Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, (Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ;)* 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 used the approved means I have, With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again :7 It is a branch and parcel of mine oath, A charitable duty of my order; Therefore depart, and leave him here with me. :6(Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair;) Kinsman means near relation. Many words are used by Shakspeare with much greater latitude. 7 →→→ a formal man again:] i.e. to bring him back to his senses, and the forms of sober behaviour. 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. [Erit 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. Mer. By this, I think, the dial points at five: Anon, I am sure, the duke himself in person Comes this way to the melancholy vale; The place of death and sorry execution, Behind the ditches of the abbey here. Ang. Upon what cause? Mer. To see a reverend Syracusan merchant, Who put unluckily into this bay Against the laws and statutes of this town, Ang. See, where they come; we will behold his Luc. Kneel to the duke, before he pass the abbey. Enter Duke attended; ÆGEON bare-headed; with the Headsman and other Officers. Duke. Yet once again proclaim it publickly, If any friend will pay the sum for him, He shall not die, so much we tender him. Adr. Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess! sorry execution,] So, in Macbeth: "Of sorriest fancies your companions making." Sorry had anciently a stronger meaning than at present, and seems to have meant sorrowful. Duke. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady; Whom I made lord of me and all I had, By rushing in their houses, bearing thence Nor send him forth, that we may bear him hence. wars; And I to thee engag'd a prince's word, When thou didst make him master of thy bed, 9 At your important letters,] For importunate. And bid the lady abbess come to me; Enter a Servant. Serv. 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 :: Adr. Peace, fool, thy master and his man are 3.2. 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, 2 Beaten the maids a-row,] i. e. successively, one after another. 3 His man with scissars nicks him like a fool: The force of this allusion I am unable to explain with certainty. Perhaps it was once the custom to cut the hair of idiots close to their heads. There is a proverbial simile-" Like crop the conjuror;" which might have been ironically applied to these unfortunate beings. STEEVENS. There is a penalty of ten shillings in one of King Alfred's ecclesiastical laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool. TOLLET. Fools, undoubtedly, were shaved and nicked in a particulăr manner, in our author's time, as is ascertained by the following passage in The Choice of Change, containing the Triplicitie of Divinitie, Philosophie and Poetrie, 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" MALONE. To scorch your face, and to disfigure you: 6 [Cry within. Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone. Duke. Come, stand by me, fear nothing: Guard with halberds. Adr. Ah me, it is my husband! Witness you That he is borne about invisible: Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here;a And now he's there, past thought of human reason. Enter ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO of Ephesus, Ant. E. Justice, most gracious duke, oh, grant me justice! Even for the service that long since I did thee, I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio. Ant. E. Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there. She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife; Beyond imagination is the wrong, That she this day hath shameless thrown on me. Duke. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. Ant. E. This day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me, While she, with harlots feasted in my house. Duke. A grievous fault: Say, woman, didst thou so? with harlots] Harlot was a term of reproach applied to cheats among men, as well as to wantons among women, |