marriage; but Petruchio did but put this wildness on the better to succeed in the plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife.
Baptista had provided a sumptuous marriage feast, but when they returned from church, Petruchio, taking hold of Katharine, declared his intention of carrying his wife home instantly, and no remonstrance of his father-in-law, or angry words of the enraged Katharine, could make him change his purpose. He claimed a husband’s right to dispose of his wife as he pleased, and away he hurried Katharine off; he seeming so daring and resolute that no one dared attempt to stop him.
Petruchio mounted his wife upon a miserable horse, lean and lank, which he had picked out for the purpose, and, himself and his servant no better mounted, they journeyed on through rough and miry ways, and ever when this horse of Katharine’s stumbled he would storm and swear at the poor jaded beast, who could scarce crawl under his burthen, as if he had been the most passionate man alive.
At length, after a weary journey, during which Katharine had heard nothing but the wild ravings of Petruchio at the servant and the horses, they arrived at his house. Petruchio welcomed her kindly to her home, but he resolved she should have neither rest nor food that night. The tables were spread, and supper soon served; but Petruchio, pretending to find fault with every dish, threw the meat about the floor, and ordered the servants to remove it away; and all this he did, as he said, in love for his Katharine, that she might not eat meat that was not well dressed. And when Katharine, weary and supperless, retired to rest, he found the same fault with the bed, throwing the pillows and bedclothes about the room, so that she was forced to sit down in a chair, where, if, she chanced to drop asleep, she was presently awakened by the loud voice of her husband storming at the servants for the ill-making of his wife’s bridal-bed.
The next day Petruchio pursued the same course, still speaking kind words to Katharine, but, when she attempted to eat, finding fault with everything that was set before her, throwing the breakfast on the floor as he had done the supper; and Katharine, the haughty Katharine, was fain to beg the servants would bring her secretly a morsel of food; but they, being instructed by Petruchio, replied they dared not give her anything unknown to their master.
“Ah,” said she, “did he marry me to famish me? Beggars that come to my father’s door have food given them. But I, who never knew what it was to entreat for anything, am starved for want of food, giddy for want of sleep, with oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed; and that which vexes me more than all, he does it under the name of perfect love, pretending that if I sleep or eat, it were present death to me.”
Here the soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Petruchio. He, not meaning she should be quite starved, had brought her a small portion of meat, and he said to her:
“How fares my sweet Kate? Here, love, you see how diligent I am. I have dressed your meat myself. I am sure this kindness merits thanks. What, not a word? Nay, then you love not the meat, and all the pains I have taken is to no purpose.” He then ordered the servant to take the dish away.
Extreme hunger, which had abated the pride of Katharine, made her say, though angered to the heart, “I pray you let it stand.”
But this was not all Petruchio intended to bring her to, and he replied, “The poorest service is repaid with thanks, and so shall mine before you touch the meat.”
On this Katharine brought out a reluctant “I thank you, sir.”
And now he suffered her to make a slender meal, saying: “Much good may it do your gentle heart, Kate. Eat apace! And now, my honey love, we will return to your father’s house and revel it as bravely as the best, with silken coats and caps and golden rings, with ruffs and scarfs and fans and double change of finery.” And to make her believe be really intended to give her these gay things, he called in a tailor and a haberdasher, who brought some new clothes he had ordered for her, and then, giving her plate to the servant to take away, before she had half satisfied her hunger, he said:
“What, have you dined?”
The haberdasher presented a cap, saying, “Here is the cap your worship bespoke.” On which Petruchio began to storm afresh, saying the cap was molded in a porringer and that it was no bigger than a cockle or walnut shell, desiring the haberdasher to take it away and make it bigger.
Katharine said, “I will have this; all gentlewomen wear such caps as these.”
“When you are gentle,” replied Petruchio, “you shall have one, too, and not till then.”
The meat Katharine had eaten had a little revived her fallen spirits, and she said: “Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, and speak I will. I am no child, no babe. Your betters have endured to hear me say my mind; and if you cannot, you had better stop your ears.”
Petruchio would not hear these angry words, for he had happily discovered a better way of managing his wife than keeping up a jangling argument with her; therefore his answer was:
“Why, you say true; it is a paltry cap, and I love you for not liking it.”
“Love me, or love me not,” said Katharine, “I like the cap, and I will have this cap or none.”
“You say you wish to see the gown,” said Petruchio, still affecting to misunderstand her.
The tailor then came forward and showed her a fine gown he had made for her. Petruchio, whose intent was that she should have neither cap nor gown, found as much fault with that.
“Oh, mercy, Heaven!” said he, “what stuff is here! What, do you call this a sleeve? it is like a demi-cannon, carved up and down like an apple tart.”
The tailor said, “You bid me make it according to the fashion of the times”; and Katharine said she never saw a better-fashioned gown. This was enough for Petruchio, and privately desiring these people might be paid for their goods, and excuses made to them for the seemingly strange treatment he bestowed upon them, he with fierce words and furious gestures drove the tailor and the haberdasher out of the room; and then, turning to Katharine, he said:
“Well, come, my Kate, we will go to your father’s even in these mean garments we now wear.”
And then he ordered his horses, affirming they should reach Baptista’s house by dinner-time, for that it was but seven o’clock. Now it was not early morning, but the very middle of the day, when he spoke this; therefore Katharine ventured to say, though modestly, being almost overcome by the vehemence of his manner:
“I dare assure you, sir, it is two o’clock, and will be suppertime before we get there.”
But Petruchio meant that she should be so completely subdued that she should assent to everything he said before he carried her to her father; and therefore, as if he were lord even of the sun and could command the hours, he said it. should be what time he pleased to have it, before beset forward. “For,” he said, “whatever I say or do, you still are crossing it. I will not go to-day, and when I go, it shall be what o’clock I say it is.”
Another day Katharine was forced to practise her newly found obedience, and not till he had brought her proud spirit to such a perfect subjection that she dared not remember there was such a word as contradiction would Petruchio allow her to go to her father’s house; and even while they were upon their journey thither she was in danger of being turned back again, only because she happened to hint it was the sun when he affirmed the moon shone brightly at noonday.
“Now, by my mother’s son,” said be, “and that is myself, it shall be the moon, or stars, or what I list, before I journey to your father’s house.” He then made as if he were going back again. But Katharine, no longer Katharine the Shrew, but the obedient wife, said, “Let us go forward, I pray, now we have come so far, and it shall be the sun, or moon, or what you please; and if you please to call it a rush candle henceforth, I vow it shall be so for me.”
This he was resolved to prove, therefore he said again, “I say it is the moon.”
“I know it is the moon,” replied Katharine.
“You lie. It is the blessed sun,” said Petruchio.
“Then it is the blessed sun,” replied Katharine; “but sun it is not when you say it is not. What you will have it named, even so it is, and so it ever shall be for Katharine.”
Now then he suffered her to proceed on her journey; but further to try if this yielding humor would last, he addressed an old gentleman they met on the road as if he had been a young woman, saying to him, “Good morrow, gentle mistress”; and asked Katharine if she had ever beheld a fairer gentlewoman, praising the red and white of the old man’s cheeks, and comparing his eyes to two bright stars; and again he addressed him, saying, “Fair, lovely maid, once more good day to you!” and said to his wife, “Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.”
