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 Messenger ⌈from the Phoenix⌉

MESSENGER (to Adriana)

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.

MESSENGER

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 (to Adriana)

Come stand by me. Fear nothing. Guard with halberds!

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus ⌈from the Phoenix⌉

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.

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!

EGEON (aside)

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 gav’st to me to be my wife,

That hath abused and dishonoured 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 fautt!—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 (aside)

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 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,

Promising to bring it to the Porcupine,

Where Balthasar 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.

He points to the Second Merchant

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 returned.

Then fairly I bespoke the officer

To go in person with me to my house.

By th’ 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 possessed. 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 gained 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 locked 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 (to Antipholus)