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My ill suspicion.-This your son-in-law, And son unto the king (whom heavens directing),

Is troth-plight to your daughter.-Good Paulina, Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely Each one demand, and answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first We were dissever'd: Hastily lead away.

[Exeunt.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

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BALTHAZAR, a Merchant.

ANGELO, a Goldsmith.

ants on the two Antipho

luses.

A Merchant, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse. PINCH, a Schoolmaster and a Conjurer.

EMILIA, Wife to Ægeon, an Abbess at Ephesus. ADRIANA, Wife to Antipholus of Ephesus.

LUCIANA, her sister.

LUCE, her servant.

A Courtezan.

Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants.

SCENE-Ephesus.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. A Hall in the Duke's Palace. Enter Duke, ÆGEON, Gaoler, Officer, and other Attendants.

Egeon. PROCEED, Solinus, to procure my fall,
And, by the doom of death, end woes and all.
Duke. Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more;
I am not partial, to infringe our laws :
The enmity and discord, which of late
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,-
Who, wanting gilders to redeem their lives,
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their
bloods,

Excludes all pity from our threatening looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars
'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
Both by the Syracusans and ourselves,
To admit no traffick to our adverse towns:
Nay, more,

If any, born at Ephesus, be seen

At any Syracusan marts and fairs,
Again, If any Syracusan born,

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,
His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose:
Unless a thousand marks be levied,
To quit the penalty, and to ransom him.
Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Therefore, by law thou art condemn'd to die.
Ege. Yet this my comfort; when your words
are done,

My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

VOL. III.

S

Duke. Well, Syracusan, say, in brief, the cause Why thou departed'st from thy native home; And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.

Ege. A heavier task could not have been imposed,

Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable:
Yet, that the world may witness, that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
In Syracusa was I born: and wed
Unto a woman, happy but for me,

And by me too, had not our hap been bad.
With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd,
By prosperous voyages I often made
To Epidamnum, till my factor's death;
And he (great care of goods at random left)
Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
From whom my absence was not six months old,
Before herself (almost at fainting, under
The pleasing punishment that women bear),
Had made provision for her following me,
And soon and safe, arrived where I was.
There she had not been long, but she became
A joyful mother of two goodly sons;

And, which was strange, the one so like the other,
As could not be distinguished but by names.
That very hour, and in the selfsame inn,
A poor mean woman was delivered

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike:
Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
Made daily motions for our home return:
Unwilling I agreed; alas! too soon.
We came aboard:

A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
Before the always wind-obeying deep
Gave any tragick instance of our harm:
But longer did we not retain much hope;
For what obscured light the heavens did grant
Did but convey unto our fearful minds
A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
Which, though myself would gladly have em-
brac'd,

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
Weeping before for what she saw must come,

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