The now completely vanquished Katharine quickly adopted her husband’s opinion, and made her speech in like sort to the old gentleman, saying to him: “Young budding virgin, you are fair and fresh and sweet. Whither are you going, and where is your dwelling? Happy are the parents of so fair a child.”
“Why, how now, Kate,” said Petruchio. “I hope you are not mad. This is a man, old and wrinkled, faded and withered, and not a maiden, as you say he is.”
On this Katharine said, “Pardon me, old gentleman; the sun has so dazzled my eyes that everything I look on seemeth green. Now I perceive you are a reverend father. I hope you will pardon me for my sad mistake.”
“Do, good old grandsire,” said Petruchio, “and tell us which way you are traveling. We shall be glad of your good company, if you are going our way.”
The old gentleman replied: “Fair sir, and you, my merry mistress, your strange encounter has much amazed me. My name is Vincentio, and I am going to visit a son of mine who lives at Padua.”
Then Petruchio knew the old gentleman to be the father of Lucentio, a young gentleman who was to be married to Baptista’s younger daughter, Bianca, and he made Vincentio very happy by telling him the rich marriage his son was about to make; and they all journeyed on pleasantly together till they came to Baptista’s house, where there was a large company assembled to celebrate the wedding of Bianca and Lucentio, Baptista having willingly consented to the marriage of Bianca when he had got Katharine off his hands.
When they entered, Baptista welcomed them to the wedding feast, and there was present also another newly married pair.
Lucentio, Bianca’s husband, and Hortensio, the other new-married man, could not forbear sly jests, which seemed to hint at the shrewish disposition of Petruchio’s wife, and these fond bridegrooms seemed highly pleased with the mild tempers of the ladies they had chosen, laughing at Petruchio for his less fortunate choice. Petruchio took little notice of their jokes till the ladies were retired after dinner, and then he perceived Baptista himself joined in the laugh against him, for when Petruchio affirmed that his wife would prove more obedient than theirs, the father of Katharine said, “Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio, I fear you have got the veriest shrew of all.”
“Well,” said Petruchio, “I say no, and therefore, for assurance that I speak the truth, let us each one send for his wife, and he whose wife is most obedient to come at first when she is sent for shall win a wager which we will propose.”
To this the other two husbands willingly consented, for they were confident that their gentle wives would prove more obedient than the headstrong Katharine, and they proposed a wager of twenty crowns. But Petruchio merrily said he would lay as much as that upon his hawk or hound, but twenty times as much upon his wife. Lucentio and Hortensio raised the wager to a hundred crowns, and Lucentio first sent his servant to desire Bianca would come to him. But the servant returned, and said:
“Sir, my mistress sends you word she is busy and cannot come.”
“How,” said Petruchio, “does she say she is busy and cannot come? Is that an answer for a wife?”
Then they laughed at him, and said it would be well if Katharine did not send him a worse answer. And now it was Hortensio’s turn to send for his wife; and be said to his servant, “Go, and entreat my wife to come to me.”
“Oh ho! entreat her!” said Petruchio.
“Nay, then, she needs must come.”
“I am afraid, sir,” said Hortensio, “your wife will not be entreated.” But presently this civil husband looked a little blank when the servant returned without his mistress; and he said to him:
“How now? Where is my wife?”
“Sir,” said the servant, “my mistress says you have some goodly jest in hand, and therefore she will not come. She bids you come to her.”
“Worse and worse!” said Petruchio. And then he sent his servant, saying, “Sirrah, go to your mistress and tell her I command her to come to me.”
The company had scarcely time to think she would not obey this summons when Baptista, all in amaze, exclaimed:
“Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharine!”
And she entered, saying meekly to Petruchio, “What is your will, sir, that you send for me?”
“Where is your sister and Hortensio’s wife?” said he.
Katharine replied, “They sit conferring by the parlor fire.”
“Go, fetch them hither!” said Petruchio.
Away went Katharine without reply to perform her husband’s command.
“Here is a wonder,” said Lucentio, “if you talk of a wonder.”
“And so it is,” said Hortensio. “I marvel what it bodes.”
“Marry, peace it bodes,” said Petruchio, “and love, and quiet life, and right supremacy; and, to be short, everything that is sweet and happy.”
Katharine’s father, overjoyed to see this reformation in his daughter, said: “Now, fair befall thee, son Petruchio! You have won the wager, and I will add another twenty thousand crowns to her dowry, as if she were another daughter, for she is changed as if she had never been.”
“Nay,” said Petruchio, “I will win the wager better yet, and show more signs of her new-built virtue and obedience.” Katharine now entering with the two ladies, he continued: “See where she comes, and brings your froward wives as prisoners to her womanly persuasion. Katharine, that cap of yours does not become you; off with that bauble, and throw it underfoot.”
Katharine instantly took off her cap and threw it down.
“Lord!” said Hortensio’s wife, “may I never have a cause to sigh till I am brought to such a silly pass!”
And Bianca, she, too, said, “Fie! What foolish duty call you this?”
On this Bianca’s husband said to her, “I wish your duty were as foolish, too! The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, has cost me a hundred crowns since dinner-time.”
“The more fool you,” said Bianca, “for laying on my duty.”
“Katharine,” said Petruchio, “I charge you tell these headstrong women what duty they owe their lords and husbands.”
And to the wonder of all present, the reformed shrewish lady spoke as eloquently in praise of the wifelike duty of obedience as she had practised it implicitly in a ready submission to Petruchio’s will. And Katharine once more became famous in Padua, not as heretofore as Katharine the Shrew, but as Katharine the most obedient and duteous wife in Padua.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
The states of Syracuse and Ephesus being at variance, there was a cruel law made at Ephesus, ordaining that if any merchant of Syracuse was seen in the city of Ephesus he was to be put to death, unless he could pay a thousand marks for the ransom of his life.
Aegeon, an old merchant of Syracuse, was discovered in the streets of Ephesus, and brought before the duke, either to pay this heavy fine or receive sentence of death.
Aegeon had no money to pay the fine, and the duke, before he pronounced the sentence of death upon him, desired him to relate the history of his life, and to tell for what cause he had ventured to come to the city of Ephesus, which it was death for any Syracusan merchant to enter.
Aegeon said that he did not fear to die, for sorrow had made him weary of his life, but that a heavier task could not have been imposed upon him than to relate the events of his unfortunate life. He then began his own history, in the following words:
“I was born at Syracuse, and brought up to the profession of a merchant. I married a lady, with whom I lived very happily, but, being obliged to go to Epidamnum, I was detained there by my business six months, and then, finding I should be obliged to stay some time longer, I sent for my wife, who, as soon as she arrived, was brought to bed of two sons, and what was very strange, they were both so exactly alike that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other. At the same time that my wife was brought to bed of these twin boys a poor woman in the inn where my wife lodged was brought to bed of two sons, and these twins were as much like each other as my two sons were. The parents of these children being exceeding poor, I bought the two boys and brought them up to attend upon my sons.
“My sons were very fine children, and my wife was not a little proud of two such boys; and she daily wishing to return home, I unwillingly agreed, and in an evil hour we got on shipboard, for we had not sailed above a league from Epidamnum before a dreadful storm arose, which continued with such violence that the sailors, seeing no chance of saving the ship, crowded into the boat to save their own lives, leaving us alone in the ship, which we every moment expected would be destroyed by the fury of the storm.
