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HAMLET was the only son of the king of Denmark. He loved his father and mother
Gertrude dearly—and was happy in the love of a sweet lady named Ophelia. Her father,
Polonius, was the king's chamberlain.
While Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg, his father died. Young Hamlet hastened
home in great grief to hear that a serpent had stung the king, and that he was dead. The
young Prince had loved his father so tenderly that you may judge what he felt when he found
that the queen, before yet the king had been laid in the ground a month, had determined to
marry again—and to marry the dead king's brother.
Hamlet refused to put off mourning for the wedding.
"It is not only the black I wear on my body," he said, "that proves my loss. I wear
mourning in my heart for my dead father. His son at least remembers him, and grieves
still."
Then said Claudius the king's brother, "This grief is unreasonable. Of course you
must sorrow at the loss of your father, but—"
"Ah," said Hamlet, bitterly, "I cannot in one little month forget those I
love."
With that the queen and Claudius left him, to make merry over their wedding,
forgetting the poor good king who had been so kind to them both.
And Hamlet, left alone, began to wonder and to question as to what he ought to do.
For he could not believe the story about the snake-bite. It seemed to him all too plain that
the wicked Claudius had killed the king, so as to get the crown and marry the queen. Yet he
had no proof, and could not accuse Claudius.
And while he was thus thinking came Horatio, a fellow student of his, from
Wittenberg.
"What brought you here?" asked Hamlet, when he had greeted his friend
kindly.
"I came, my lord, to see your father's funeral."
"I think it was to see my mother's wedding," said Hamlet, bitterly. "My father! We
shall not look upon his like again."
"My lord," answered Horatio, "I think I saw him yesternight."
Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise, Horatio told how he, with two gentlemen of
the guard, had seen the king's ghost on the battlements. Hamlet went that night, and true
enough, at midnight, the ghost of the king, in the armor he had been wont to wear, appeared
on the battlements in the chill moonlight. Hamlet was a brave youth. Instead of running away
from the ghost he spoke to it—and when it beckoned him he followed it to a quiet place,
and there the ghost told him that what he had suspected was true. The wicked Claudius had
indeed killed his good brother the king, by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in his
orchard in the afternoon.
"And you," said the ghost, "must avenge this cruel murder—on my wicked brother.
But do nothing against the queen—for I have loved her, and she is your mother. Remember
me."
Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.
"Now," said Hamlet, "there is nothing left but revenge. Remember thee—I will
remember nothing else—books, pleasure, youth—let all go—and your commands
alone live on my brain."
So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the secret of the ghost,
and then went in from the battlements, now gray with mingled dawn and moonlight, to think
how he might best avenge his murdered father.
The shock of seeing and hearing his father's ghost made him feel almost mad, and for
fear that his uncle might notice that he was not himself, he determined to hide his mad
longing for revenge under a pretended madness in other matters.
And when he met Ophelia, who loved him—and to whom he had given gifts, and
letters, and many loving words—he behaved so wildly to her, that she could not but
think him mad. For she loved him so that she could not believe he would be as cruel as this,
unless he were quite mad. So she told her father, and showed him a pretty letter from
Hamlet. And in the letter was much folly, and this pretty verse:
"Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."
And from that time everyone believed that the cause of Hamlet's supposed madness was
love.
Poor Hamlet was very unhappy. He longed to obey his father's ghost—and yet he
was too gentle and kindly to wish to kill another man, even his father's murderer. And
sometimes he wondered whether, after all, the ghost spoke truly.
Just at this time some actors came to the court, and Hamlet ordered them to perform
a certain play before the king and queen. Now, this play was the story of a man who had been
murdered in his garden by a near relation, who afterwards married the dead man's
wife.
You may imagine the feelings of the wicked king, as he sat on his throne, with the
queen beside him and all his court around, and saw, acted on the stage, the very wickedness
that he had himself done. And when, in the play, the wicked relation poured poison into the
ear of the sleeping man, the wicked Claudius suddenly rose, and staggered from the
room—the queen and others following.
Then said Hamlet to his friends:
"Now I am sure the ghost spoke true. For if Claudius had not done this murder, he
could not have been so distressed to see it in a play."
Now the queen sent for Hamlet, by the king's desire, to scold him for his conduct
during the play, and for other matters; and Claudius, wishing to know exactly what happened,
told old Polonius to hide himself behind the hangings in the queen's room. And as they
talked, the queen got frightened at Hamlet's rough, strange words, and cried for help, and
Polonius behind the curtain cried out too. Hamlet, thinking it was the king who was hidden
there, thrust with his sword at the hangings, and killed, not the king, but poor old
Polonius.
So now Hamlet had offended his uncle and his mother, and by bad hap killed his true
love's father.
"Oh! what a rash and bloody deed is this," cried the queen.
And Hamlet answered bitterly, "Almost as bad as to kill a king, and marry his
brother." Then Hamlet told the queen plainly all his thoughts and how he knew of the murder,
and begged her, at least, to have no more friendship or kindness of the base Claudius, who
had killed the good king. And as they spoke the king's ghost again appeared before Hamlet,
but the queen could not see it. So when the ghost had gone, they parted.
When the queen told Claudius what had passed, and how Polonius was dead, he said,
"This shows plainly that Hamlet is mad, and since he has killed the Chancellor, it is for
his own safety that we must carry out our plan, and send him away to England."
So Hamlet was sent, under charge of two courtiers who served the king, and these
bore letters to the English court, requiring that Hamlet should be put to death. But Hamlet
had the good sense to get at these letters, and put in others instead, with the names of the
two courtiers who were so ready to betray him. Then, as the vessel went to England, Hamlet
escaped on board a pirate ship, and the two wicked courtiers left him to his fate, and went
on to meet theirs.
