pretty babes, who, not knowing what to fear, wept for fashion, because
they saw their mother weep, filled me with terror for them, though I did
not for myself fear death; and all my thoughts were bent to contrive
means for their safety. I tied my youngest son to the end of a small
spare mast, such as seafaring men provide against storms; at the other
end I bound the youngest of the twin slaves, and at the same time I
directed my wife how to fasten the other children in like manner to
another mast. She thus having the care of the two eldest children, and I
of the two younger, we bound ourselves separately to these masts with
the children; and but for this contrivance we had all been lost, for the
ship split on a mighty rock, and was dashed in pieces; and we, clinging
to these slender masts, were supported above the water, where I, having
the care of two children, was unable to assist my wife, who with the
other children was soon separated from me; but while they were yet in my
sight, they were taken up by a boat of fishermen, from Corinth, (as I
supposed), and seeing them in safety, I had no care but to struggle with
the wild sea-waves, to preserve my dear son and the youngest slave. At
length we, in our turn, were taken up by a ship, and the sailors,
knowing me, gave us kind welcome and assistance, and landed us in safety
at Syracuse; but from that sad hour I have never known what became of my
wife and eldest child.
"My youngest son, and now my only care, when he was eighteen years of
age, began to be inquisitive after his mother and his brother, and often
importuned me that he might take his attendant, the young slave, who had
also lost his brother, and go in search of them: at length I unwillingly
gave consent, for though I anxiously desired to hear tidings of my wife
and eldest son, yet in sending my younger one to find them, I hazarded
the loss of him also. It is now seven years since my son left me; five
years have I passed in travelling through the world in search of him: I
have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and
coasting homewards, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave
any place unsought that harbours men; but this day must end the story of
my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured
my wife and sons were living."
Here the hapless Ægeon ended the account of his misfortunes; and the
duke, pitying this unfortunate father, who had brought upon himself this
great peril by his love for his lost son, said, if it were not against
the laws, which his oath and dignity did not permit him to alter, he
would freely pardon him; yet, instead of dooming him to instant death,
as the strict letter of the law required, he would give him that day to
try if he could beg or borrow the money to pay the fine.
This day of grace did seem no great favour to Ægeon, for not knowing
any man in Ephesus, there seemed to him but little chance that any
stranger would lend or give him a thousand marks to pay the fine; and
helpless and hopeless of any relief, he retired from the presence of the
duke in the custody of a jailor.
Ægeon supposed he knew no person in Ephesus; but at the very time he was
in danger of losing his life through the careful search he was making
after his youngest son, that son and his eldest son also were both in
the city of Ephesus.
Ægeon's sons, besides being exactly alike in face and person, were both
named alike, being both called Antipholus, and the two twin slaves were
also both named Dromio. Ægeon's youngest son, Antipholus of Syracuse, he
whom the old man had come to Ephesus to seek, happened to arrive at
Ephesus with his slave Dromio that very same day that Ægeon did; and he
being also a merchant of Syracuse, he would have been in the same danger
that his father was, but by good fortune he met a friend who told him
the peril an old merchant of Syracuse was in, and advised him to pass
for a merchant of Epidamnum; this Antipholus agreed to do, and he was
sorry to hear one of his own countrymen was in this danger, but he
little thought this old merchant was his own father.
The eldest son of Ægeon (who must be called Antipholus of Ephesus, to
distinguish him from his brother Antipholus of Syracuse) had lived at
Ephesus twenty years, and, being a rich man, was well able to have paid
the money for the ransom of his father's life; but Antipholus knew
nothing of his father, being so young when he was taken out of the sea
with his mother by the fishermen that he only remembered he had been so
preserved, but he had no recollection of either his father or his
mother; the fishermen who took up this Antipholus and his mother and the
young slave Dromio, having carried the two children away from her (to
the great grief of that unhappy lady), intending to sell them.
Antipholus and Dromio were sold by them to Duke Menaphon, a famous
warrior, who was uncle to the Duke of Ephesus, and he carried the boys
to Ephesus when he went to visit the duke his nephew.
