The Comedy of Errors

Syracuse

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

Second Merchant I dare, and do defy thee for a villain. They draw. Enter Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and others. Adriana

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.

Dromio of Syracuse

Run, master, run; for God’s sake, take a house!
This is some priory. In, or we are spoil’d! Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse to the Priory.

Enter the Lady Abbess. Abbess Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither? Adriana

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

Angelo I knew he was not in his perfect wits. Second Merchant I am sorry now that I did draw on him. Abbess How long hath this possession held the man? Adriana

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.

Abbess

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

Adriana

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

Abbess You should for that have reprehended him. Adriana Why, so I did. Abbess Ay, but not rough enough. Adriana As roughly as my modesty would let me. Abbess Haply, in private. Adriana And in assemblies too. Abbess Ay, but not enough. Adriana

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

Abbess

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

Luciana

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

Adriana

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

Abbess No, not a creature enters in my house. Adriana Then let your servants bring my husband forth. Abbess

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.

Adriana

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.

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. 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.

Second 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? Second 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 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 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, 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