orders, and too wise to let them alone altogether. So he gave Imogen the
letter from her husband, and started with her for Milford Haven. Before
he left, the wicked Queen gave him a drink which, she said, would be
useful in sickness. She hoped he would give it to Imogen, and that
Imogen would die, and the wicked Queen's son could be King. For the
Queen thought this drink was a poison, but really and truly it was only
a sleeping-draft.
When Pisanio and Imogen came near to Milford Haven, he told her what was
really in the letter he had had from her husband.
“I must go on to Rome, and see him myself,” said Imogen.
And then Pisanio helped her to dress in boy's clothes, and sent her
on her way, and went back to the Court. Before he went he gave her the
drink he had had from the Queen.
Imogen went on, getting more and more tired, and at last came to a cave.
Someone seemed to live there, but no one was in just then. So she went
in, and as she was almost dying of hunger, she took some food she saw
there, and had just done so, when an old man and two boys came into the
cave. She was very much frightened when she saw them, for she thought
that they would be angry with her for taking their food, though she
had meant to leave money for it on the table. But to her surprise they
welcomed her kindly. She looked very pretty in her boy's clothes and her
face was good, as well as pretty.
“You shall be our brother,” said both the boys; and so she stayed with
them, and helped to cook the food, and make things comfortable. But one
day when the old man, whose name was Bellarius, was out hunting with
the two boys, Imogen felt ill, and thought she would try the medicine
Pisanio had given her. So she took it, and at once became like a dead
creature, so that when Bellarius and the boys came back from hunting,
they thought she was dead, and with many tears and funeral songs, they
carried her away and laid her in the wood, covered with flowers.
They sang sweet songs to her, and strewed flowers on her, pale
primroses, and the azure harebell, and eglantine, and furred moss, and
went away sorrowful. No sooner had they gone than Imogen awoke, and not
knowing how she came there, nor where she was, went wandering through
the wood.
Now while Imogen had been living in the cave, the Romans had decided to
attack Britain, and their army had come over, and with them Leonatus,
who had grown sorry for his wickedness against Imogen, so had come
back, not to fight with the Romans against Britain, but with the Britons
against Rome. So as Imogen wandered alone, she met with Lucius, the
Roman General, and took service with him as his page.
When the battle was fought between the Romans and Britons, Bellarius and
his two boys fought for their own country, and Leonatus, disguised as
a British peasant, fought beside them. The Romans had taken Cymbeline
prisoner, and old Bellarius, with his sons and Leonatus, bravely rescued
the King. Then the Britons won the battle, and among the prisoners
brought before the King were Lucius, with Imogen, Iachimo, and Leonatus,
who had put on the uniform of a Roman soldier. He was tired of his life
since he had cruelly ordered his wife to be killed, and he hoped that,
as a Roman soldier, he would be put to death.
When they were brought before the King, Lucius spoke out--
“A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer,” he said. “If I must die, so
be it. This one thing only will I entreat. My boy, a Briton born, let
him be ransomed. Never master had a page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
true. He has done no Briton harm, though he has served a Roman. Save
him, Sir.”
Then Cymbeline looked on the page, who was his own daughter, Imogen, in
disguise, and though he did not recognize her, he felt such a kindness
that he not only spared the boy's life, but he said--
“He shall have any boon he likes to ask of me, even though he ask a
prisoner, the noblest taken.”
Then Imogen said, “The boon I ask is that this gentleman shall say from
whom he got the ring he has on his finger,” and she pointed to Iachimo.
“Speak,” said Cymbeline, “how did you get that diamond?”
Then Iachimo told the whole truth of his villainy. At this, Leonatus was
unable to contain himself, and casting aside all thought of disguise, he
came forward, cursing himself for his folly in having believed Iachimo's
lying story, and calling again and again on his wife whom he believed
dead.
“Oh, Imogen, my love, my life!” he cried. “Oh, Imogen!
Then Imogen, forgetting she was disguised, cried out, “Peace, my
lord--here, here!”
Leonatus turned to strike the forward page who thus interfered in his
great trouble, and then he saw that it was his wife, Imogen, and they
fell into each other's arms.