Hamlet hurried home, but in the meantime a dreadful thing had happened. Poor pretty
Ophelia, having lost her lover and her father, lost her wits too, and went in sad madness
about the court, with straws, and weeds, and flowers in her hair, singing strange scraps of
songs, and talking poor, foolish, pretty talk with no heart of meaning to it. And one day,
coming to a stream where willows grew, she tried to hang a flowery garland on a willow, and
fell into the water with all her flowers, and so died.
And Hamlet had loved her, though his plan of seeming madness had made him hide it;
and when he came back, he found the king and queen, and the court, weeping at the funeral of
his dear love and lady.
Ophelia's brother, Laertes, had also just come to court to ask justice for the death
of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild with grief, he leaped into his sister's grave, to
clasp her in his arms once more.
"I loved her more than forty thousand brothers," cried Hamlet, and leapt into the
grave after him, and they fought till they were parted.
Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive him.
"I could not bear," he said, "that any, even a brother, should seem to love her more
than I."
But the wicked Claudius would not let them be friends. He told Laertes how Hamlet
had killed old Polonius, and between them they made a plot to slay Hamlet by
treachery.
Laertes challenged him to a fencing match, and all the court were present. Hamlet
had the blunt foil always used in fencing, but Laertes had prepared for himself a sword,
sharp, and tipped with poison. And the wicked king had made ready a bowl of poisoned wine,
which he meant to give poor Hamlet when he should grow warm with the sword play, and should
call for drink.
So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes, after some fencing, gave Hamlet a sharp
sword thrust. Hamlet, angry at this treachery—for they had been fencing, not as men
fight, but as they play—closed with Laertes in a struggle; both dropped their swords,
and when they picked them up again, Hamlet, without noticing it, had exchanged his own blunt
sword for Laertes' sharp and poisoned one. And with one thrust of it he pierced Laertes, who
fell dead by his own treachery.
At this moment the queen cried out, "The drink, the drink! Oh, my dear Hamlet! I am
poisoned!"
She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the king had prepared for Hamlet, and the king
saw the queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really loved, fall dead by his means.
Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and the queen, and Laertes, and the two
courtiers who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last found courage to do the ghost's
bidding and avenge his father's murder—which, if he had braced up his heart to do long
before, all these lives had been spared, and none had suffered but the wicked king, who well
deserved to die.
Hamlet, his heart at last being great enough to do the deed he ought, turned the
poisoned sword on the false king.
"Then—venom—do thy work!" he cried, and the king died.
So Hamlet in the end kept the promise he had made his father. And all being now
accomplished, he himself died. And those who stood by saw him die, with prayers and tears,
for his friends and his people loved him with their whole hearts. Thus ends the tragic tale
of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
ONCE on a time there lived in Verona two great families named Montagu and Capulet.
They were both rich, and I suppose they were as sensible, in most things, as other rich
people. But in one thing they were extremely silly. There was an old, old quarrel between
the two families, and instead of making it up like reasonable folks, they made a sort of pet
of their quarrel, and would not let it die out. So that a Montagu wouldn't speak to a
Capulet if he met one in the street—nor a Capulet to a Montagu—or if they did
speak, it was to say rude and unpleasant things, which often ended in a fight. And their
relations and servants were just as foolish, so that street fights and duels and
uncomfortablenesses of that kind were always growing out of the Montagu-and-Capulet
quarrel.
Now Lord Capulet, the head of that family, gave a party—a grand supper and a
dance—and he was so hospitable that he said anyone might come to it except (of course)
the Montagues. But there was a young Montagu named Romeo, who very much wanted to be there,
because Rosaline, the lady he loved, had been asked. This lady had never been at all kind to
him, and he had no reason to love her; but the fact was that he wanted to love somebody, and
as he hadn't seen the right lady, he was obliged to love the wrong one. So to the Capulet's
grand party he came, with his friends Mercutio and Benvolio.
Old Capulet welcomed him and his two friends very kindly—and young Romeo moved
about among the crowd of courtly folk dressed in their velvets and satins, the men with
jeweled sword hilts and collars, and the ladies with brilliant gems on breast and arms, and
stones of price set in their bright girdles. Romeo was in his best too, and though he wore a
black mask over his eyes and nose, everyone could see by his mouth and his hair, and the way
he held his head, that he was twelve times handsomer than anyone else in the room.
Presently amid the dancers he saw a lady so beautiful and so lovable that from that
moment he never again gave one thought to that Rosaline whom he had thought he loved. And he
looked at this other fair lady, as she moved in the dance in her white satin and pearls, and
all the world seemed vain and worthless to him compared with her. And he was saying this, or
something like it, when Tybalt, Lady Capulet's nephew, hearing his voice, knew him to be
Romeo. Tybalt, being very angry, went at once to his uncle, and told him how a Montagu had
come uninvited to the feast; but old Capulet was too fine a gentleman to be discourteous to
any man under his own roof, and he bade Tybalt be quiet. But this young man only waited for
a chance to quarrel with Romeo.
In the meantime Romeo made his way to the fair lady, and told her in sweet words
that he loved her, and kissed her. Just then her mother sent for her, and then Romeo found
out that the lady on whom he had set his heart's hopes was Juliet, the daughter of Lord
Capulet, his sworn foe. So he went away, sorrowing indeed, but loving her none the
less.
Then Juliet said to her nurse:
"Who is that gentleman that would not dance?"
"His name is Romeo, and a Montagu, the only son of your great enemy," answered the
nurse.
Then Juliet went to her room, and looked out of her window, over the beautiful
green-grey garden, where the moon was shining. And Romeo was hidden in that garden among the
trees—because he could not bear to go right away without trying to see her again. So
she—not knowing him to be there—spoke her secret thought aloud, and told the quiet
garden how she loved Romeo.
And Romeo heard and was glad beyond measure. Hidden below, he looked up and saw her
fair face in the moonlight, framed in the blossoming creepers that grew round her window,
and as he looked and listened, he felt as though he had been carried away in a dream, and
set down by some magician in that beautiful and enchanted garden.