The Duke of Ephesus taking a liking to young Antipholus, when he grew
up, made him an officer in his army, in which he distinguished himself
by his great bravery in the wars, where he saved the life of his patron
the duke, who rewarded his merit by marrying him to Adriana, a rich lady
of Ephesus; with whom he was living (his slave Dromio still attending
him) at the time his father came there.
Antipholus of Syracuse, when he parted with his friend, who advised him
to say he came from Epidamnum, gave his slave Dromio some money to carry
to the inn where he intended to dine, and in the meantime he said he
would walk about and view the city, and observe the manners of the
people.
Dromio was a pleasant fellow, and when Antipholus was dull and
melancholy he used to divert himself with the odd humours and merry
jests of his slave, so that the freedoms of speech he allowed in Dromio
were greater than is usual between masters and their servants.
When Antipholus of Syracuse had sent Dromio away, he stood awhile
thinking over his solitary wanderings in search of his mother and his
brother, of whom in no place where he landed could he hear the least
tidings; and he said sorrowfully to himself, "I am like a drop of water
in the ocean, which seeking to find its fellow drop, loses itself in the
wide sea. So I unhappily, to find a mother and a brother, do lose
myself."
While he was thus meditating on his weary travels, which had hitherto
been so useless, Dromio (as he thought) returned. Antipholus, wondering
that he came back so soon, asked him where he had left the money. Now it
was not his own Dromio, but the twin-brother that lived with Antipholus
of Ephesus, that he spoke to. The two Dromios and the two Antipholuses
were still as much alike as Ægeon had said they were in their infancy;
therefore no wonder Antipholus thought it was his own slave returned,
and asked him why he came back so soon. Dromio replied, "My mistress
sent me to bid you come to dinner. The capon burns, and the pig falls
from the spit, and the meat will be all cold if you do not come home."
"These jests are out of season," said Antipholus: "where did you leave
the money?" Dromio still answering, that his mistress had sent him to
fetch Antipholus to dinner: "What mistress?" said Antipholus. "Why, your
worship's wife, sir," replied Dromio. Antipholus having no wife, he was
very angry with Dromio, and said, "Because I familiarly sometimes chat
with you, you presume to jest with me in this free manner. I am not in a
sportive humour now: where is the money? we being strangers here, how
dare you trust so great a charge from your own custody?" Dromio hearing
his master, as he thought him, talk of their being strangers, supposing
Antipholus was jesting, replied merrily, "I pray you, sir, jest as you
sit at dinner. I had no charge but to fetch you home, to dine with my
mistress and her sister." Now Antipholus lost all patience, and beat
Dromio, who ran home, and told his mistress that his master had refused
to come to dinner, and said that he had no wife.
Adriana, the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, was very angry when she
heard that her husband said he had no wife; for she was of a jealous
temper, and she said her husband meant that he loved another lady better
than herself; and she began to fret, and say unkind words of jealousy
and reproach of her husband; and her sister Luciana, who lived with her,
tried in vain to persuade her out of her groundless suspicions.
Antipholus of Syracuse went to the inn, and found Dromio with the money
in safety there, and seeing his own Dromio, he was going again to chide
him for his free jests, when Adriana came up to him, and not doubting
but it was her husband she saw, she began to reproach him for looking
strange upon her (as well he might, never having seen this angry lady
before); and then she told him how well he loved her before they were
married, and that now he loved some other lady instead of her. "How
comes it now, my husband," said she, "O how comes it that I have lost
your love?"--"Plead you to me, fair dame?" said the astonished
Antipholus. It was in vain he told her he was not her husband, and that
he had been in Ephesus but two hours; she insisted on his going home
with her, and Antipholus at last, being unable to get away, went with
her to his brother's house, and dined with Adriana and her sister, the
one calling him husband, and the other brother, he, all amazed, thinking
he must have been married to her in his sleep, or that he was sleeping
now. And Dromio, who followed them, was no less surprised, for the
cook-maid, who was his brother's wife, also claimed him for her husband.
