William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

ACT V. SCENE 1. The same. (continued)

ADRIANA.
May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband,--
Who I made lord of me and all I had,
At your important letters,--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, anything 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,
Chased us away; till, raising of more aid,
We came again to bind them: then they fled
Into this abbey, whither we pursued them:
And here the abbess shuts the gates on us,
And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.

DUKE.
Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars;
And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,
When thou didst make him master of thy bed,
To do him all the grace and good I could.--
Go, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate,
And bid the lady abbess come to me:
I will determine this before I stir.

[Enter a SERVANT.]

SERVANT.
O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!
My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor;
Whose beard they have singed off with brands of fire;
And ever as it blazed they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:
My master preaches patience to him, while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool:
And, sure, unless you send some present help,
Between them they will kill the conjurer.

ADRIANA.
Peace, fool, thy master and his man are here;
And that is false thou dost report to us.