"Ah—why are you called Romeo?" said Juliet. "Since I love you, what does it
matter what you are called?"
"Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized—henceforth I never will be Romeo,"
he cried, stepping into the full white moonlight from the shade of the cypresses and
oleanders that had hidden him. She was frightened at first, but when she saw that it was
Romeo himself, and no stranger, she too was glad, and, he standing in the garden below and
she leaning from the window, they spoke long together, each one trying to find the sweetest
words in the world, to make that pleasant talk that lovers use. And the tale of all they
said, and the sweet music their voices made together, is all set down in a golden book,
where you children may read it for yourselves some day.
And the time passed so quickly, as it does for folk who love each other and are
together, that when the time came to part, it seemed as though they had met but that
moment—and indeed they hardly knew how to part.
"I will send to you tomorrow," said Juliet.
And so at last, with lingering and longing, they said good-bye.
Juliet went into her room, and a dark curtain hid her bright window. Romeo went
away through the still and dewy garden like a man in a dream.
The next morning, very early, Romeo went to Friar Laurence, a priest, and, telling
him all the story, begged him to marry him to Juliet without delay. And this, after some
talk, the priest consented to do.
So when Juliet sent her old nurse to Romeo that day to know what he purposed to do,
the old woman took back a message that all was well, and all things ready for the marriage
of Juliet and Romeo on the next morning.
The young lovers were afraid to ask their parents' consent to their marriage, as
young people should do, because of this foolish old quarrel between the Capulets and the
Montagues.
And Friar Laurence was willing to help the young lovers secretly, because he thought
that when they were once married their parents might soon be told, and that the match might
put a happy end to the old quarrel.
So the next morning early, Romeo and Juliet were married at Friar Laurence's cell,
and parted with tears and kisses. And Romeo promised to come into the garden that evening,
and the nurse got ready a rope-ladder to let down from the window, so that Romeo could climb
up and talk to his dear wife quietly and alone.
But that very day a dreadful thing happened.
Tybalt, the young man who had been so vexed at Romeo's going to the Capulet's feast,
met him and his two friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, in the street, called Romeo a villain,
and asked him to fight. Romeo had no wish to fight with Juliet's cousin, but Mercutio drew
his sword, and he and Tybalt fought. And Mercutio was killed. When Romeo saw that this
friend was dead, he forgot everything except anger at the man who had killed him, and he and
Tybalt fought till Tybalt fell dead.
So, on the very day of his wedding, Romeo killed his dear Juliet's cousin, and was
sentenced to be banished. Poor Juliet and her young husband met that night indeed; he
climbed the rope-ladder among the flowers, and found her window, but their meeting was a sad
one, and they parted with bitter tears and hearts heavy, because they could not know when
they should meet again.
Now Juliet's father, who, of course, had no idea that she was married, wished her to
wed a gentleman named Paris, and was so angry when she refused, that she hurried away to ask
Friar Laurence what she should do. He advised her to pretend to consent, and then he
said:
"I will give you a draught that will make you seem to be dead for two days, and then
when they take you to church it will be to bury you, and not to marry you. They will put you
in the vault thinking you are dead, and before you wake up Romeo and I will be there to take
care of you. Will you do this, or are you afraid?"
"I will do it; talk not to me of fear!" said Juliet. And she went home and told her
father she would marry Paris. If she had spoken out and told her father the truth . . .
well, then this would have been a different story.
Lord Capulet was very much pleased to get his own way, and set about inviting his
friends and getting the wedding feast ready. Everyone stayed up all night, for there was a
great deal to do, and very little time to do it in. Lord Capulet was anxious to get Juliet
married because he saw she was very unhappy. Of course she was really fretting about her
husband Romeo, but her father thought she was grieving for the death of her cousin Tybalt,
and he thought marriage would give her something else to think about.
Early in the morning the nurse came to call Juliet, and to dress her for her
wedding; but she would not wake, and at last the nurse cried out suddenly—
"Alas! alas! help! help! my lady's dead! Oh, well-a-day that ever I was
born!"
Lady Capulet came running in, and then Lord Capulet, and Lord Paris, the bridegroom.
There lay Juliet cold and white and lifeless, and all their weeping could not wake her. So
it was a burying that day instead of a marrying. Meantime Friar Laurence had sent a
messenger to Mantua with a letter to Romeo telling him of all these things; and all would
have been well, only the messenger was delayed, and could not go.
But ill news travels fast. Romeo's servant who knew the secret of the marriage, but
not of Juliet's pretended death, heard of her funeral, and hurried to Mantua to tell Romeo
how his young wife was dead and lying in the grave.
"Is it so?" cried Romeo, heart-broken. "Then I will lie by Juliet's side
tonight."
And he bought himself a poison, and went straight back to Verona. He hastened to the
tomb where Juliet was lying. It was not a grave, but a vault. He broke open the door, and
was just going down the stone steps that led to the vault where all the dead Capulets lay,
when he heard a voice behind him calling on him to stop.
It was the Count Paris, who was to have married Juliet that very day.
"How dare you come here and disturb the dead bodies of the Capulets, you vile
Montagu?" cried Paris.
Poor Romeo, half mad with sorrow, yet tried to answer gently.
"You were told," said Paris, "that if you returned to Verona you must
die."
"I must indeed," said Romeo. "I came here for nothing else. Good, gentle
youth—leave me! Oh, go—before I do you any harm! I love you better than
myself—go—leave me here—"
Then Paris said, "I defy you, and I arrest you as a felon," and Romeo, in his anger
and despair, drew his sword. They fought, and Paris was killed.
As Romeo's sword pierced him, Paris cried—
"Oh, I am slain! If thou be merciful, open the tomb, and lay me with
Juliet!"
And Romeo said, "In faith I will."
And he carried the dead man into the tomb and laid him by the dear Juliet's side.
