1    I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you;
2    But, I protest, he had the chain of me,
3    Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.

4    How is the man esteemed here in the city?

5    Of very reverend reputation, sir,
6    Of credit infinite, highly beloved,
7    Second to none that lives here in the city:
8    His word might bear my wealth at any time.

9    Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.

10   'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck
11   Which he forswore most monstrously to have.
12   Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.
13   Signior Antipholus, I wonder much
14   That you would put me to this shame and trouble;
15   And, not without some scandal to yourself,
16   With circumstance and oaths so to deny
17   This chain which now you wear so openly:
18   Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,
19   You have done wrong to this my honest friend,
20   Who, but for staying on our controversy,
21   Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day:
22   This chain you had of me; can you deny it?

23   I think I had; I never did deny it.

24   Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.

25   Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?

26   These ears of mine, thou know'st did hear thee.
27   Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou livest
28   To walk where any honest man resort.

29   Thou art a villain to impeach me thus:
30   I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty
31   Against thee presently, if thou darest stand.

32   I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.

33   Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! he is mad.
34   Some get within him, take his sword away:
35   Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.

36   Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house!
37   This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd!

38   Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?

39   To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.
40   Let us come in, that we may bind him fast
41   And bear him home for his recovery.

42   I knew he was not in his perfect wits.

43   I am sorry now that I did draw on him.

44   How long hath this possession held the man?

45   This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
46   And much different from the man he was;
47   But till this afternoon his passion
48   Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.

49   Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?
50   Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye
51   Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?
52   A sin prevailing much in youthful men,
53   Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
54   Which of these sorrows is he subject to?

55   To none of these, except it be the last;
56   Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.

57   You should for that have reprehended him.

58   Why, so I did.

59   Ay, but not rough enough.

60   As roughly as my modesty would let me.

61   Haply, in private.

62   And in assemblies too.

63   Ay, but not enough.

64   It was the copy of our conference:
65   In bed he slept not for my urging it;
66   At board he fed not for my urging it;
67   Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
68   In company I often glanced it;
69   Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.

70   And thereof came it that the man was mad.
71   The venom clamours of a jealous woman
72   Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
73   It seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing,
74   And therefore comes it that his head is light.
75   Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:
76   Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
77   Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
78   And what's a fever but a fit of madness?
79   Thou say'st his sports were hinderd by thy brawls:
80   Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
81   But moody and dull melancholy,
82   Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
83   And at her heels a huge infectious troop
84   Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?
85   In food, in sport and life-preserving rest
86   To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast:
87   The consequence is then thy jealous fits
88   Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.

89   She never reprehended him but mildly,
90   When he demean'd himself rough, rude and wildly.
91   Why bear you these rebukes and answer not?

92   She did betray me to my own reproof.
93   Good people enter and lay hold on him.

94   No, not a creature enters in my house.

95   Then let your servants bring my husband forth.

96   Neither: he took this place for sanctuary,
97   And it shall privilege him from your hands
98   Till I have brought him to his wits again,
99   Or lose my labour in assaying it.

100  I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
101  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
102  And will have no attorney but myself;
103  And therefore let me have him home with me.

104  Be patient; for I will not let him stir
105  Till I have used the approved means I have,
106  With wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers,
107  To make of him a formal man again:
108  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,
109  A charitable duty of my order.
110  Therefore depart and leave him here with me.

111  I will not hence and leave my husband here:
112  And ill it doth beseem your holiness
113  To separate the husband and the wife.

114  Be quiet and depart: thou shalt not have him.

115  Complain unto the duke of this indignity.

116  Come, go: I will fall prostrate at his feet
117  And never rise until my tears and prayers
118  Have won his grace to come in person hither
119  And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

120  By this, I think, the dial points at five:
121  Anon, I'm sure, the duke himself in person
122  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,
123  The place of death and sorry execution,
124  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.

125  Upon what cause?

126  To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,
127  Who put unluckily into this bay
128  Against the laws and statutes of this town,
129  Beheaded publicly for his offence.

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

131  Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.

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

135  Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess!

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

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

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

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

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

182  Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;
183  I have not breathed almost since I did see it.
184  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,
185  To scorch your face and to disfigure you.
Cry within
186  Hark, hark! I hear him, mistress. fly, be gone!

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

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

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

197  Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,
198  I see my son Antipholus and Dromio.

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

205  Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.

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

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

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

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

214  O perjured woman! They are both forsworn:
215  In this the madman justly chargeth them.

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

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

259  But had he such a chain of thee or no?

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

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

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

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

278  Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porpentine.

