William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

And therefore let me have him home with me.

       ABBESS.

       Be patient; for I will not let him stir

       Till I have used 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.

       ADRIANA.

       I will not hence and leave my husband here;

       And ill it doth beseem your holiness

       To separate the husband and the wife.

       ABBESS.

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

       [Exit ABBESS.]

       LUCIANA.

       Complain unto the duke of this indignity.

       ADRIANA.

       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.

       MERCHANT.

       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.

       ANGELO.

       Upon what cause?

       MERCHANT.

       To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,

       Who put unluckily into this bay

       Against the laws and statutes of this town,

       Beheaded publicly for his offence.

       ANGELO.

       See where they come: we will behold his death.

       LUCIANA.

       Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.

       [Enter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded; with the HEADSMAN and other OFFICERS.]

       DUKE.

       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.

       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,—

       Who 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 desp’rately 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, anything 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.

       Long since thy husband serv’d me in my wars;

       And I to thee engag’d 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, 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 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 halberds.

       ADRIANA.

       Ah me, it is my husband! Witness you

       That he is borne about invisible.

       Even now we hous’d him in the abbey here,

       And now he’s there, past thought of human reason.

       [Enter ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO OF EPHESUS.]

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       Justice, most gracious duke; oh, 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.