While Antipholus of Syracuse was dining with his brother's wife, his
brother, the real husband, returned home to dinner with his slave
Dromio; but the servants would not open the door, because their mistress
had ordered them not to admit any company; and when they repeatedly
knocked, and said they were Antipholus and Dromio, the maids laughed at
them, and said that Antipholus was at dinner with their mistress, and
Dromio was in the kitchen; and though they almost knocked the door down,
they could not gain admittance, and at last Antipholus went away very
angry, and strangely surprised at hearing a gentleman was dining with
his wife.
When Antipholus of Syracuse had finished his dinner, he was so perplexed
at the lady's still persisting in calling him husband, and at hearing
that Dromio had also been claimed by the cook-maid, that he left the
house, as soon as he could find any pretence to get away; for though he
was very much pleased with Luciana, the sister, yet the jealous-tempered
Adriana he disliked very much, nor was Dromio at all better satisfied
with his fair wife in the kitchen: therefore both master and man were
glad to get away from their new wives as fast as they could.
The moment Antipholus of Syracuse had left the house, he was met by a
goldsmith, who mistaking him, as Adriana had done, for Antipholus of
Ephesus, gave him a gold chain, calling him by his name; and when
Antipholus would have refused the chain, saying it did not belong to
him, the goldsmith replied he made it by his own orders; and went away,
leaving the chain in the hands of Antipholus, who ordered his man Dromio
to get his things on board a ship, not choosing to stay in a place any
longer, where he met with such strange adventures that he surely thought
himself bewitched.
The goldsmith who had given the chain to the wrong Antipholus, was
arrested immediately after for a sum of money he owed; and Antipholus,
the married brother, to whom the goldsmith thought he had given the
chain, happened to come to the place where the officer was arresting the
goldsmith, who, when he saw Antipholus, asked him to pay for the gold
chain he had just delivered to him, the price amounting to nearly the
same sum as that for which he had been arrested. Antipholus denying the
having received the chain, and the goldsmith persisting to declare that
he had but a few minutes before given it to him, they disputed this
matter a long time, both thinking they were right: for Antipholus knew
the goldsmith never gave him the chain, and so like were the two
brothers, the goldsmith was as certain he had delivered the chain into
his hands, till at last the officer took the goldsmith away to prison
for the debt he owed, and at the same time the goldsmith made the
officer arrest Antipholus for the price of the chain; so that at the
conclusion of their dispute, Antipholus and the merchant were both
taken away to prison together.
As Antipholus was going to prison, he met Dromio of Syracuse, his
brother's slave, and mistaking him for his own, he ordered him to go to
Adriana his wife, and tell her to send the money for which he was
arrested. Dromio wondering that his master should send him back to the
strange house where he dined, and from which he had just before been in
such haste to depart, did not dare to reply, though he came to tell his
master the ship was ready to sail: for he saw Antipholus was in no
humour to be jested with. Therefore he went away, grumbling within
himself, that he must return to Adriana's house, "Where," said he,
"Dowsabel claims me for a husband: but I must go, for servants must obey
their masters' commands."
Adriana gave him the money, and as Dromio was returning, he met
Antipholus of Syracuse, who was still in amaze at the surprising
adventures he met with; for his brother being well known in Ephesus,
there was hardly a man he met in the streets but saluted him as an old
acquaintance: some offered him money which they said was owing to him,
some invited him to come and see them, and some gave him thanks for
kindnesses they said he had done them, all mistaking him for his
brother. A tailor showed him some silks he had bought for him, and
insisted upon taking measure of him for some clothes.
Antipholus began to think he was among a nation of sorcerers and
witches, and Dromio did not at all relieve his master from his
bewildered thoughts, by asking him how he got free from the officer who
was carrying him to prison, and giving him the purse of gold which
Adriana had sent to pay the debt with. This talk of Dromio's of the
arrest and of a prison, and of the money he had brought from Adriana,
perfectly confounded Antipholus, and he said, "This fellow Dromio is
certainly distracted, and we wander here in illusions;" and quite
terrified at his own confused thoughts, he cried out, "Some blessed
power deliver us from this strange place!"