279  He did, and from my finger snatch'd that ring.

280  'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.

281  Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?

282  As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace.

283  Why, this is strange. Go call the abbess hither.
284  I think you are all mated or stark mad.

285  Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:
286  Haply I see a friend will save my life
287  And pay the sum that may deliver me.

288  Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.

289  Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?
290  And is not that your bondman, Dromio?

291  Within this hour I was his bondman sir,
292  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords:
293  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.

294  I am sure you both of you remember me.

295  Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;
296  For lately we were bound, as you are now
297  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?

298  Why look you strange on me? you know me well.

299  O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last,
300  And careful hours with time's deformed hand
301  Have written strange defeatures in my face:
302  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

303  Neither.

304  Dromio, nor thou?

305  No, trust me, sir, nor I.

306  I am sure thou dost.

307  Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a
308  man denies, you are now bound to believe him.

309  Not know my voice! O time's extremity,
310  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue
311  In seven short years, that here my only son
312  Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares?
313  Though now this grained face of mine be hid
314  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
315  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
316  Yet hath my night of life some memory,
317  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,
318  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear:
319  All these old witnesses--I cannot err--
320  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.

321  I never saw my father in my life.

322  But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,
323  Thou know'st we parted: but perhaps, my son,
324  Thou shamest to acknowledge me in misery.

325  The duke and all that know me in the city
326  Can witness with me that it is not so
327  I ne'er saw Syracusa in my life.

328  I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years
329  Have I been patron to Antipholus,
330  During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa:
331  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.

332  Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong'd.

333  I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.

334  One of these men is Genius to the other;
335  And so of these. Which is the natural man,
336  And which the spirit? who deciphers them?

337  I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.

338  I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay.

339  AEgeon art thou not? or else his ghost?

340  O, my old master! who hath bound him here?

341  Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds
342  And gain a husband by his liberty.
343  Speak, old AEgeon, if thou be'st the man
344  That hadst a wife once call'd AEmilia
345  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons:
346  O, if thou be'st the same AEgeon, speak,
347  And speak unto the same AEmilia!

348  If I dream not, thou art AEmilia:
349  If thou art she, tell me where is that son
350  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?

351  By men of Epidamnum he and I
352  And the twin Dromio all were taken up;
353  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth
354  By force took Dromio and my son from them
355  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.
356  What then became of them I cannot tell
357  I to this fortune that you see me in.

358  Why, here begins his morning story right;
359  These two Antipholuses, these two so like,
360  And these two Dromios, one in semblance,--
361  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea,--
362  These are the parents to these children,
363  Which accidentally are met together.
364  Antipholus, thou camest from Corinth first?

365  No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.

366  Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.

367  I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord,--

368  And I with him.

369  Brought to this town by that most famous warrior,
370  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.

371  Which of you two did dine with me to-day?

372  I, gentle mistress.

373  And are not you my husband?

374  No; I say nay to that.

375  And so do I; yet did she call me so:
376  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
377  Did call me brother.
To Luciana
378  What I told you then,
379  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;
380  If this be not a dream I see and hear.

381  That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.

382  I think it be, sir; I deny it not.

383  And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.

384  I think I did, sir; I deny it not.

385  I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
386  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.

387  No, none by me.

388  This purse of ducats I received from you,
389  And Dromio, my man, did bring them me.
390  I see we still did meet each other's man,
391  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
392  And thereupon these errors are arose.

393  These ducats pawn I for my father here.

394  It shall not need; thy father hath his life.

395  Sir, I must have that diamond from you.

396  There, take it; and much thanks for my good cheer.

397  Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains
398  To go with us into the abbey here
399  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes:
400  And all that are assembled in this place,
401  That by this sympathized one day's error
402  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
403  And we shall make full satisfaction.
404  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
405  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour
406  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.
407  The duke, my husband and my children both,
408  And you the calendars of their nativity,
409  Go to a gossips' feast and go with me;
410  After so long grief, such festivity!

411  With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.

412  Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?

413  Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?

414  Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.

415  He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio:
416  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon:
417  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.

418  There is a fat friend at your master's house,
419  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner:
420  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

421  Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:
422  I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.
423  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?

424  Not I, sir; you are my elder.

425  That's a question: how shall we try it?

426  We'll draw cuts for the senior: till then lead thou first.

427  Nay, then, thus:
428  We came into the world like brother and brother;
429  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.