The King was so glad to see his dear daughter again, and so grateful to
the man who had rescued him (whom he now found to be Leonatus), that he
gave his blessing on their marriage, and then he turned to Bellarius,
and the two boys. Now Bellarius spoke--
“I am your old servant, Bellarius. You accused me of treason when I had
only been loyal to you, and to be doubted, made me disloyal. So I stole
your two sons, and see,--they are here!” And he brought forward the two
boys, who had sworn to be brothers to Imogen when they thought she was a
boy like themselves.
The wicked Queen was dead of some of her own poisons, and the King, with
his three children about him, lived to a happy old age.
So the wicked were punished, and the good and true lived happy ever
after. So may the wicked suffer, and honest folk prosper till the
world's end.
MACBETH
When a person is asked to tell the story of Macbeth, he can tell two
stories. One is of a man called Macbeth who came to the throne of
Scotland by a crime in the year of our Lord 1039, and reigned justly
and well, on the whole, for fifteen years or more. This story is part
of Scottish history. The other story issues from a place called
Imagination; it is gloomy and wonderful, and you shall hear it.
A year or two before Edward the Confessor began to rule England, a
battle was won in Scotland against a Norwegian King by two generals
named Macbeth and Banquo. After the battle, the generals walked together
towards Forres, in Elginshire, where Duncan, King of Scotland, was
awaiting them.
While they were crossing a lonely heath, they saw three bearded women,
sisters, hand in hand, withered in appearance and wild in their attire.
“Speak, who are you?” demanded Macbeth.
“Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Glamis,” said the first woman.
“Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Cawdor,” said the second woman.
“Hail, Macbeth, King that is to be,” said the third woman.
Then Banquo asked, “What of me?” and the third woman replied, “Thou
shalt be the father of kings.”
“Tell me more,” said Macbeth. “By my father's death I am chieftain of
Glamis, but the chieftain of Cawdor lives, and the King lives, and his
children live. Speak, I charge you!”
The women replied only by vanishing, as though suddenly mixed with the
air.
Banquo and Macbeth knew then that they had been addressed by witches,
and were discussing their prophecies when two nobles approached. One of
them thanked Macbeth, in the King's name, for his military services, and
the other said, “He bade me call you chieftain of Cawdor.”
Macbeth then learned that the man who had yesterday borne that title
was to die for treason, and he could not help thinking, “The third witch
called me, 'King that is to be.'”
“Banquo,” he said, “you see that the witches spoke truth concerning me.
Do you not believe, therefore, that your child and grandchild will be
kings?”
Banquo frowned. Duncan had two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, and he
deemed it disloyal to hope that his son Fleance should rule Scotland.
He told Macbeth that the witches might have intended to tempt them
both into villainy by their prophecies concerning the throne. Macbeth,
however, thought the prophecy that he should be King too pleasant to
keep to himself, and he mentioned it to his wife in a letter.
Lady Macbeth was the grand-daughter of a King of Scotland who had died
in defending his crown against the King who preceded Duncan, and by
whose order her only brother was slain. To her, Duncan was a reminder
of bitter wrongs. Her husband had royal blood in his veins, and when she
read his letter, she was determined that he should be King.
When a messenger arrived to inform her that Duncan would pass a night in
Macbeth's castle, she nerved herself for a very base action.
She told Macbeth almost as soon as she saw him that Duncan must spend
a sunless morrow. She meant that Duncan must die, and that the dead are
blind. “We will speak further,” said Macbeth uneasily, and at night,
with his memory full of Duncan's kind words, he would fain have spared
his guest.
“Would you live a coward?” demanded Lady Macbeth, who seems to have
thought that morality and cowardice were the same.
“I dare do all that may become a man,” replied Macbeth; “who dare do
more is none.”
“Why did you write that letter to me?” she inquired fiercely, and with
bitter words she egged him on to murder, and with cunning words she
showed him how to do it.
After supper Duncan went to bed, and two grooms were placed on guard at
his bedroom door. Lady Macbeth caused them to drink wine till they were
stupefied. She then took their daggers and would have killed the King
herself if his sleeping face had not looked like her father's.
Macbeth came later, and found the daggers lying by the grooms; and soon
with red hands he appeared before his wife, saying, “Methought I heard a
voice cry, 'Sleep no more! Macbeth destroys the sleeping.'”
“Wash your hands,” said she. “Why did you not leave the daggers by the
grooms? Take them back, and smear the grooms with blood.”
“I dare not,” said Macbeth.
His wife dared, and she returned to him with hands red as his own, but a
heart less white, she proudly told him, for she scorned his fear.
