Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (online e book reading .txt) 📕

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 quite 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 he 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 parlour 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 under foot.’ 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 practiced 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 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 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 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 them 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