Priory. Enter the Lady Abbess. ABB. Be quiet, people! wherefore throng you hither? ADR. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence: Let us come in that we may bind him fast, ANG. I knew he was not in his perfect wits. man? ADR. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much different from the man he was; But, till this afternoon, his passion Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. ABB. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea? Buried some dear friend? Hath not, else, his eye ADR. To none of these, except it be the last : Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. ABB. You should, for that, have reprehended him. ABB. And thereof came it that the man was mad. Unquiet meals make ill digestions,— Luc. She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly. Why bear you these rebukes and answer not? ABB. No, not a creature enters in my house. ABB. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary. And it shall privilege him from your hands, Till I have brought him to his wits again, Or lose my labour in assaying it. ADR. I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his sickness, for it is my office, And will have no attorney but myself; And therefore let me have him home with me. ABB. Be patient; for I will not let him stir, Till I have us'd the approved means I have, With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again: It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,— A charitable duty of my order; Therefore depart, and leave him here with me. ADR. I will not hence and leave my husband here; And ill it doth beseem your holiness To separate the husband and the wife.' ABB. Be quiet and depart, thou shalt not have him. [Exit Abbess. Luc. Complain unto the duke of this indignity. ADR. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet, And never rise until my tears and prayers Have won his grace to come in person hither, And take perforce my husband from the abbess. b A formal man-] This seems to mean, A reasonable man. A well regulated man. MER. By this, I think, the dial points at five: Anon, I'm sure, the duke himself in person Comes this way to the melancholy vale, The place of death and sorry" execution, Behind the ditches of the abbey here. ANG. Upon what cause? MER. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant, Who put unluckily into this bay Against the laws and statutes of this town, ANG See where they come; we will behold his death. Luc. Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey. Enter DUKE, attended; ÆGEON, bare-headed; with the Headsman and other Officers. DUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly, ADR. Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess! DUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady; It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong. ADR. May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband, Whom I made lord of me and all I had, By rushing in their houses, bearing thence, a The place of death-] The original has depth instead of death; and, as the Rev. Mr. Hunter thinks, rightly. According to his view, "New Illustrations of Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 225, “The place of depth,' in the Greek story, the Barathrum, means the deep pit, into which offenders were cast." bAnd sorry execution,-] Meaning dismal, sorrowful execution. At your important letters,-] That is, in the language of our old writers, your importunate letters. Thus, in "Much Ado about Nothing," Act II. Sc. 1:-"-if the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything," &c. So in "King Lear," Act IV. Sc. 4: "Therefore great France My mourning and important tears hath pitied." d Beaten the maids a-row,-] A-row is explained by the commentators, one after another, successively. "A thousand time a-row he gan hire kisse." CHAUCER, Wife of Bathes Tale, v. 6386, Tyrwhitt's Ed. SERV. O mistress, mistress! shift and save yourself! My master and his man are both broke loose, And, ever as it blazed, they threw on him е ADR. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here, And that is false thou dost report to us. SERV. Mistress, upon my life I tell you true! I have not breath'd, 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. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberts. "The curtal Friar in Fountain Abbey Old Ballads, Evans, vol.ii.. e Nicks him like a fool;] The custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. Tollet says there is a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred's ecclesiastical laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a passage from "The Choice of Change," &c., by S. R. Gent, 4to. 1598,-"Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at their follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles." f To scorch your face,-] So the old copy. The same spelling occurs in the folio, 1623, Act III. Sc. 2, of "Macbeth""We have scorch'd the snake, not killed it;" where, however, the word meant is probably scotch'd. In this the madman justly chargeth them. ANT. E. My liege, I am advised what I say; I did obey, and sent my peasant home 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-fac'd villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller; For these deep shames and great indignities. ANG. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him, That he dined not at home, but was lock'd out. DUKE. But had he such a chain of thee or no? ANG. He had, my lord; and when he ran in here These people saw the chain about his neck. MER. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine a And careful hours,-] Painful, anxious hours. Heard you confess you had the chain of him, DUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this! DRO. E. Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porcupine. COUR. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring. ANT. E. 'Tis true, my liege, this ring I had of her. DUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here? COUR. As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace. DUKE. Why, this is strange. Go, call the abbess hither. I think you are all mated or stark mad. [Exit an Attendant. EGE. Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word: Haply I see a friend will save my life, DUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt. EGE. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus? And is not that your bondman, Dromio? DRO. E. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir, But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords. EGE. I am sure you both of you remember me. ÆGE. Why look you strange on me? You know me well. ANT. E. I never saw you in my life, till now. ÆGE. Oh! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last; DRO. E. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound a to believe him. EGE. Not know my voice? Oh, Time's extremity ! Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue, ANT. E. I never saw my father in my life. AGE. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy, Thou know'st we parted; but, perhaps, my son, Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery. ANT. E. The duke, and all that know me in Have I been patron to Antipholus, During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa. I see, thy age and dangers make thee dote. Enter the Abbess, with ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, and DROMIO of Syracuse. ABB. Most mighty duke, behold a man much" wrong'd. [All gather to see them. ADR. I see two husbands, or mine eyes de ceive me. DUKE. One of these men is Genius to the other; And so of these, which is the natural man, And which the spirit? Who deciphers them? DRO. S. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away. DRO. E. I. sir, am Dromio, pray let me stay. ANT. S. Ægeon, art thou not? or else his ghost! DRO. S. Oh, my old master! who hath bound him here? ABB. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds, And gain a husband by his liberty! Speak, old geon, if thou be'st the man That hadst a wife once call'd Emilia, That bore thee at a burden two fair sons! Oh, if thou be'st the same Ægeon, speak! |