The murderers heard a knocking, and Macbeth wished it was a knocking
which could wake the dead. It was the knocking of Macduff, the chieftain
of Fife, who had been told by Duncan to visit him early. Macbeth went to
him, and showed him the door of the King's room.
Macduff entered, and came out again crying, “O horror! horror! horror!”
Macbeth appeared as horror-stricken as Macduff, and pretending that he
could not bear to see life in Duncan's murderers, he slew the two grooms
with their own daggers before they could proclaim their innocence.
These murders did not shriek out, and Macbeth was crowned at Scone.
One of Duncan's sons went to Ireland, the other to England. Macbeth was
King. But he was discontented. The prophecy concerning Banquo oppressed
his mind. If Fleance were to rule, a son of Macbeth would not rule.
Macbeth determined, therefore, to murder both Banquo and his son. He
hired two ruffians, who slew Banquo one night when he was on his way
with Fleance to a banquet which Macbeth was giving to his nobles.
Fleance escaped.
Meanwhile Macbeth and his Queen received their guests very graciously,
and he expressed a wish for them which has been uttered thousands of
times since his day--“Now good digestion wait on appetite, and health on
both.”
“We pray your Majesty to sit with us,” said Lennox, a Scotch noble; but
ere Macbeth could reply, the ghost of Banquo entered the banqueting hall
and sat in Macbeth's place.
Not noticing the ghost, Macbeth observed that, if Banquo were present,
he could say that he had collected under his roof the choicest chivalry
of Scotland. Macduff, however, had curtly declined his invitation.
The King was again pressed to take a seat, and Lennox, to whom Banquo's
ghost was invisible, showed him the chair where it sat.
But Macbeth, with his eyes of genius, saw the ghost. He saw it like a
form of mist and blood, and he demanded passionately, “Which of you have
done this?”
Still none saw the ghost but he, and to the ghost Macbeth said, “Thou
canst not say I did it.”
The ghost glided out, and Macbeth was impudent enough to raise a glass
of wine “to the general joy of the whole table, and to our dear friend
Banquo, whom we miss.”
The toast was drunk as the ghost of Banquo entered for the second time.
“Begone!” cried Macbeth. “You are senseless, mindless! Hide in the
earth, thou horrible shadow.”
Again none saw the ghost but he.
“What is it your Majesty sees?” asked one of the nobles.
The Queen dared not permit an answer to be given to this question. She
hurriedly begged her guests to quit a sick man who was likely to grow
worse if he was obliged to talk.
Macbeth, however, was well enough next day to converse with the witches
whose prophecies had so depraved him.
He found them in a cavern on a thunderous day. They were revolving round
a cauldron in which were boiling particles of many strange and horrible
creatures, and they knew he was coming before he arrived.
“Answer me what I ask you,” said the King.
“Would you rather hear it from us or our masters?” asked the first
witch.
“Call them,” replied Macbeth.
Thereupon the witches poured blood into the cauldron and grease into the
flame that licked it, and a helmeted head appeared with the visor on, so
that Macbeth could only see its eyes.
He was speaking to the head, when the first witch said gravely, “He
knows thy thought,” and a voice in the head said, “Macbeth, beware
Macduff, the chieftain of Fife.” The head then descended Into the
cauldron till it disappeared.
“One word more,” pleaded Macbeth.
“He will not be commanded,” said the first witch, and then a crowned
child ascended from the cauldron bearing a tree in his hand The child
said--
“Macbeth shall be unconquerable till
The Wood of Birnam climbs Dunsinane Hill.”
“That will never be,” said Macbeth; and he asked to be told if Banquo's
descendants would ever rule Scotland.
The cauldron sank into the earth; music was heard, and a procession of
phantom kings filed past Macbeth; behind them was Banquo's ghost. In
each king, Macbeth saw a likeness to Banquo, and he counted eight kings.
Then he was suddenly left alone.
His next proceeding was to send murderers to Macduff's castle. They
did not find Macduff, and asked Lady Macduff where he was. She gave
a stinging answer, and her questioner called Macduff a traitor. “Thou
liest!” shouted Macduff's little son, who was immediately stabbed, and
with his last breath entreated his mother to fly. The murderers did not
leave the castle while one of its inmates remained alive.