Then he kneeled by Juliet and spoke to her, and held her in his arms, and kissed her cold
lips, believing that she was dead, while all the while she was coming nearer and nearer to
the time of her awakening. Then he drank the poison, and died beside his sweetheart and
wife.
Now came Friar Laurence when it was too late, and saw all that had happened—and
then poor Juliet woke out of her sleep to find her husband and her friend both dead beside
her.
The noise of the fight had brought other folks to the place too, and Friar Laurence,
hearing them, ran away, and Juliet was left alone. She saw the cup that had held the poison,
and knew how all had happened, and since no poison was left for her, she drew her Romeo's
dagger and thrust it through her heart—and so, falling with her head on her Romeo's
breast, she died. And here ends the story of these faithful and most unhappy
lovers.
And when the old folks knew from Friar Laurence of all that had befallen, they
sorrowed exceedingly, and now, seeing all the mischief their wicked quarrel had wrought,
they repented them of it, and over the bodies of their dead children they clasped hands at
last, in friendship and forgiveness.
VALENTINE and Proteus were friends, and lived at Verona, a town in northern Italy.
Only one of them was really a gentleman: Valentine was happy in his name because it was that
of the patron saint of lovers; it is hard for a Valentine to be fickle or mean. Proteus was
unhappy in his name, because it was that of a famous shape-changer, and therefore it
encouraged him to be a lover at one time and a traitor at another.
One day, Valentine told his friend that he was going to Milan. "I'm not in love like
you," said he, "and therefore I don't want to stay at home."
Proteus was in love with a beautiful yellow-haired girl called Julia, who was rich,
and had no one to order her about. He was, however, sorry to part from Valentine, and he
said, "If ever you are in danger tell me, and I will pray for you." Valentine then went to
Milan with a servant called Speed, and at Milan he fell in love with the duke of Milan's
daughter, Silvia.
When Proteus and Valentine parted Julia had not acknowledged that she loved Proteus.
Indeed, she had actually torn up one of his letters in the presence of her maid, Lucetta.
Lucetta, however, was no simpleton, for when she saw the pieces she said to herself, "All
she wants is to be annoyed by another letter." Indeed, no sooner had Lucetta left her alone
than Julia repented of her tearing, and placed between her dress and her heart the torn
piece of paper on which Proteus had signed his name. So by tearing a letter written by
Proteus she discovered that she loved him. Then, like a brave, sweet girl, she wrote to
Proteus, "Be patient, and you shall marry me."
Delighted with these words Proteus walked about, flourishing Julia's letter and
talking to himself.
"What have you got there?" asked his father, Antonio.
"A letter from Valentine," fibbed Proteus.
"Let me read it," said Antonio.
"There is no news," said deceitful Proteus; "he only says that he is very happy, and
the duke of Milan is kind to him, and that he wishes I were with him."
This fib had the effect of making Antonio think that his son should go to Milan and
enjoy the favors in which Valentine basked. "You must go tomorrow," he decreed. Proteus was
dismayed. "Give me time to get my outfit ready." He was met with the promise, "What you need
shall be sent after you."
It grieved Julia to part from her lover before their engagement was two days' old.
She gave him a ring, and said, "Keep this for my sake," and he gave her a ring, and they
kissed like two who intend to be true till death. Then Proteus departed for Milan.
Meanwhile Valentine was amusing Silvia, whose grey eyes, laughing at him under
auburn hair, had drowned him in love. One day she told him that she wanted to write a pretty
letter to a gentleman whom she thought well of, but had no time: would he write it? Very
much did Valentine dislike writing that letter, but he did write it, and gave it to her
coldly. "Take it back," she said; "you did it unwillingly."
"Madam," he said, "it was difficult to write such a letter for you." "Take it
back," she commanded; "you did not write tenderly enough."
Valentine was left with the letter, and condemned [259] to write another; but his
servant Speed saw that, in effect, the Lady Silvia had allowed Valentine to write for her a
love-letter to Valentine's own self. "The joke," he said, "is as invisible as a weather-cock
on a steeple."
He meant that it was very plain; and he went on to say exactly what it was: "If
master will write her love-letters, he must answer them."
On the arrival of Proteus, he was introduced by Valentine to Silvia and afterwards,
when they were alone, Valentine asked Proteus how his love for Julia was
prospering.
"Why," said Proteus, "you used to get wearied when I spoke of her."
"Aye," confessed Valentine, "but it's different now. I can eat and drink all day
with nothing but love on my plate and love in my cup."
"You idolize Silvia," said Proteus.
"She is divine," said Valentine.
"Come, come!" remonstrated Proteus.
"Well, if she's not divine," said Valentine, "she is the queen of all women on
earth."
"Except Julia," said Proteus.
"Dear boy," said Valentine, "Julia is not excepted; but I will grant that she alone
is worthy to bear my lady's train."
"Your bragging astounds me," said Proteus.
But he had seen Silvia, and he felt suddenly that the yellow-haired Julia was black
in comparison. He became in thought a villain without delay, and said to himself what he had
never said before—"I to myself am dearer than my friend."
It would have been convenient for Valentine if Proteus had changed, by the power of
the god whose name he bore, the shape of his body at the evil moment when he despised Julia
in admiring Silvia. But his body did not change; his smile was still affectionate, and
Valentine confided to him the great secret that Silvia had now promised to run away with
him. "In the pocket of this cloak," said Valentine, "I have a silken rope ladder, with hooks
which will clasp the window-bar of her room."
Proteus knew the reason why Silvia and her lover were bent on flight. The duke
intended her to wed Sir Thurio, a gentlemanly noodle for whom she did not care a
straw.
Proteus thought that if he could get rid of Valentine he might make Silvia fond of
him, especially if the duke insisted on her enduring Sir Thurio's tiresome chatter. He
therefore went to the duke, and said, "Duty before friendship! It grieves me to thwart my
friend Valentine, but your Grace should know that he intends tonight to elope with your
Grace's daughter." He begged the duke not to tell Valentine the giver of this information,
and the duke assured him that his name would not be divulged.
