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