Macduff was in England listening, with Malcolm, to a doctor's tale of
cures wrought by Edward the Confessor when his friend Ross came to tell
him that his wife and children were no more. At first Ross dared not
speak the truth, and turn Macduff's bright sympathy with sufferers
relieved by royal virtue into sorrow and hatred. But when Malcolm said
that England was sending an army into Scotland against Macbeth, Ross
blurted out his news, and Macduff cried, “All dead, did you say? All my
pretty ones and their mother? Did you say all?”
His sorry hope was in revenge, but if he could have looked into
Macbeth's castle on Dunsinane Hill, he would have seen at work a force
more solemn than revenge. Retribution was working, for Lady Macbeth was
mad. She walked in her sleep amid ghastly dreams. She was wont to wash
her hands for a quarter of an hour at a time; but after all her washing,
would still see a red spot of blood upon her skin. It was pitiful to
hear her cry that all the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten her
little hand.
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” inquired Macbeth of the
doctor, but the doctor replied that his patient must minister to her own
mind. This reply gave Macbeth a scorn of medicine. “Throw physic to the
dogs,” he said; “I'll none of it.”
One day he heard a sound of women crying. An officer approached him and
said, “The Queen, your Majesty, is dead.” “Out, brief candle,” muttered
Macbeth, meaning that life was like a candle, at the mercy of a puff of
air. He did not weep; he was too familiar with death.
Presently a messenger told him that he saw Birnam Wood on the march.
Macbeth called him a liar and a slave, and threatened to hang him if he
had made a mistake. “If you are right you can hang me,” he said.
From the turret windows of Dunsinane Castle, Birnam Wood did indeed
appear to be marching. Every soldier of the English army held aloft a
bough which he had cut from a tree in that wood, and like human trees
they climbed Dunsinane Hill.
Macbeth had still his courage. He went to battle to conquer or die, and
the first thing he did was to kill the English general's son in single
combat. Macbeth then felt that no man could fight him and live, and when
Macduff came to him blazing for revenge, Macbeth said to him, “Go back;
I have spilt too much of your blood already.”
“My voice is in my sword,” replied Macduff, and hacked at him and bade
him yield.
“I will not yield!” said Macbeth, but his last hour had struck. He fell.
Macbeth's men were in retreat when Macduff came before Malcolm holding a
King's head by the hair.
“Hail, King!” he said; and the new King looked at the old.
So Malcolm reigned after Macbeth; but in years that came afterwards the
descendants of Banquo were kings.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
AEGEON was a merchant of Syracuse, which is a seaport in Sicily. His
wife was AEmilia, and they were very happy until AEgeon's manager died,
and he was obliged to go by himself to a place called Epidamnum on the
Adriatic. As soon as she could AEmilia followed him, and after they had
been together some time two baby boys were born to them. The babies were
exactly alike; even when they were dressed differently they looked the
same.
And now you must believe a very strange thing. At the same inn where
these children were born, and on the same day, two baby boys were born
to a much poorer couple than AEmilia and AEgeon; so poor, indeed, were
the parents of these twins that they sold them to the parents of the
other twins.
AEmilia was eager to show her children to her friends in Syracuse,
and in treacherous weather she and AEgeon and the four babies sailed
homewards.
They were still far from Syracuse when their ship sprang a leak, and the
crew left it in a body by the only boat, caring little what became of
their passengers.
AEmilia fastened one of her children to a mast and tied one of the
slave-children to him; AEgeon followed her example with the remaining
children. Then the parents secured themselves to the same masts, and
hoped for safety.
The ship, however, suddenly struck a rock and was split in two, and
AEmilia, and the two children whom she had tied, floated away from
AEgeon and the other children. AEmilia and her charges were picked up by
some people of Epidamnum, but some fishermen of Corinth took the
babies from her by force, and she returned to Epidanmum alone, and very
miserable. Afterwards she settled in Ephesus, a famous town in Asia
Minor.
AEgeon and his charges were also saved; and, more fortunate than
AEmilia, he was able to return to Syracuse and keep them till they were
eighteen. His own child he called Antipholus, and the slavechild he
called Dromio; and, strangely enough, these were the names given to the
children who floated away from him.
At the age of eighteen the son who was with AEgeon grew restless with a
desire to find his brother. AEgeon let him depart with his servant, and
the young men are henceforth known as Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio
of Syracuse.