Early that evening the duke summoned Valentine, who came to him wearing a large
cloak with a bulging pocket.
"You know," said the duke, "my desire to marry my daughter to Sir Thurio?"
"I do," replied Valentine. "He is virtuous and generous, as befits a man so honored
in your Grace's thoughts."
"Nevertheless she dislikes him," said the duke. "She is a peevish, proud,
disobedient girl, and I should be sorry to leave her a penny. I intend, therefore, to marry
again."
Valentine bowed.
"I hardly know how the young people of today make love," continued the duke, "and I
thought that you would be just the man to teach me how to win the lady of my
choice."
"Jewels have been known to plead rather well," said Valentine.
"I have tried them," said the duke.
"The habit of liking the giver may grow if your Grace gives her some
more."
"The chief difficulty," pursued the duke, "is this. The lady is promised to a young
gentleman, and it is hard to have a word with her. She is, in fact, locked up."
"Then your Grace should propose an elopement," said Valentine. "Try a rope
ladder."
"But how should I carry it?" asked the duke.
"A rope ladder is light," said Valentine; "you can carry it in a cloak."
"Like yours?"
"Yes, your Grace."
"Then yours will do. Kindly lend it to me."
Valentine had talked himself into a trap. He could not refuse to lend his cloak, and
when the duke had donned it, his Grace drew from the pocket a sealed missive addressed to
Silvia. He coolly opened it, and read these words: "Silvia, you shall be free
tonight."
"Indeed," he said, "and here's the rope ladder. Prettily contrived, but not
perfectly. I give you, sir, a day to leave my dominions. If you are in Milan by this time
tomorrow, you die."
Poor Valentine was saddened to the core. "Unless I look on Silvia in the day," he
said, "there is no day for me to look on."
Before he went he took farewell of Proteus, who proved a hypocrite of the first
order. "Hope is a lover's staff," said Valentine's betrayer; "walk hence with
that."
After leaving Milan, Valentine and his servant wandered into a forest near Mantua
where the great poet Virgil lived. In the forest, however, the poets (if any) were brigands,
who bade the travelers stand. They obeyed, and Valentine made so good an impression on his
captors that they offered him his life on condition that he became their captain.
"I accept," said Valentine, "provided you release my servant, and are not violent to
women or the poor."
The reply was worthy of Virgil, and Valentine became a brigand chief.
We return now to Julia, who found Verona too dull to live in since Proteus had gone.
She begged her maid Lucetta to devise a way by which she could see him. "Better wait for him
to return," said Lucetta, and she talked so sensibly that Julia saw it was idle to hope that
Lucetta would bear the blame of any rash and interesting adventure. Julia therefore said
that she intended to go to Milan and dressed like a page.
"You must cut off your hair then," said Lucetta, who thought that at this
announcement Julia would at once abandon her scheme.
"I shall knot it up," was the disappointing rejoinder.
Lucetta then tried to make the scheme seem foolish to Julia, but Julia had made up
her mind and was not to be put off by ridicule; and when her toilet was completed, she
looked as comely a page as one could wish to see.
Julia assumed the male name Sebastian, and arrived in Milan in time to hear music
being performed outside the duke's palace.
"They are serenading the Lady Silvia," said a man to her.
Suddenly she heard a voice lifted in song, and she knew that voice. It was the voice
of Proteus. But what was he singing?
"Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her
That she might admired be."
Julia tried not to hear the rest, but these two lines somehow thundered into her
mind:
"Then to Silvia let us sing;
She excels each mortal thing."
Then Proteus thought Silvia excelled Julia; and, since he sang so beautifully for all the
world to hear, it seemed that he was not only false to Julia, but had forgotten her. Yet
Julia still loved him. She even went to him, and asked to be his page, and Proteus engaged
her.
One day he handed to her the ring which she had given him, and said, "Sebastian,
take that to the Lady Silvia, and say that I should like the picture of her she promised
me."
Silvia had promised the picture, but she disliked Proteus. She was obliged to talk
to him because he was high in the favor of her father, who thought he pleaded with her on
behalf of Sir Thurio. Silvia had learned from Valentine that Proteus was pledged to a
sweetheart in Verona; and when he said tender things to her, she felt that he was disloyal
in friendship as well as love.
Julia bore the ring to Silvia, but Silvia said, "I will not wrong the woman who gave
it him by wearing it."
"She thanks you," said Julia.
"You know her, then?" said Silvia, and Julia spoke so tenderly of herself that
Silvia wished that Sebastian would marry Julia.
Silvia gave Julia her portrait for Proteus, who would have received it the worse for
extra touches on the nose and eyes if Julia had not made up her mind that she was as pretty
as Silvia.
Soon there was an uproar in the palace. Silvia had fled.
The duke was certain that her intention was to join the exiled Valentine, and he was
not wrong.
Without delay he started in pursuit, with Sir Thurio, Proteus, and some
servants.
The members of the pursuing party got separated, and Proteus and Julia (in her
page's dress) were by themselves when they saw Silvia, who had been taken prisoner by
outlaws and was now being led to their Captain. Proteus rescued her, and then said, "I have
saved you from death; give me one kind look."
"O misery, to be helped by you!" cried Silvia. "I would rather be a lion's
breakfast."
Julia was silent, but cheerful. Proteus was so much annoyed with Silvia that he
threatened her, and seized her by the waist.
"O heaven!" cried Silvia.
At that instant there was a noise of crackling branches. Valentine came crashing
through the Mantuan forest to the rescue of his beloved. Julia feared he would slay Proteus,
and hurried to help her false lover. But he struck no blow, he only said, "Proteus, I am
sorry I must never trust you more."