And now another stranger came up to him, and she was a lady, and she too
called him Antipholus, and told him he had dined with her that day, and
asked him for a gold chain which she said he had promised to give her.
Antipholus now lost all patience, and calling her a sorceress, he denied
that he had ever promised her a chain, or dined with her, or had even
seen her face before that moment. The lady persisted in affirming he had
dined with her, and had promised her a chain, which Antipholus still
denying, she further said, that she had given him a valuable ring, and
if he would not give her the gold chain, she insisted upon having her
own ring again. On this Antipholus became quite frantic, and again
calling her sorceress and witch, and denying all knowledge of her or her
ring, ran away from her, leaving her astonished at his words and his
wild looks, for nothing to her appeared more certain than that he had
dined with her, and that she had given him a ring, in consequence of his
promising to make her a present of a gold chain. But this lady had
fallen into the same mistake the others had done, for she had taken him
for his brother: the married Antipholus had done all the things she
taxed this Antipholus with.
When the married Antipholus was denied entrance into his own house
(those within supposing him to be already there), he had gone away very
angry, believing it to be one of his wife's jealous freaks, to which she
was very subject, and remembering that she had often falsely accused him
of visiting other ladies, he, to be revenged on her for shutting him out
of his own house, determined to go and dine with this lady, and she
receiving him with great civility, and his wife having so highly
offended him, Antipholus promised to give her a gold chain, which he had
intended as a present for his wife; it was the same chain which the
goldsmith by mistake had given to his brother. The lady liked so well
the thoughts of having a fine gold chain, that she gave the married
Antipholus a ring; which when, as she supposed (taking his brother for
him), he denied, and said he did not know her, and left her in such a
wild passion, she began to think he was certainly out of his senses; and
presently she resolved to go and tell Adriana that her husband was mad.
And while she was telling it to Adriana, he came, attended by the jailor
(who allowed him to come home to get the money to pay the debt), for the
purse of money, which Adriana had sent by Dromio, and he had delivered
to the other Antipholus.
Adriana believed the story the lady told her of her husband's madness
must be true, when he reproached her for shutting him out of his own
house; and remembering how he had protested all dinner-time that he was
not her husband, and had never been in Ephesus till that day, she had no
doubt that he was mad; she therefore paid the jailor the money, and
having discharged him, she ordered her servants to bind her husband with
ropes, and had him conveyed into a dark room, and sent for a doctor to
come and cure him of his madness: Antipholus all the while hotly
exclaiming against this false accusation, which the exact likeness he
bore to his brother had brought upon him. But his rage only the more
confirmed them in the belief that he was mad; and Dromio persisting in
the same story, they bound him also, and took him away along with his
master.
Soon after Adriana had put her husband into confinement, a servant came
to tell her that Antipholus and Dromio must have broken loose from their
keepers, for that they were both walking at liberty in the next street.
On hearing this, Adriana ran out to fetch him home, taking some people
with her to secure her husband again; and her sister went along with
her. When they came to the gates of a convent in their neighbourhood,
there they saw Antipholus and Dromio, as they thought, being again
deceived by the likeness of the twin-brothers.
Antipholus of Syracuse was still beset with the perplexities this
likeness had brought upon him. The chain which the goldsmith had given
him was about his neck, and the goldsmith was reproaching him for
denying that he had it, and refusing to pay for it, and Antipholus was
protesting that the goldsmith freely gave him the chain in the morning,
and that from that hour he had never seen the goldsmith again.
And now Adriana came up to him and claimed him as her lunatic husband,
who had escaped from his keepers; and the men she brought with her were
going to lay violent hands on Antipholus and Dromio; but they ran into
the convent, and Antipholus begged the abbess to give him shelter in her
house.