“The incessant weeping of my wife and the piteous complaints of the 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 spire 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 eldest two children, and I of the younger two, 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 traveling through the world in search of him. I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and, coasting homeward, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbors 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 Aegeon 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 favor to Aegeon, 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 jailer.
Aegeon supposed he knew no person in Ephesus; but at the 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 in the city of Ephesus.
Aegeon’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. Aegeon’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 Aegeon 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 Aegeon (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 mean time 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 humors 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 Aegeon 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 humor 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, “oh, 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 cookmaid, that he left the house as soon as he could find any pretense 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 humor 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 house (those within supposing him to be already there) be 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 jailer (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 jailer 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 neighborhood, 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, said:
“You should have reprehended him for this.”
“Why, so I did,” replied Adriana.
“Aye,” 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 clamor 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 Aegeon’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.
Aegeon, 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 Aegeon, 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 Aegeon was in vain endeavoring 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.
And now these riddling errors, which had so perplexed them all, were clearly made out. When the duke saw the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios both so exactly alike, he at once conjectured aright of these seeming mysteries, for he remembered the story Aegeon had told him in the morning; and he said these men must be the two sons of Aegeon and their twin slaves.
But now an unlooked-for joy indeed completed the history of Aegeon; and the tale he had in the morning told in sorrow, and under sentence of death, before the setting sun went down was brought to a happy conclusion, for the venerable lady abbess made herself known to be the long-lost wife of Aegeon and the fond mother of the two Antipholuses.
When the fishermen took the eldest Antipholus and Dromio away from her, she entered a nunnery, and by her wise and virtuous conduct she was at length made lady abbess of this convent and in discharging the rites of hospitality to an unhappy stranger she had unknowingly protected her own son.
Joyful congratulations and affectionate greetings between these long-separated parents and their children made them for a while forget that Aegeon was yet under sentence of death. When they were become a little calm, Antipholus of Ephesus offered the duke the ransom money for his father’s life; but the duke freely pardoned Aegeon, and would not take the money. And the duke went with the abbess and her newly found husband and children into the convent, to hear this happy family discourse at leisure of the blessed ending of their adverse fortunes. And the two Dromios’ humble joy must not be forgotten; they had their congratulations and greetings, too, and each Dromio pleasantly complimented his brother on his good looks, being well pleased to see his own person (as in a glass) show so handsome in his brother.
Adriana had so well profited by the good counsel of her mother-in-law that she never after cherished unjust suspicions nor was jealous of her husband.
Antipholus of Syracuse married the fair Luciana, the sister of his brother’s wife; and the good old Aegeon, with his wife and sons, lived at Ephesus many years. Nor did the unraveling of these perplexities so entirely remove every ground of mistake for the future but that sometimes, to remind them of adventures past, comical blunders would happen, and the one Antipholus, and the one Dromio, be mistaken for the other, making altogether a pleasant and diverting Comedy of Errors.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
In the city of Vienna there once reigned a duke of such a mild and gentle temper that he suffered his subjects to neglect the laws with impunity; and there was in particular one law the existence of which was almost forgotten, the duke never having put it in force during his whole reign. This was a law dooming any man to the punishment of death who should live with a woman that was not his wife; and this law, through the lenity of the duke, being utterly disregarded, the holy institution of marriage became neglected, and complaints were every day made to the duke by the parents of the young ladies in Vienna that their daughters had been seduced from their protection and were living as the companions of single men.
The good duke perceived with sorrow this growing evil among his subjects; but he thought that a sudden change in himself from the indulgence he had hitherto shown, to the strict severity requisite to check this abuse, would make his people (who had hitherto loved him) consider him as a tyrant; therefore he determined to absent himself awhile from his dukedom and depute another to the full exercise of his power, that the law against these dishonorable lovers might be put in effect, without giving offense by an unusual severity in his own person.
Angelo, a man who bore the reputation of a saint in Vienna for his strict and rigid life, was chosen by the duke as a fit person to undertake this important charge; and when the duke imparted his design to Lord Escalus, his chief counselor, Escalus said:
“If any man in Vienna be of worth to undergo such ample grace and honor, it is Lord Angelo.”
And now the duke departed from Vienna under pretense of making a journey into Poland, leaving Angelo to act as the lord deputy in his absence; but the duke’s absence was only a feigned one, for he privately returned to Vienna, habited like a friar, with the intent to watch unseen the conduct of the saintly-seeming Angelo.
It happened just about the time that Angelo was invested with his new dignity that a gentleman, whose name was Claudio, had seduced a young lady from her parents; and for this offense, by command of the new lord deputy, Claudio was taken up and committed to prison, and by virtue of the old law which had been so long neglected Angelo sentenced Claudio to be beheaded. Great interest was made for the pardon of young Claudio, and the good old Lord Escalus himself interceded for him.
“Alas!” said he, “this gentleman whom I would save had an honorable father, for whose sake I pray you pardon the young man’s transgression.”
But Angelo replied: “We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to frighten birds of prey, till custom, finding it harmless, makes it their perch and not their terror. Sir, he must die.”
Lucio, the friend of Claudio, visited him in the prison, and Claudio said to him: “I pray you, Lucio, do me this kind service. Go to my sister Isabel, who this day proposes to enter the convent of Saint Clare; acquaint her with the danger of my state; implore her that she make friends with the strict deputy; bid her go herself to Angelo. I have great hopes in that; for she can discourse with prosperous art, and well she can persuade; besides, there is a speechless dialect in youthful sorrow such as moves men.”
Isabel, the sister of Claudio, had, as he said, that day entered upon her novitiate in the convent, and it was her intent, after passing through her probation as a novice, to take the veil, and she was inquiring of a nun concerning the rules of the convent when they heard the voice of Lucio, who, as he entered that religious house, said, “Peace be in this place!”
“Who is it that speaks?” said Isabel.
“It is a man’s voice,” replied the nun. “Gentle Isabel, go to him, and learn his business; you may, I may not. When you have taken the veil, you must not speak with men but in the presence of the prioress; then if you speak you must not show your face, or if you show your face you must not speak.”
“And have you nuns no further privileges?” said Isabel.
“Are not these large enough?” replied the nun.
“Yes, truly,” said Isabel. “I speak not as desiring more, but rather wishing a more strict restraint upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.”
Again they heard the voice of Lucio, and the nun said: “He calls again. I pray you answer him.”
Isabel then went out to Lucio, and in answer to his salutation, said: “Peace and Prosperity! Who is it that calls?”
Then Lucio, approaching her with reverence, said: “Hail, virgin, if such you be, as the roses on your cheeks proclaim you are no less! Can you bring me to the sight of Isabel, a novice of this place, and the fair sister to her unhappy brother Claudio?”
“Why her unhappy brother?” said Isabel, “let me ask! for I am that Isabel and his sister.”
“Fair and gentle lady,” he replied, “your brother kindly greets you by me; he is in prison.”
“Woe is me! for what?” said Isabel.
Lucio then told her Claudio was imprisoned for seducing a young maiden. “Ah,” said she, “I fear it is my cousin Juliet.”
Juliet and Isabel were not related, but they called each other cousin in remembrance of their school-days’ friendship; and as Isabel knew that Juliet loved Claudio, she feared she had been led by her affection for him into this transgression.
“She it is,” replied Lucio.
“Why, then, let my brother marry Juliet,” said Isabel.
