The Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare (most read books TXT) 📖

we may bear him hence.
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help. Duke

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

No, my good lord: myself, he and my sister
Today 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 living-dead 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.

Duke But had he such a chain of thee or no? Angelo

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

Second Merchant

Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine
Heard you confess you had the chain of him
After you first forswore it on the mart:
And thereupon I drew my sword on you;
And then you fled into this abbey here,
From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.

Antipholus of Ephesus

I never came within these abbey-walls,
Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me:
I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!
And this is false you burden me withal.

Duke

Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe’s cup.
If here you housed him, here he would have been;
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly:
You say he dined at home; the goldsmith here
Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?

Dromio of Ephesus Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porpentine. Courtesan He did, and from my finger snatch’d that ring. Antipholus of Ephesus ’Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her. Duke Saw’st thou him enter at the abbey here? Courtesan 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 one to the Abbess.

Aegeon

Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:
Haply I see