Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, with his rapier drawn, and DROMIO of Syracuse.

Luc. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again!

ADR. And come with naked swords: let's call more help,

To have them bound again.
OFF.

Away; they'll kill us. [Exeunt Officer, ADR. and Luc.b ANT. S. I see these witches are afraid of swords. DRO. S. She that would be your wife now ran from you.

ANT. S. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence:

I long that we were safe and sound aboard.

DRO. S. Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm.-You saw, they speak us fair, give us gold: methinks they are such a gentle nation, that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still, and turn witch.

ANT. S. I will not stay to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.

as fast as may be, frighted."

c

[Exeunt.

e To get our stuff aboard.] One of the meanings attached to this commonly-used word, stuff, in early times, was luggage. In the orders issued for the royal progresses, Malone says, the king's baggage was always thus denominated.

Enter Merchant and ANGELO.

ANG. I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you; But, I protest, he had the chain of me, Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.

MER. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?

ANG. Of very reverent reputation, sir,Of credit infinite,-highly belov'd,Second to none that lives here in the city; His word might bear my wealth at any time. MER. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO of Syracuse.

ANG. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck,

Which he forswore most monstrously to have.
Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.

Signior Antipholus, I wonder much
That you would put me to this shame and trouble,
And not without some scandal to yourself,
With circumstance and oaths, so to deny
This chain, which now you wear so openly:
Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,
You have done wrong to this my honest friend;
Who, but for staying on our controversy,
Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day :-
This chain you had of me, can you deny it?
ANT. S. I think I had; I never did deny it.
MER. Yes, that you did, sir; and forswore it

too.

:

ANT. S. Who heard me to deny it, or forswear it?

MER. These ears of mine, thou knowest, did hear thee:

Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st
To walk where any honest men resort.

ANT. S. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus!

Enter the Lady Abbess.

ABB. Be quiet, people! wherefore throng you hither?

ADR. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence:

Let us come in that we may bind him fast,
And bear him home for his recovery.

ANG. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.
MER. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.
ABB. How long hath this possession held the
man?

ADR. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much different from the man he was; But, till this afternoon, his passion Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.

ABB. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?

Buried some dear friend? Hath not, else, his eye
Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?
A sin prevailing much in youthful men,
Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
Which of these sorrows is he subject to?

ADR. To none of these, except it be the last :
Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.
ABB. You should, for that, have reprehended
him.
ADR. Why, so I did.

ABB. And thereof came it that the man was mad.
The venom clamour of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing ;
And thereof comes it, that his head is light.
Thou say'st, his meat was sauc'd with thy up-
braidings:

Unquiet meals make ill digestions,-
Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;

And what's a fever but a fit of madness?
Thou say'st, his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls:
Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue,
But moody and dull melancholy,
Kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair,
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?
In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,
To be disturb'd, would mad or man, or beast:
The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits
Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.

Luc. She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.

Why bear you these rebukes and answer not?
ADR. She did betray me to my own reproof.
Good people, enter and lay hold on him!

ABB. No, not a creature enters in my house. ADR. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.

ABB. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary. And it shall privilege him from your hands, Till I have brought him to his wits again, Or lose my labour in assaying it.

ADR. I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his sickness, for it is my office, And will have no attorney but myself; And therefore let me have him home with me. ABB. Be patient; for I will not let him stir, Till I have us'd the approved means I have, With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again : It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,— A charitable duty of my order;

Therefore depart, and leave him here with me. ADR. I will not hence and leave my husband here;

And ill it doth beseem your holiness
To separate the husband and the wife.

ABB. Be quiet and depart, thou shalt not have

him.

[Exit Abbess. Luc. Complain unto the duke of this indignity. ADR. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet, And never rise until my tears and prayers Have won his grace to come in person hither, And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

b A formal man-] This seems to mean, A reasonable man. A well regulated man.

C

Whom I made lord of me and all I had,
At your important letters,(1) this ill day
A most outrageous fit of madness took him;
That desp'rately he hurried through the street,
(With him his bondman, all as mad as he,)
Doing displeasure to the citizens,

By rushing in their houses, bearing thence,
Rings, jewels,-any thing his rage did like.
Once did I get him bound, and sent him home,
Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,
That here and there his fury had committed.
Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,

He broke from those that had the guard of him,
And, with his mad attendant and himself,
Each one, with ireful passion,-with drawn swords,
Met us again, and, madly bent on us,

a The place of death-] The original has depth instead of death; and, as the Rev. Mr. Hunter thinks, rightly. According to his view, "New Illustrations of Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 225, "The place of depth,' in the Greek story, the Barathrum, means the deep pit, into which offenders were cast."

b And sorry execution,-] Meaning dismal, sorrowful execution. e At your important letters,-] That is, in the language of our old writers, your importunate letters. Thus, in "Much Ado about Nothing," Act II. Sc. 1:-"-if the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything," &c.

So in " King Lear," Act IV. Sc. 4:

"Therefore great France

My mourning and important tears hath pitied."

d Beaten the maids a-row,-] A-row is explained by the commentators, one after another, successively.

"A thousand time a-row he gan hire kisse."

CHAUCER, Wife of Bathes Tale, v. 6386, Tyrwhitt's Ed.

d

My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor,
Whose beard they have singed off with brands of
fire;

And, ever as it blazed, they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:
My master preaches patience to him, and the while,
His man, with scissors, nicks him like a fool;
And, sure, unless you send some present help,
Between them they will kill the conjurer.
ADR. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are
here,

And that is false thou dost report to us.

SERV. Mistress, upon my life I tell you true! I have not breath'd, almost, since I did see it. He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you, To scorch your face, and to disfigure you:

[Cry within. Hark, hark! I hear him, mistress!-fly!—be gone!

DUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberts.

"The curtal Friar in Fountain Abbey
Well can a strong bow draw;
He will beat you and your yeomen
Set them all on a row."

Old Ballads, Evans, vol. ii. p. 152.

e Nicks him like a fool;] The custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. Tollet says there is a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred's ecclesiastical laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a passage from "The Choice of Change," &c., by S. R. Gent, 4to. 1598,-"Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at their follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles."

To scorch your face,-] So the old copy. The same spelling occurs in the folio, 1623, Act III. Sc. 2, of Macbeth:""We have scorch'd the snake, not killed it; where, however, the word meant is probably scotch'd.