Lucio replied that Claudio would gladly marry Juliet, but that the lord deputy had sentenced him to die for his offense. “Unless,” said he, “you have the grace by your fair prayer to soften Angelo, and that is my business between you and your poor brother.”
“Alas!” said Isabel, “what poor ability is there in me to do him good? I doubt I have no power to move Angelo.”
“Our doubts are traitors,” said Lucio, “and make us lose the good we might often win, by fearing to attempt it. Go to Lord Angelo! When maidens sue and kneel and weep men give like gods.”
“I will see what I can do said Isabel. “I will but stay to give the prioress notice of the affair, and then I will go to Angelo. Commend me to my brother. Soon at night I will send him word of my success.”
Isabel hastened to the palace and threw herself on her knees before Angelo, saying, “I am a woeful suitor to your Honor, if it will please your Honor to hear me.”
“Well, what is your suit?” said Angelo.
She then made her petition in the most moving terms for her brother’s life.
But Angelo said, “Maiden, there is no remedy; your brother is sentenced, and he must die.”
“Oh, just but severe law!” said Isabel. “I had a brother then. Heaven keep your Honor!” and she was about to depart.
But Lucio, who had accompanied her, said: “Give it not over so; return to him again, entreat him, kneel down before him, hang upon his gown. You are too cold; if you should need a pin, you could not with a more tame tongue desire it.”
Then again Isabel on her knees implored for mercy.
“He is sentenced,” said Angelo. “It is too late.”
“Too late!” said Isabel. “Why, no! I that do speak a word may call it back again. Believe this, my lord, no ceremony that to great ones belongs, not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, becomes them with one half so good a grace as mercy does.”
“Pray you begone,” said Angelo.
But still Isabel entreated; and she said: “If my brother had been as you, and you as he, you might have slipped like him, but he, like you, would not have been so stern. I would to Heaven I had your power and you were Isabel. Should it then be thus? No, I would tell you what it were to be a judge, and what a prisoner.”
“Be content, fair maid!” said Angelo: “it is the law, not I, condemns your brother. Were he my kinsman, my brother, or my son, it should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.”
“To-morrow?” said Isabel. “Oh, that is sudden! Spare him, spare him. He is not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens we kill the fowl in season; shall we serve Heaven with less respect than we minister to our gross selves? Good, good, my lord, bethink you, none have died for my brother’s offense, though many have committed it. So you would be the first that gives this sentence and he the first that suffers it. Go to your own bosom, my lord; knock there, and ask your heart what it does know that is like my brother’s fault; if it confess a natural guiltiness such as his is, let it not sound a thought against my brother’s life!”
Her last words more moved Angelo than all she had before said, for the beauty of Isabel had raised a guilty passion in his heart and he began to form thoughts of dishonorable love, such as Claudio’s crime had been, and the conflict in his mind made him to turn away from Isabel; but she called him back, saying: “Gentle my lord, turn back. Hark, how I will bribe you. Good my lord, turn back!”
“How! bribe me?” said Angelo, astonished that she should think of offering him a bribe.
“Aye,” said Isabel, “with such gifts that Heaven itself shall share with you; not with golden treasures, or those glittering stones whose price is either rich or poor as fancy values them, but with true prayers that shall be up to Heaven before sunrise–prayers from preserved souls, from fasting maids whose minds are dedicated to nothing temporal.”
“Well, come to me to-morrow,” said Angelo.
And for this short respite of her brother’s life, and for this permission that she might be heard again, she left him with the joyful hope that she should at last prevail over his stern nature. And as she went away she said: “Heaven keep your Honor safe! Heaven save your Honor!” Which, when Angelo heard, he said within his heart, “Amen, I would be saved from thee and from thy virtues.” And then, affrighted at his own evil thoughts, he said: “What is this? What is this? Do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again and feast upon her eyes? What is it I dream on? The cunning enemy of mankind, to catch a saint, with saints does bait the hook. Never could an immodest woman once stir my temper, but this virtuous woman subdues me quite. Even till now, when men were fond, I smiled and wondered at them.”
In the guilty conflict in his mind Angelo suffered more that night than the prisoner he had so severely sentenced; for in the prison Claudio was visited by the good duke, who, in his friar’s habit, taught the young man the way to heaven, preaching to him the words of penitence and peace. But Angelo felt all the pangs of irresolute guilt, now wishing to seduce Isabel from the paths of innocence and honor, and now suffering remorse and horror for a crime as yet but intentional. But in the end his evil thoughts prevailed; and he who had so lately started at the offer of a bribe resolved to tempt this maiden with so high a bribe as she might not be able to resist, even with the precious gift of her dear brother’s life.
When Isabel came in the morning Angelo desired she might be admitted alone to his presence; and being there, he said to her, if she would yield to him her virgin honor and transgress even as Juliet had done with Claudio, he would give her her brother’s life.
“For,” said he, “I love you, Isabel.”
“My brother,” said Isabel, “did so love Juliet, and yet you tell me he shall die for it.”
“But,” said Angelo, “Claudio shall not die if you will consent to visit me by stealth at night, even as Juliet left her father’s house at night to come to Claudio.”
Isabel, in amazement at his words, that he should tempt her to the same fault for which he passed sentence upon her brother, said, “I would do as much for my poor brother as for myself; that is, were I under sentence of death, the impression of keen whips I would wear as rubies, and go to my death as to a bed that longing I had been sick for, ere I would yield myself up to this shame.” And then she told him she hoped he only spoke these words to try her virtue.
But he said, “Believe me, on my honor, my words express my purpose.”
Isabel, angered to the heart to hear him use the word honor to express such dishonorable purposes, said: “Ha! little honor to be much believed; and most pernicious purpose. I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for it! Sign me a present pardon for my brother, or I will tell the world aloud what man thou art!”
“Who will believe you, Isabel?” said Angelo; “my unsoiled name, the austereness of my life, my word vouched against yours, will outweigh your accusation. Redeem your brother by yielding to my will, or he shall die to-morrow. As for you, say what you can, my false will overweigh your true story. Answer me to-morrow.”
“To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, who would believe me?” said Isabel, as she went toward the dreary prison where her brother was confined. When she arrived there her brother was in pious conversation with the duke, who in his friar’s habit had also visited Juliet and brought both these guilty lovers to a proper sense of their fault; and unhappy Juliet with tears and a true remorse confessed that she was more to blame than Claudio, in that she willingly consented to his dishonorable solicitations.
As Isabel entered the room where Claudio was confined, she said, “Peace be here, grace, and good company!”
“Who is there?” said the disguised duke. “Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.”
“My business is a word or two with Claudio,” said Isabel.
Then the duke left them together, and desired the provost who had the charge of the prisoners to place him where he might overhear their conversation.
“Now, sister, what is the comfort?” said Claudio.
Isabel told him he must prepare for death on the morrow.
“Is there no remedy?” said Claudio.
“Yes, brother,” replied Isabel, “there is; but such a one as if you consented to it would strip your honor from you and leave you naked.”
“Let me know the point,” said Claudio.
“Oh, I do fear you, Claudio!” replied his sister; “and I quake, lest you should wish to live, and more respect the trifling term of six or seven winters added to your life than your perpetual honor! Do you dare to die? The sense of death is most in apprehension, and the poor beetle that we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a giant dies.”
“Why do you give me this shame?” said Claudio. “Think you I can fetch a resolution from flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride and hug it in my arms.”
