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MERCHANT: By this I think the dial points at five. Anon I’m sure the Duke himself in person comes this way.
ANGELO: Upon what cause?
MERCHANT: To see a Syracusian merchant, who put unluckily into this bay
Against the laws and statutes of this town, beheaded publicly for his offense.
ANGELO: See where they come: we will behold his death!
LUCIANA: Kneel to the Duke before he passes the abbey.
DUKE: Yet once again proclaim it publicly: If any friend shall pay the sum for him, he shall not die; so much we tender him.
ADRIANA: Most sacred Duke, justice 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, this ill day a most outrageous fit of madness took him!
That desperately he hurried through the street, doing displeasure to the citizens!
And with his mad attendant and himself, each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords, 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 shut 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: Go some of you, knock at the abbey gate, and bid the lady abbess come to me. I will determine this before I stir.
BETH: 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.
BETH: 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!
[SCREAMING OFFSTAGE]
BETH: Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress! Fly, be gone!
DUKE: Come stand by me, fear nothing. [Duke winks at Adriana.]
ADRIANA: Aye me! It is my husband: witness you, that he is borne about invisible!
Just now we housed him in the abbey here; and now he’s there, past thought of human reason!
ANTIPHOLUS E: 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!
EGEON: Unless the fear of death doth make me dote, I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio!
ANTIPHOLUS E: Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman there: she whom thou gavest to me to be my wife.
That hath abused and dishonoured me, even in the strength and height of injury!
DUKE: Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.
ANTIPHOLUS E: 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!
ANGELO: O perjured woman! They are both forsworn: In this the madman justly chargeth them.
ANTIPHOLUS E: My liege, I am advised what I say, albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
This woman locked me out this day from dinner! That goldsmith there, were he not packed with her, could witness it,
for he was with me then; who parted with me to go fetch a chain. 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.
ANGELO: My lord, in truth, I far from witnesseth with him, but he dined not at home, but was locked out.
DUKE: But had he such a chain of thee, or no?
ANGELO: He had my lord: when he ran in here! These people saw the chain about his neck.