Let alone, AEgeon found his home too dreary to dwell in, and traveled
for five years. He did not, during his absence, learn all the news of
Syracuse, or he would never have gone to Ephesus.
As it was, his melancholy wandering ceased in that town, where he was
arrested almost as soon as he arrived. He then found that the Duke of
Syracuse had been acting in so tyrannical a manner to Ephesians unlucky
enough to fall into his hands, that the Government of Ephesus had
angrily passed a law which punished by death or a fine of a thousand
pounds any Syracusan who should come to Ephesus. AEgeon was brought
before Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, who told him that he must die or pay a
thousand pounds before the end of the day.
You will think there was fate in this when I tell you that the children
who were kidnaped by the fishermen of Corinth were now citizens of
Ephesus, whither they had been brought by Duke Menaphon, an uncle of
Duke Solinus. They will henceforth be called Antipholus of Ephesus and
Dromio of Ephesus.
Moreover, on the very day when AEgeon was arrested, Antipholus of
Syracuse landed in Ephesus and pretended that he came from Epidamnum in
order to avoid a penalty. He handed his money to his servant Dromio of
Syracuse, and bade him take it to the Centaur Inn and remain there till
he came.
In less than ten minutes he was met on the Mart by Dromio of Ephesus,
his brother's slave, and immediately mistook him for his own Dromio.
“Why are you back so soon? Where did you leave the money?” asked
Antipholus of Syracuse.
This Drornio knew of no money except sixpence, which he had received on
the previous Wednesday and given to the saddler; but he did know that
his mistress was annoyed because his master was not in to dinner, and he
asked Antipholus of Syracuse to go to a house called The Phoenix without
delay. His speech angered the hearer, who would have beaten him if he
had not fled. Antipholus of Syracuse them went to The Centaur, found
that his gold had been deposited there, and walked out of the inn.
He was wandering about Ephesus when two beautiful ladies signaled to him
with their hands. They were sisters, and their names were Adriana and
Luciana. Adriana was the wife of his brother Antipholus of Ephesus, and
she had made up her mind, from the strange account given her by Dromio
of Ephesus, that her husband preferred another woman to his wife. “Ay,
you may look as if you did not know me,” she said to the man who was
really her brother-in-law, “but I can remember when no words were sweet
unless I said them, no meat flavorsome unless I carved it.”
“Is it I you address?” said Antipholus of Syracuse stiffly. “I do not
know you.”
“Fie, brother,” said Luciana. “You know perfectly well that she sent
Dromio to you to bid you come to dinner;” and Adriana said, “Come, come;
I have been made a fool of long enough. My truant husband shall dine
with me and confess his silly pranks and be forgiven.”
They were determined ladies, and Antipholus of Syracuse grew weary of
disputing with them, and followed them obediently to The Phoenix, where
a very late “mid-day” dinner awaited them.
They were at dinner when Antipholus of Ephesus and his slave Dromio
demanded admittance. “Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cecily, Gillian, Ginn!”
shouted Dromio of Ephesus, who knew all his fellow-servants' names by
heart.
From within came the reply, “Fool, dray-horse, coxcomb, idiot!” It was
Dromio of Syracuse unconsciously insulting his brother.
Master and man did their best to get in, short of using a crowbar, and
finally went away; but Antipholus of Ephesus felt so annoyed with his
wife that he decided to give a gold chain which he had promised her, to
another woman.
Inside The Phoenix, Luciana, who believed Antipholus of Syracuse to be
her sister's husband, attempted, by a discourse in rhyme, when alone
with him, to make him kinder to Adriana. In reply he told her that he
was not married, but that he loved her so much that, if Luciana were a
mermaid, he would gladly lie on the sea if he might feel beneath him her
floating golden hair.
Luciana was shocked and left him, and reported his lovemaking to
Adriana, who said that her husband was old and ugly, and not fit to be
seen or heard, though secretly she was very fond of him.
Antipholus of Syracuse soon received a visitor in the shape of Angelo
the goldsmith, of whom Antipholus of Ephesus had ordered the chain which
he had promised his wife and intended to give to another woman.
The goldsmith handed the chain to Antipholus of Syracuse, and treated
his “I bespoke it not” as mere fun, so that the puzzled merchant took
the chain as good-humoredly as he had partaken of Adriana's dinner. He
offered payment, but Angelo foolishly said he would call again.