“There spoke my brother,” said Isabel; “there my father’s grave did utter forth a voice! Yes, you must die; yet would you think it, Claudio, this outward sainted deputy, if I would yield to him my virgin honor, would grant your life? Oh, were it but my life, I would lay it down for your deliverance as frankly as a pin!”
“Thanks, dear Isabel,” said Claudio.
“Be ready to die to-morrow,” said Isabel.
“Death is a fearful thing,” said Claudio.
“And shamed life a hateful,” replied his sister.
But the thoughts of death now overcame the constancy of Claudio’s temper, and terrors, such as the guilty only at their deaths do know, assailing him, he cried out: “Sweet sister, let me live! The sin you do to save a brother’s life, nature dispenses with the deed so far that it becomes a virtue.”
“O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!” said Isabel. “Would you preserve your life by your sister’s shame? Oh, fie, fie, fie! I thought, my brother, you had in you such a mind of honor that, had you twenty heads to render up on twenty blocks, you would have yielded them up all before your sister should stoop to such dishonor.”
“Nay, hear me, Isabel!” said Claudio.
But what he would have said in defense of his weakness in desiring to live by the dishonor of his virtuous sister was interrupted by the entrance of the duke; who said:
“Claudio, I have overheard what has passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; what he said, has only been to make trial of her virtue. She, having the truth of honor in her, has given him that gracious denial which he is most ill glad to receive. There is no hope that he will pardon you; therefore pass your hours in prayer, and make ready for death.”
Then Claudio repented of his weakness, and said: “Let me ask my sister’s pardon! I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.” And Claudio retired, overwhelmed with shame and sorrow for his fault.
The duke, being now alone with Isabel, commended her virtuous resolution, saying, “The hand that made you fair has made you good.”
“Oh,” said Isabel, “how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will discover his government.” Isabel knew not that she was even now making the discovery she threatened.
The duke replied: “That shall not be much amiss; yet as the matter now stands, Angelo will repel your accusation; therefore lend an attentive ear to my advisings. I believe that you may most righteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law, do no stain to your own most gracious person, and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have notice of this business.”
Isabel said she had a spirit to do anything he desired, provided it was nothing wrong.
“Virtue is bold and never fearful,” said the duke: and then he asked her, if she had ever heard of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who was drowned at sea.
“I have heard of the lady,” said Isabel, “and good words went with her name.”
“This lady,” said the duke, “is the wife of Angelo; but her marriage dowry was on board the vessel in which her brother perished, and mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman! for, besides the loss of a most noble and renowned brother, who in his love toward her was ever most kind and natural, in the wreck of her fortune she lost the affections of her husband, the well-seeming Angelo, who, pretending to discover some dishonor in this honorable lady (though the true cause was the loss of her dowry), left her in her tears and dried not one of them with his comfort. His unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, has, like an impediment in the current, made it more unruly, and Mariana loves her cruel husband with the full continuance of her first affection.”
The duke then more plainly unfolded his plan. It was that Isabel should go to Lord Angelo and seemingly consent to come to him as he desired at midnight; that by this means she would obtain the promised pardon; and that Mariana should go in her stead to the appointment, and pass herself upon Angelo in the dark for Isabel.
“Nor, gentle daughter,” said the feigned friar, “fear you to this thing. Angelo is her husband, and to bring them thus together is no sin.
Isabel, being pleased with this project, departed to do as he directed her; and he went to apprise Mariana of their intention. He had before this time visited this unhappy lady in his assumed character, giving her religious instruction and friendly consolation, at which times he had learned her sad story from her own lips; and now she, looking upon him as a holy man, readily consented to be directed by him in this undertaking.
When Isabel returned from her interview with Angelo, to the house of Mariana, where the duke had appointed her to meet him, he said: “Well met, and in good time. What is the news from this good deputy?”
Isabel related the manner in which she had settled the affair. “Angelo,” said she, “has a garden surrounded with a brick wall, on the western side of which is a vineyard, and to that vineyard is a gate.” And then she showed to the duke and Mariana two keys that Angelo had given her; and she said: “This bigger key opens the vineyard gate; this other a little door which leads from the vineyard to the garden. There I have made my promise at the dead of the night to call upon him, and have got from him his word of assurance for my brother’s life. I have taken a due and wary note of the place; and with whispering and most guilty diligence he showed me the way twice over.”
“Are there no other tokens agreed upon between you, that Mariana must observe?” said the duke.
“No, none,” said Isabel, “only to go when it is dark. I have told him my time can be but short; for I have made him think a servant comes along with me, and that this servant is persuaded I come about my brother.”
The duke commended her discreet management, and she, turning to Mariana, said, “Little have you to say to Angelo, when you depart from him, but soft and low, REMEMBER NOW MY BROTHER!”
Mariana was that night conducted to the appointed place by Isabel, who rejoiced that she had, as she supposed, by this device preserved both her brother’s life and her own honor. But that her brother’s life was safe the duke was not well satisfied, and therefore at midnight he again repaired to the prison, and it was well for Claudio that he did so, else would Claudio have that night been beheaded; for soon after the duke entered the prison an order came from the cruel deputy commanding that Claudio should be beheaded and his head sent to him by five o’clock in the morning. But the duke persuaded the provost to put off the execution of Claudio, and to deceive Angelo by sending him the head of a man who died that morning in the prison. And to prevail upon the provost to agree to this, the duke, whom still the provost suspected not to be anything more or greater than he seemed, showed the provost a letter written with the duke’s hand, and sealed with his seal, which when the provost saw, he concluded this friar must have some secret order from the absent duke, and therefore he consented to spare Claudio; and he cut off the dead man’s head and carried it to Angelo.
Then the duke in his own name wrote to Angelo a letter saying that certain accidents had put a stop to his journey and that he should be in Vienna by the following morning, requiring Angelo to meet him at the entrance of the city, there to deliver up his authority; and the duke also commanded it to be proclaimed that if any of his subjects craved redress for injustice they should exhibit their petitions in the street on his first entrance into the city.
Early in the morning Isabel came to the prison, and the duke, who there awaited her coming, for secret reasons thought it good to tell her that Claudio was beheaded; therefore when Isabel inquired if Angelo had sent the pardon for her brother, he said:
“Angelo has released Claudio from this world. His head is off and sent to the deputy.”
The much-grieved sister cried out, “O unhappy Claudio, wretched Isabel, injurious world, most wicked Angelo!”
The seeming friar bid her take comfort, and when she was become a little calm he acquainted her with the near prospect of the duke’s return and told her in what manner she should proceed in preferring her complaint against Angelo; and he bade her not fear if the cause should seem to go against her for a while. Leaving Isabel sufficiently instructed, he next went to Mariana and gave her counsel in what manner she also should act.
Then the duke laid aside his friar’s habit, and in his own royal robes, amid a joyful crowd of his faithful subjects assembled to greet his arrival, entered the city of Vienna, where he was met by Angelo, who delivered up his authority in the proper form. And there came Isabel, in the manner of a petitioner for redress, and said:
“Justice, most royal duke! I am the sister of one Claudio, who, for the seducing a young maid, was condemned to lose his head. I made my suit to lord Angelo for my brother’s pardon. It were needless to tell your Grace how I prayed and kneeled, how he repelled me, and how I replied; for this was of much length. The vile conclusion I now begin with grief and pain to utter. Angelo would not, but by my yielding to his dishonorable love, release my brother; and after much debate within myself my sisterly remorse overcame my virtue, and I did yield to him. But the next morning betimes, Angelo, forfeiting his promise, sent a warrant for my poor brother’s head!”