And now came out the lady abbess herself to inquire into the cause of
this disturbance. She was a grave and venerable lady, and wise to judge
of what she saw, and she would not too hastily give up the man who had
sought protection in her house; so she strictly questioned the wife
about the story she told of her husband's madness, and she said, "What
is the cause of this sudden distemper of your husband's? Has he lost his
wealth at sea? Or is it the death of some dear friend that has disturbed
his mind?" Adriana replied, that no such things as these had been the
cause. "Perhaps," said the abbess, "he has fixed his affections on some
other lady than you his wife; and that has driven him to this state."
Adriana said she had long thought the love of some other lady was the
cause of his frequent absences from home. Now it was not his love for
another, but the teasing jealousy of his wife's temper, that often
obliged Antipholus to leave his home; and (the abbess suspecting this
from the vehemence of Adriana's manner) to learn the truth, she said,
"You should have reprehended him for this."--"Why, so I did," replied
Adriana. "Ay," said the abbess, "but perhaps not enough." Adriana,
willing to convince the abbess that she had said enough to Antipholus
on this subject, replied, "It was the constant subject of our
conversation: in bed I would not let him sleep for speaking of it. At
table I would not let him eat for speaking of it. When I was alone with
him, I talked of nothing else; and in company I gave him frequent hints
of it. Still all my talk was how vile and bad it was in him to love any
lady better than me."
The lady abbess, having drawn this full confession from the jealous
Adriana, now said, "And therefore comes it that your husband is mad. The
venomous clamour of a jealous woman is a more deadly poison than a mad
dog's tooth. It seems his sleep was hindered by your railing; no wonder
that his head is light: and his meat was sauced with your upbraidings;
unquiet meals make ill digestions, and that has thrown him into this
fever. You say his sports were disturbed by your brawls; being debarred
from the enjoyment of society and recreation, what could ensue but dull
melancholy and comfortless despair? The consequence is then, that your
jealous fits have made your husband mad."
Luciana would have excused her sister, saying, she always reprehended
her husband mildly; and she said to her sister, "Why do you hear these
rebukes without answering them?" But the abbess had made her so plainly
perceive her fault, that she could only answer, "She has betrayed me to
my own reproof."
Adriana, though ashamed of her own conduct, still insisted on having her
husband delivered up to her; but the abbess would suffer no person to
enter her house, nor would she deliver up this unhappy man to the care
of the jealous wife, determining herself to use gentle means for his
recovery, and she retired into her house again, and ordered her gates to
be shut against them.
During the course of this eventful day, in which so many errors had
happened from the likeness the twin brothers bore to each other, old
Ægeon's day of grace was passing away, it being now near sunset; and at
sunset he was doomed to die, if he could not pay the money.
The place of his execution was near this convent, and here he arrived
just as the abbess retired into the convent; the duke attending in
person, that if any offered to pay the money, he might be present to
pardon him.
Adriana stopped this melancholy procession, and cried out to the duke
for justice, telling him that the abbess had refused to deliver up her
lunatic husband to her care. While she was speaking, her real husband
and his servant Dromio, who had got loose, came before the duke to
demand justice, complaining that his wife had confined him on a false
charge of lunacy; and telling in what manner he had broken his bands,
and eluded the vigilance of his keepers. Adriana was strangely surprised
to see her husband, when she thought he had been within the convent.
Ægeon, seeing his son, concluded this was the son who had left him to go
in search of his mother and his brother; and he felt secure that this
dear son would readily pay the money demanded for his ransom. He
therefore spoke to Antipholus in words of fatherly affection, with
joyful hope that he should now be released. But to the utter
astonishment of Ægeon, his son denied all knowledge of him, as well he
might, for this Antipholus had never seen his father since they were
separated in the storm in his infancy; but while the poor old Ægeon was
in vain endeavouring to make his son acknowledge him, thinking surely
that either his griefs and the anxieties he had suffered had so
strangely altered him that his son did not know him, or else that he was
ashamed to acknowledge his father in his misery; in the midst of this
perplexity, the lady abbess and the other Antipholus and Dromio came
out, and the wondering Adriana saw two husbands and two Dromios standing
before her.