Thereat Proteus felt his guilt, and fell on his knees, saying, "Forgive me! I
grieve! I suffer!"
"Then you are my friend once more," said the generous Valentine. "If Silvia, that is
lost to me, will look on you with favor, I promise that I will stand aside and bless you
both."
These words were terrible to Julia, and she swooned. Valentine revived her, and
said, "What was the matter, boy?"
"I remembered," fibbed Julia, "that I was charged to give a ring to the Lady Silvia,
and that I did not."
"Well, give it to me," said Proteus.
She handed him a ring, but it was the ring that Proteus gave to Julia before he left
Verona.
Proteus looked at her hand, and crimsoned to the roots of his hair.
"I changed my shape when you changed your mind," said she.
"But I love you again," said he.
Just then outlaws entered, bringing two prizes—the duke and Sir
Thurio.
"Forbear!" cried Valentine, sternly. "The duke is sacred."
Sir Thurio exclaimed, "There's Silvia; she's mine!"
"Touch her, and you die!" said Valentine.
"I should be a fool to risk anything for her," said Sir Thurio.
"Then you are base," said the duke. "Valentine, you are a brave man. Your banishment
is over. I recall you. You may marry Silvia. You deserve her."
"I thank your Grace," said Valentine, deeply moved, "and yet must ask you one more
boon."
"I grant it," said the duke.
"Pardon these men, your Grace, and give them employment. They are better than their
calling."
"I pardon them and you," said the duke. "Their work from now on shall be for
wages."
"What think you of this page, your Grace?" asked Valentine, indicating
Julia.
The duke glanced at her, and said, "I think the boy has grace in him."
"More grace than boy, say I," laughed Valentine, and the only punishment which
Proteus had to bear for his treacheries against love and friendship was the recital in his
presence of the adventures of Julia-Sebastian of Verona.
THERE was once a wicked Duke named Frederick, who took the dukedom that should have
belonged to his brother, sending him into exile. His brother went into the Forest of Arden,
where he lived the life of a bold forester, as Robin Hood did in Sherwood Forest in merry
England.
The banished Duke's daughter, Rosalind, remained with Celia, Frederick's daughter,
and the two loved each other more than most sisters. One day there was a wrestling match at
Court, and Rosalind and Celia went to see it. Charles, a celebrated wrestler, was there, who
had killed many men in contests of this kind. Orlando, the young man he was to wrestle
with, was so slender and youthful, that Rosalind and Celia thought he would surely be
killed, as others had been; so they spoke to him, and asked him not to attempt so dangerous
an adventure; but the only effect of their words was to make him wish more to come off well
in the encounter, so as to win praise from such sweet ladies.
Orlando, like Rosalind's father, was being kept out of his inheritance by his
brother, and was so sad at his brother's unkindness that, till he saw Rosalind, he did not
care much whether he lived or died. But now the sight of the fair Rosalind gave him strength
and courage, so that he did marvelously, and at last, threw Charles to such a tune, that the
wrestler had to be carried off the ground. Duke Frederick was pleased with his courage, and
asked his name.
"My name is Orlando, and I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys," said the
young man.
Now Sir Rowland de Boys, when he was alive, had been a good friend to the banished
Duke, so that Frederick heard with regret whose son Orlando was, and would not befriend him.
But Rosalind was delighted to hear that this handsome young stranger was the son of her
father's old friend, and as they were going away, she turned back more than once to say
another kind word to the brave young man.
"Gentleman," she said, giving him a chain from her neck, "wear this for me. I could
give more, but that my hand lacks means."
Rosalind and Celia, when they were alone, began to talk about the handsome wrestler,
and Rosalind confessed that she loved him at first sight.
"Come, come," said Celia, "wrestle with your affections."
"Oh," answered Rosalind, "they take the part of a better wrestler than myself. Look,
here comes the duke."
"With his eyes full of anger," said Celia.
"You must leave the court at once," he said to Rosalind. "Why?" she asked.
"Never mind why," answered the duke, "you are banished. If within ten days you are
found within twenty miles of my Court, you die."
So Rosalind set out to seek her father, the banished Duke, in the Forest of Arden.
Celia loved her too much to let her go alone, and as it was rather a dangerous journey,
Rosalind, being the taller, dressed up as a young countryman, and her cousin as a country
girl, and Rosalind said that she would be called Ganymede, and Celia, Aliena. They were very
tired when at last they came to the Forest of Arden, and as they were sitting on the grass a
countryman passed that way, and Ganymede asked him if he could get them food. He did so, and
told them that a shepherd's flocks and house were to be sold. They bought these and settled
down as shepherd and shepherdess in the forest.
In the meantime, Oliver having sought to take his brother Orlando's life, Orlando
also wandered into the forest, and there met with the rightful Duke, and being kindly
received, stayed with him. Now, Orlando could think of nothing but Rosalind, and he went
about the forest carving her name on trees, and writing love sonnets and hanging them on the
bushes, and there Rosalind and Celia found them. One day Orlando met them, but he did not
know Rosalind in her boy's clothes, though he liked the pretty shepherd youth, because he
fancied a likeness in him to her he loved.
"There is a foolish lover," said Rosalind, "who haunts these woods and hangs sonnets
on the trees. If I could find him, I would soon cure him of his folly."
Orlando confessed that he was the foolish lover, and Rosalind said:"If you will come
and see me every day, I will pretend to be Rosalind, and I will take her part, and be
wayward and contrary, as is the way of women, till I make you ashamed of your folly in
loving her."
And so every day he went to her house, and took a pleasure in saying to her all the
pretty things he would have said to Rosalind; and she had the fine and secret joy of knowing
that all his love-words came to the right ears. Thus many days passed pleasantly
away.
One morning, as Orlando was going to visit Ganymede, he saw a man asleep on the
ground, and that there was a lioness crouching near, waiting for the man who was asleep to
wake: for they say that lions will not prey on anything that is dead or sleeping. Then
Orlando looked at the man, and saw that it was his wicked brother, Oliver, who had tried to
take his life. He fought with the lioness and killed her, and saved his brother's
life.