The duke affected to disbelieve her story; and Angelo said that grief for her brother’s death, who had suffered by the due course of the law, had disordered her senses.
And now another suitor approached, which was Mariana; and Mariana said: “Noble prince, as there comes light from heaven and truth from breath, as there is sense in truth and truth in virtue, I am this man’s wife, and, my good lord, the words of Isabel are false, for the night she says she was with Angelo I passed that night with him in the garden-house. As this is true let me in safety rise, or else forever be fixed here a marble monument.”
Then did Isabel appeal for the truth of what she had said to Friar Lodowick, that being the name the duke had assumed in his disguise. Isabel and Mariana had both obeyed his instructions in what they said, the duke intending that the innocence of Isabel should be plainly proved in that public manner before the whole city of Vienna; but Angelo little thought that it was from such a cause that they thus differed in their story, and he hoped from their contradictory evidence to be able to clear himself from the accusation of Isabel; and he said, assuming the look of offended innocence:
“I did but smile till now; but, good my lord, my patience here is touched, and I perceive these poor, distracted women are but the instruments of some greater one who sets them on. Let me have way, my lord, to find this practice out.”
“Aye, with all my heart,” said the duke, “and punish them to the height of your pleasure. You, Lord Escalus, sit with Lord Angelo, lend him your pains to discover this abuse; the friar is sent for that set them on, and when he comes do with your injuries as may seem best in any chastisement. I for a while will leave you, but stir not you, Lord Angelo, till you have well determined upon this slander.” The duke then went away, leaving Angelo well pleased to be deputed judge and umpire in his own cause. But the duke was absent only while he threw off his royal robes and put on his friar’s habit; and in that disguise again he presented himself before Angelo and Escalus. And the good old Escalus, who thought Angelo had been falsely accused, said to the supposed friar, “Come, sir, did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo?”
He replied: “Where is the duke? It is he who should hear me speak.”
Escalus said: “The duke is in us, and we will hear you. Speak justly.”
“Boldly, at least,” retorted the friar; and then he blamed the duke for leaving the cause of Isabel in the hands of him she had accused, and spoke so freely of many corrupt practices he had observed while, as he said, he had been a looker-on in Vienna, that, Escalus threatened, him with the torture for speaking words against the state and for censuring the conduct of the duke, and ordered him to be taken away to prison. Then, to the amazement of all present, and to the utter confusion of Angelo, the supposed friar threw off his disguise, and they saw it was the duke himself.
The duke first addressed Isabel. He said to her: “Come hither, Isabel. Your friar is now your prince, but with my habit I have not changed my heart. I am still devoted to your service.”
“Oh, give me pardon,” said Isabel, “that I, your vassal, have employed and troubled your unknown sovereignty.”
He answered that he had most need of forgiveness from her for not having prevented the death of her brother for not yet would he tell her that Claudio was living; meaning first to make a further trial of her goodness.
Angelo now knew the duke had been a secret witness of his bad deeds, and be said: “O my dread lord, I should be guiltier than my guiltiness, to think I can be undiscernible, when I perceive your Grace, like power divine, has looked upon my actions. Then, good prince, no longer prolong my shame, but let my trial be my own confession. Immediate sentence and death is all the grace I beg.”
The duke replied: “Angelo, thy faults are manifest. We do condemn thee to the very block where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste away with him; and for his possessions, Mariana, we do instate and widow you withal, to buy you a better husband.”
“O my dear lord,” said Mariana, “I crave no other, nor no better man!” And then on her knees, even as Isabel had begged the life of Claudio, did this kind wife of an ungrateful husband beg the life of Angelo; and she said: “Gentle my liege, O good my lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part! Lend me your knees and all my life to come I will lend you all my life, to do you service!”
The duke said: “Against all sense you importune her. Should Isabel kneel down to beg for mercy, her brother’s ghost would break his paved bed and take her hence in horror.”
Still Mariana said: “Isabel, sweet Isabel, do but kneel by me, hold up your hand, say nothing! I will speak all. They say best men are molded out of faults, and for the most part become much the better for being a little bad. So may my husband. O Isabel! will you not lend a knee?”
The duke then said, “He dies for Claudio.” But much pleased was the good duke when his own Isabel, from whom he expected all gracious and honorable acts, kneeled down before him, and said: “Most bounteous sir, look, if it please you, on this man condemned, as if my brother lived. I partly think a due sincerity governed his deeds till he did look on me. Since it is so, let him not die! My brother had but justice in that he did the thing for which he died.”
The duke, as the best reply he could make to this noble petitioner for her enemy’s life, sending for Claudio from his prisonhouse, where he lay doubtful of his destiny, presented to her this lamented brother living; and he said to Isabel: “Give me your hand, Isabel. For your lovely sake I pardon Claudio. Say you will be mine, and he shall be my brother, too.”
By this time Lord Angelo perceived he was safe; and the duke, observing his eye to brighten up a little, said:
“Well, Angelo, look that you love your wife; her worth has obtained your pardon. Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo! I have confessed her and know her virtue.”
Angelo remembered, when dressed in a little brief authority, how hard his heart had been, and felt how sweet is mercy.
The duke commanded Claudio to marry Juliet, and offered himself again to the acceptance of Isabel, whose virtuous and noble conduct had won her prince’s heart. Isabel, not having taken the veil, was free to marry; and the friendly offices, while hid under the disguise of a humble friar, which the noble duke had done for her, made her with grateful joy accept the honor he offered her; and when she became Duchess of Vienna the excellent example of the virtuous Isabel worked such a complete reformation among the young ladies of that city, that from that time none ever fell into the transgression of Juliet, the repentant wife of the reformed Claudio. And the mercy-loving duke long reigned with his beloved Isabel, the happiest of husbands and of princes.
TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL
Sebastian and his sister Viola, a young gentleman and lady of Messaline, were twins, and (which was accounted a great wonder) from their birth they so much resembled each other that, but for the difference in their dress, they could not be known apart. They were both born in one hour, and in one hour they were both in danger of perishing, for they were shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, as they were making a sea-voyage together. The ship on board of which they were split on a rock in a violent storm, and a very small number of the ship’s company escaped with their lives. The captain of the vessel, with a few of the sailors that were saved, got to land in a small boat, and with them they brought Viola safe on shore, where she, poor lady, instead of rejoicing at her own deliverance, began to lament her brother’s loss; but the captain comforted her with the assurance that he had seen her brother, when the ship split, fasten himself to a strong mast, on which, as long as he could see anything of him for the distance, he perceived him borne up above the waves. Viola was much consoled by the hope this account gave her, and now considered bow she was to dispose of herself in a strange country, so far from home; and she asked the captain if he knew anything of Illyria.
“Aye, very well, madam,” replied the captain, “for I was born not three hours’ travel from this place.”
“Who governs here?” said Viola. The captain told her Illyria was governed by Orsino, a duke noble in nature as well as dignity.
Viola said, she had heard her father speak of Orsino, and that he was unmarried then.
“And he is so now,” said the captain; “or was so very late for, but a month ago, I went from here, and then it was the general talk (as you know what great ones do, the people will prattle of) that Orsino sought the love of fair Olivia, a virtuous maid, the daughter of a count who died twelve months ago, leaving Olivia to the protection of her brother, who shortly after died also; and for the love of this dear brother, they say, she has abjured the sight and company of men.”