While Orlando was fighting the lioness, Oliver woke to see his brother, whom he had
treated so badly, saving him from a wild beast at the risk of his own life. This made him
repent of his wickedness, and he begged Orlando's pardon, and from tfrom now on they were
dear brothers. The lioness had wounded Orlando's arm so much, that he could not go on to see
the shepherd, so he sent his brother to ask Ganymede to come to him.
Oliver went and told the whole story to Ganymede and Aliena, and Aliena was so
charmed with his manly way of confessing his faults, that she fell in love with him at once.
But when Ganymede heard of the danger Orlando had been in she fainted; and when she came to
herself, said truly enough, "I should have been a woman by right."
Oliver went back to his brother and told him all this, saying, "I love Aliena so
well that I will give up my estates to you and marry her, and live here as a
shepherd."
"Let your wedding be tomorrow," said Orlando, "and I will ask the duke and his
friends."
When Orlando told Ganymede how his brother was to be married on the morrow, he
added: "Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's
eyes."
Then answered Rosalind, still in Ganymede's dress and speaking with his
voice—"If you do love Rosalind so near the heart, then when your brother marries
Aliena, shall you marry her."
Now the next day the duke and his followers, and Orlando, and Oliver, and Aliena,
were all gathered together for the wedding.
Then Ganymede came in and said to the duke, "If I bring in your daughter Rosalind,
will you give her to Orlando here?" "That I would," said the duke, "if I had all kingdoms to
give with her."
"And you say you will have her when I bring her?" she said to Orlando. "That would
I," he answered, "were I king of all kingdoms."
Then Rosalind and Celia went out, and Rosalind put on her pretty woman's clothes
again, and after a while came back.
She turned to her father—"I give myself to you, for I am yours." "If there be
truth in sight," he said, "you are my daughter."
Then she said to Orlando, "I give myself to you, for I am yours." "If there be truth
in sight," he said, "you are my Rosalind."
"I will have no father if you be not he," she said to the duke, and to Orlando, "I
will have no husband if you be not he."
So Orlando and Rosalind were married, and Oliver and Celia, and they lived happy
ever after, returning with the duke to the kingdom. For Frederick had been shown by a holy
hermit the wickedness of his ways, and so gave back the dukedom of his brother, and himself
went into a monastery to pray for forgiveness.
The wedding was a merry one, in the mossy glades of the forest. A shepherd and
shepherdess who had been friends with Rosalind, when she was herself disguised as a
shepherd, were married on the same day, and all with such pretty feastings and merrymakings
as could be nowhere within four walls, but only in the beautiful green wood.
MORE centuries ago than I care to say, the people of Vienna were governed too
mildly. The reason was that the reigning Duke Vicentio was excessively good-natured, and
disliked to see offenders made unhappy.
The consequence was that the number of ill-behaved persons in Vienna was enough to
make the duke shake his head in sorrow when his chief secretary showed him it at the end of
a list. He decided, therefore, that wrongdoers must be punished. But popularity was dear to
him. He knew that, if he were suddenly strict after being lax, he would cause people to call
him a tyrant. For this reason he told his Privy Council that he must go to Poland on
important business of state. "I have chosen Angelo to rule in my absence," said
he.
Now this Angelo, although he appeared to be noble, was really a mean man. He had
promised to marry a girl called Mariana, and now would have nothing to say to her, because
her dowry had been lost. So poor Mariana lived forlornly, waiting every day for the footstep
of her stingy lover, and loving him still.
Having appointed Angelo his deputy, the duke went to a friar called Thomas and asked
him for a friar's dress and instruction in the art of giving religious counsel, for he did
not intend to go to Poland, but to stay at home and see how Angelo governed.
Angelo had not been a day in office when he condemned to death a young man named
Claudio for an act of rash selfishness which nowadays would only be punished by severe
reproof.
Claudio had a queer friend called Lucio, and Lucio saw a chance of freedom for
Claudio if Claudio's beautiful sister Isabella would plead with Angelo.
Isabella was at that time living in a nunnery. Nobody had won her heart, and she
thought she would like to become a sister, or nun.
Meanwhile Claudio did not lack an advocate. An ancient lord, Escalus, was for
leniency. "Let us cut a little, but not kill," he said. "This gentleman had a most noble
father."
Angelo was unmoved. "If twelve men find me guilty, I ask no more mercy than is in
the law."
Angelo then ordered the Provost to see that Claudio was executed at nine the next
morning.
After the issue of this order Angelo was told that the sister of the condemned man
desired to see him.
"Admit her," said Angelo.
On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, "I am a woeful suitor to your
Honor."
"Well?" said Angelo.
She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of
her face. "I have a brother who is condemned to die," she continued. "Condemn the fault, I
pray you, and spare my brother."
"Every fault," said Angelo, "is condemned before it is committed. A fault cannot
suffer. Justice would be void if the committer of a fault went free."
She would have left the court if Lucio had not whispered to her, "You are too cold;
you could not speak more tamely if you wanted a pin."
So Isabella attacked Angelo again, and when he said, "I will not pardon him," she
was not discouraged, and when he said, "He's sentenced; 'tis too late," she returned to the
assault. But all her fighting was with reasons, and with reasons she could not prevail over
the Deputy.
She told him that nothing becomes power like mercy. She told him that humanity
receives and requires mercy from Heaven, that it was good to have gigantic strength, and bad
to use it like a giant. She told him that lightning rives the oak and spares the myrtle. She
bade him look for fault in his own breast, and if he found one, to refrain from making it an
argument against her brother's life.
Angelo found a fault in his breast at that moment. He loved Isabella's beauty, and
was tempted to do for her beauty what he would not do for the love of man.