Viola, who was herself in such a sad affliction for her brother’s loss, wished she could live with this lady who so tenderly mourned a brother’s death. She asked the captain if be could introduce her to Olivia, saying she would willingly serve this lady. But he replied this would be a hard thing to accomplish, because the Lady Olivia would admit no person into her house since her brother’s death, not even the duke himself. Then Viola formed another project in her mind, which was, in a man’s habit, to serve the Duke Orsino as a page. It was a strange fancy in a young lady to put on male attire and pass for a boy; but the forlorn and unprotected state of Viola, who was young and of uncommon beauty, alone, and in a foreign land, must plead her excuse.
She having observed a fair behavior in the captain, and that he showed a friendly concern for her welfare, intrusted him with her design, and he readily engaged to assist her. Viola gave him money and directed him to furnish her with suitable apparel, ordering her clothes to be made of the same color and in the same fashion her brother Sebastian used to wear, and when she was dressed in her manly garb she looked so exactly like her brother that some strange errors happened by means of their being mistaken for each other, for, as will afterward appear, Sebastian was also saved.
Viola’s good friend, the captain, when he had transformed this pretty lady into a gentleman, having some interest at court, got her presented to Orsino under the feigned name of Cesario. The duke was wonderfully pleased with the address and graceful deportment of this handsome youth, and made Cesario one of his pages, that being the office Viola wished to obtain; and she so well fulfilled the duties of her new station, and showed such a ready observance and faithful attachment to her lord, that she soon became his most favored attendant. To Cesario Orsino confided the whole history of his love for the lady Olivia. To Cesario he told the long and unsuccessful suit he had made to one who, rejecting his long services and despising his person, refused to admit him to her presence; and for the love of this lady who had so unkindly treated him the noble Orsino, forsaking the sports of the field and all manly exercises in which he used to delight, passed his hours in ignoble sloth, listening to the effeminate sounds of soft music, gentle airs, and passionate love-songs; and neglecting the company of the wise and learned lords with whom he used to associate, he was now all day long conversing with young Cesario. Unmeet companion no doubt his grave courtiers thought Cesario was for their once noble master, the great Duke Orsino.
It is a dangerous matter for young maidens to be the confidantes of handsome young dukes; which Viola too soon found, to her sorrow, for all that Orsino told her he endured for Olivia she presently perceived she suffered for the love of him, and much it moved her wonder that Olivia could be so regardless of this her peerless lord and master, whom she thought no one could behold without the deepest admiration, and she ventured gently to hint to Orsino, that it was a pity he should affect a lady who was so blind to his worthy qualities; and she said:
“If a lady were to love you, my lord, as you love Olivia (and perhaps there may be one who does), if you could not love her in return) would you not tell her that you could not love, and must she not be content with this answer?”
But Orsino would not admit of this reasoning, for he denied that it was possible for any woman to love as he did. He said no woman’s heart was big enough to hold so much love, and therefore it was unfair to compare the love of any lady for him to his love for Olivia. Now, though Viola had the utmost deference for the duke’s opinions, she could not help thinking this was not quite true, for she thought her heart had full as much love in it as Orsino’s had; and she said:
“Ah, but I know, my lord.”
“What do you know, Cesario?” said Orsino.
“Too well I know,” replied Viola, “what love women may owe to men. They are as true of heart as we are. My father had a daughter loved a man, as I perhaps, were I a woman, should love your lordship.”
“And what is her history?” said Orsino.
“A blank, my lord,” replied Viola. “She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at Grief.”
The duke inquired if this lady died of her love, but to this question Viola returned an evasive answer; as probably she had feigned the story, to speak words expressive of the secret love and silent grief she suffered for Orsino.
While they were talking, a gentleman entered whom the duke had sent to Olivia, and he said, “So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother.”
On hearing this the duke exclaimed, “Oh, she that has a heart of this fine frame, to pay this debt of love to a dead brother, how will she love when the rich golden shaft has touched her heart!”
And then he said to Viola: “You know, Cesario, I have told you all the secrets of my heart; therefore, good youth, go to Olivia’s house. Be not denied access; stand at her doors and tell her there your fixed foot shall grow till you have audience.”
“And if I do speak to her, my lord, what then?” said Viola.
“Oh, then,” replied Orsino, “unfold to her the passion of my love. Make a long discourse to her of my dear faith. It will well become you to act my woes, for she will attend more to you than to one of graver aspect.”
Away then went Viola; but not willingly did she undertake this courtship, for she was to woo a lady to become a wife to him she wished to marry; but, having undertaken the affair, she performed it with fidelity, and Olivia soon heard that a youth was at her door who insisted upon being admitted to her presence.
“I told him,” said the servant, “that you were sick. He said he knew you were, and therefore he came to speak with you. I told him that you were asleep. He seemed to have a foreknowledge of that, too, and said that therefore he must speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? for he seems fortified against all denial, and will speak with you, whether you will or no.”
Olivia, curious to see who this peremptory messenger might be, desired be might be admitted, and, throwing her veil over her face, she said she would once more hear Orsino’s embassy, not doubting but that he came from the duke, by his importunity. Viola, entering, put on the most manly air she could assume, and, affecting the fine courtier language of great men’s pages, she said to the veiled lady:
“Most radiant, exquisite, and matchless beauty, I pray you tell me if you are the lady of the house; for I should be sorry to cast away my speech upon another; for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to learn it.”
“Whence come you, sir?” said Olivia.
“I can say little more than I have studied,” replied Viola, and that question is out of my part.”
“Are you a comedian?” said Olivia.
“No,” replied Viola; “and yet I am not that which I play,” meaning that she, being a woman, feigned herself to be a man. And again she asked Olivia if she were the lady of the house.
Olivia said she was; and then Viola, having more curiosity to see her rival’s features than haste to deliver her master’s message, said, “Good madam, let me see your face.” With this bold request Olivia was not averse to comply, for this haughty beauty, whom the Duke Orsino had loved so long in vain, at first sight conceived a passion for the supposed page, the humble Cesario.
When Viola asked to see her face, Olivia said, “Have you any commission from your lord and master to negotiate with my face?” And then, forgetting her determination to go veiled for seven long years, she drew aside her veil, saying: “But I will draw the curtain and show the picture. Is it not well done?”
Viola replied: “It is beauty truly mixed; the red and white upon your cheeks is by Nature’s own cunning hand laid on. You are the most cruel lady living if you lead these graces to the grave and leave the world no copy.”
“Oh, sir,” replied Olivia, “I will not be so cruel. The world may have an inventory of my beauty. As, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two gray eyes with lids to them; one neck; one chin; and so forth. Were you sent here to praise me?”
Viola replied, “I see what you are: you are too proud, but you are fair. My lord and master loves you. Oh, such a love could but be recompensed though you were crowned the queen of beauty; for Orsino loves you with adoration and with tears, with groans that thunder love, and sighs of fire.”
“Your lord,” said Olivia, “knows well my mind. I cannot love him; yet I doubt not he is virtuous; I know him to be noble and of high estate, of fresh and spotless youth. All voices proclaim him learned, courteous, and valiant; yet I cannot love him. He might have taken his answer long ago.”
“If I did love you as my master does,” said Viola, “I would make me a willow cabin at your gates, and call upon your name. I would write complaining sonnets on Olivia, and sing them in the dead of the night. Your name should sound among the hills, and I would make Echo, the babbling gossip of the air, cry out OLIVIA. Oh, you should not rest between the elements of earth and air, but you should pity me.”
“You might do much,” said Olivia. “What is your parentage?'”
Viola replied: “Above my fortunes, yet my state is well. I am a gentleman.”
Olivia now reluctantly dismissed Viola, saying: “Go to your master and tell him I cannot love him. Let him send no more, ‘unless perchance you come again to tell me how he takes it.”
And Viola departed, bidding the lady farewell by the name of Fair Cruelty. When she was gone Olivia repeated the words, ABOVE MY FORTUNES, YET MY STATE IS WELL. I AM A GENTLEMAN. And she said aloud, “I will be sworn he is; his tongue, his face, his limbs, action, and spirit plainly show he is a gentleman.” And then she wished Cesario was the duke; and, perceiving the fast hold he had taken on her affections, she blamed herself for her sudden love; but the gentle blame which people lay upon their own faults has no deep root, and presently the noble lady Olivia so far forgot the inequality between, her fortunes and those of this seeming page, as well as the maidenly reserve which is the chief ornament of a lady’s character, that she resolved to court the love of young Cesario, and sent a servant after him with a diamond ring, under the pretense that he had left it with her as a present from Orsino. She hoped by thus artfully making Cesario a present of the ring she should give him some intimation of her design; and truly it did make Viola suspect; for, knowing that Orsino had sent no ring by her, she began to recollect that Olivia’s looks and manner were expressive of admiration, and she presently guessed her master’s mistress had fallen in love with her.
“Alas!” said she, “the poor lady might as well love a dream. Disguise I see is wicked, for it has caused Olivia to breathe as fruitless sighs for me as I do for Orsino.”
Viola returned to Orsino’s palace, and related to her lord the ill success of the negotiation, repeating the command of Olivia that the duke should trouble her no more. Yet still the duke persisted in hoping that the gentle Cesario would in time be able to persuade her to show some pity, and therefore he bade him he should go to her again the next day. In the mean time, to pass away the tedious interval, he commanded a song which he loved to be sung; and he said:
“My good Cesario, when I heard that song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love in the old times.”
SONG
Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!
Viola did not fail to mark the words of the old song, which in such true simplicity described the pangs of unrequited love, and she bore testimony in her countenance of feeling what the song expressed. Her sad looks were observed by Orsino, who said to her:
“My life upon it, Cesario, though you are so young, your eye has looked upon some face that it loves. Has it not, boy?”
“A little, with your leave,” replied Viola.
“And what kind of woman, and of what age is she?” said Orsino.
“Of your age and of your complexion, my lord,” said Viola; which made the duke smile to hear this fair young boy loved a woman so much older than himself and of a man’s dark complexion; but Viola secretly meant Orsino, and not a woman like him.
When Viola made her second visit to Olivia she found no difficulty in gaining access to her. Servants soon discover when their ladies delight to converse with handsome young messengers; and the instant Viola arrived the gates were thrown wide open, and the duke’s page was shown into Olivia’s apartment with great respect. And when Viola told Olivia that she was come once more to plead in her lord’s behalf, this lady said:
“I desired you never to speak of him again; but if you would undertake another suit, I had rather hear you solicit, than music from the spheres.”
This was pretty plain speaking, but Olivia soon explained herself still more plainly, and openly confessed her love; and when she saw displeasure with perplexity expressed in Viola’s face, she said: “Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful in the contempt and anger of his lip! Cesario, by the roses of the spring, by maidhood, honor, and by truth, I love you so that, in spite of your pride, I have neither wit nor reason to conceal my passion.”
But in vain the lady wooed. Viola hastened from her presence, threatening never more to come to plead Orsino’s love; and all the reply she made to Olivia’s fond solicitation was, a declaration of a resolution NEVER TO LOVE ANY WOMAN.
No sooner had Viola left the lady than a claim was made upon her valor. A gentleman, a rejected suitor of Olivia, who had learned how that lady had favored the duke’s messenger, challenged him to fight a duel. What should poor Viola do, who, though she carried a man-like outside, had a true woman’s heart and feared to look on her own sword?
When, she saw her formidable rival advancing toward her with his sword drawn she began to think of confessing that she was a woman; but she was relieved at once from her terror, and the shame of such a discovery, by a stranger that was passing by, who made up to them, and as if he had been long known to her and were her dearest friend said to her opponent:
“If this young gentleman has done offense, I will take the fault on me; and if you offend him, I will for his sake defy you.”
Before Viola had time to thank him for his protection, or to inquire the reason of his kind interference, her new friend met with an enemy where his bravery was of no use to him; for the officers of justice coming up in that instant, apprehended the stranger in the duke’s name, to answer for an offense he had committed some years before; and he said to Viola:
“This comes with seeking you.” And then he asked her for a purse, saying: “Now my necessity makes me ask for my purse, and it grieves me much more for what I cannot do for you than for what befalls myself. You stand amazed, but be of comfort.”
His words did indeed amaze Viola, and she protested she knew him not, nor had ever received a purse from him; but for the kindness he had just shown her she offered him a small sum of money, being nearly the whole she possessed. And now the stranger spoke severe things, charging her with ingratitude and unkindness. He said:
“This youth whom you see here I snatched from the jaws of death, and for his sake alone I came to Illyria and have fallen into this danger.”
But the officers cared little for harkening to the complaints of their prisoner, and they hurried him off, saying, “What is that to us?” And as he was carried away, he called Viola by the name of Sebastian, reproaching the supposed Sebastian for disowning his friend, as long as he was within hearing. When Viola heard herself called Sebastian, though the stranger was taken away too hastily for her to ask an explanation, she conjectured that this seeming mystery might arise from her being mistaken for her brother, and she began to cherish hopes that it was her brother whose life this man said he had preserved. And so indeed it was. The stranger, whose name was Antonio, was a sea-captain. He had taken Sebastian up into his ship when, almost exhausted with fatigue, he was floating on the mast to which he had fastened himself in the storm. Antonio conceived such a friendship for Sebastian that he resolved to accompany him whithersoever he went; and when the youth expressed a curiosity to visit Orsino’s court, Antonio, rather than part from him, came to Illyria, though he knew, if his person should be known there, his life would be in danger, because in a sea-fight he had once dangerously wounded the Duke Orsino’s nephew. This was the offense for which he was now made a prisoner.
Antonio and Sebastian had landed together but a few hours before Antonio met Viola. He had given his purse to Sebastian, desiring him to use it freely if he saw anything he wished to purchase, telling him he would wait at the inn while Sebastian went to view the town; but, Sebastian not returning at the time appointed, Antonio had ventured out to look for him, and, priest made Orsino believe that his page had robbed him of the treasure he prized above his life. But thinking that it was past recall, he was bidding farewell to his faithless mistress, and the YOUNG DISSEMBLER, her husband, as he called Viola, warning her never to come in his sight again, when (as it seemed to them) a miracle appeared! for another Cesario entered, and addressed Olivia as his wife. This new Cesario was Sebastian, the real husband of Olivia; and when their wonder had a little ceased at seeing two persons with the same face, the same voice, and the same habit, the brother and sister began to question each other; for Viola