He appeared to relent, for he said, "Come to me tomorrow before noon."
She had, at any rate, succeeded in prolonging her brother's life for a few
hours.
In her absence Angelo's conscience rebuked him for trifling with his judicial
duty.
When Isabella called on him the second time, he said, "Your brother cannot
live."
Isabella was painfully astonished, but all she said was, "Even so. Heaven keep your
Honor."
But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight in
comparison with the loss of her.
"Give me your love," he said, "and Claudio shall be freed."
"Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay on the
block," said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the just man he pretended to
be.
So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die. At first he
was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death. But when he clearly understood that
his sister could buy his life by marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her
happiness, and he exclaimed, "Sweet sister, let me live."
"O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!" she cried.
At this moment the duke came forward, in the habit of a friar, to request some
speech with Isabella. He called himself Friar Lodowick.
The duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose love-story he
related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go
closely veiled to Angelo, and say, in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio were
spared she would marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo's little finger, that it might
be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana.
Isabella had, of course, a great respect for friars, who are as nearly like nuns as
men can be. She agreed, therefore, to the duke's plan. They were to meet again at the moated
grange, Mariana's house.
In the street the duke saw Lucio, who, seeing a man dressed like a friar, called
out, "What news of the duke, friar?" "I have none," said the duke.
Lucio then told the duke some stories about Angelo. Then he told one about the duke.
The duke contradicted him. Lucio was provoked, and called the duke "a shallow, ignorant
fool," though he pretended to love him. "The duke shall know you better if I live to report
you," said the duke, grimly. Then he asked Escalus, whom he saw in the street, what he
thought of his ducal master. Escalus, who imagined he was speaking to a friar, replied, "The
duke is a very temperate gentleman, who prefers to see another merry to being merry
himself."
The duke then proceeded to call on Mariana.
Isabella arrived at once afterwards, and the duke introduced the two girls to one
another, both of whom thought he was a friar. They went into a chamber apart from him to
discuss the saving of Claudio, and while they talked in low and earnest tones, the duke
looked out of the window and saw the broken sheds and flower-beds black with moss, which
betrayed Mariana's indifference to her country dwelling. Some women would have beautified
their garden: not she. She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the country. He was
sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier.
"We are agreed, father," said Isabella, as she returned with Mariana.
So Angelo was deceived by the girl whom he had dismissed from his love, and put on
her finger a ring he wore, in which was set a milky stone which flashed in the light with
secret colors.
Hearing of her success, the duke went next day to the prison prepared to learn that
an order had arrived for Claudio's release. It had not, however, but a letter was handed to
the Provost while he waited. His amazement was great when the Provost read aloud these
words, "Whatever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock.
Let me have his head sent me by five."
But the duke said to the Provost, "You must show the Deputy another head," and he
held out a letter and a signet. "Here," he said, "are the hand and seal of the duke. He is
to return, I tell you, and Angelo knows it not. Give Angelo another head."
The Provost thought, "This friar speaks with power. I know the duke's signet and I
know his hand."
He said at length, "A man died in prison this morning, a pirate of the age of
Claudio, with a beard of his color. I will show his head."
The pirate's head was duly shown to Angelo, who was deceived by its resemblance to
Claudio's.
The duke's return was so popular that the citizens removed the city gates from their
hinges to assist his entry into Vienna. Angelo and Escalus duly presented themselves, and
were profusely praised for their conduct of affairs in the duke's absence.
It was, therefore, the more unpleasant for Angelo when Isabella, passionately
angered by his treachery, knelt before the duke, and cried for justice.
When her story was told, the duke cried, "To prison with her for a slanderer of our
right hand! But stay, who persuaded you to come here?"
"Friar Lodowick," said she.
"Who knows him?" inquired the duke.
"I do, my lord," replied Lucio. "I beat him because he spake against your
Grace."
A friar called Peter here said, "Friar Lodowick is a holy man."
Isabella was removed by an officer, and Mariana came forward. She took off her veil,
and said to Angelo, "This is the face you once swore was worth looking on."
Bravely he faced her as she put out her hand and said, "This is the hand which wears
the ring you thought to give another."
"I know the woman," said Angelo. "Once there was talk of marriage between us, but I
found her frivolous."
Mariana here burst out that they were affianced by the strongest vows. Angelo
replied by asking the duke to insist on the production of Friar Lodowick.
"He shall appear," promised the duke, and bade Escalus examine the missing witness
thoroughly while he was elsewhere.
Presently the duke re-appeared in the character of Friar Lodowick, and accompanied
by Isabella and the Provost. He was not so much examined as abused and threatened by
Escalus. Lucio asked him to deny, if he dared, that he called the duke a fool and a coward,
and had had his nose pulled for his impudence.
"To prison with him!" shouted Escalus, but as hands were laid on him, the duke
pulled off his friar's hood, and was a Duke before them all.
"Now," he said to Angelo, "if you have any impudence that can yet serve you, work it
for all it's worth."
"Immediate sentence and death is all I beg," was the reply.
"Were you affianced to Mariana?" asked the duke.
"I was," said Angelo.
"Then marry her instantly," said his master. "Marry them," he said to Friar Peter,
"and return with them here."
"Come here, Isabel," said the duke, in tender tones. "Your friar is now your Prince,
and grieves he was too late to save your brother;" but well the roguish Duke knew he had
saved him.
"O pardon me," she cried, "that I employed my Sovereign in my trouble."
"You are pardoned," he said, gaily.
At that moment Angelo and his wife re-entered. "And now, Angelo," said the duke,
gravely, "we condemn you to the block on which Claudio laid his head!"
"O my most gracious lord," cried Mariana, "mock me not!"
"You shall buy a better husband," said the duke.
"O my dear lord," said she, "I crave no better man."
Isabella nobly added her prayer to Mariana's, but the duke feigned
inflexibility.
"Provost," he said, "how came it that Claudio was executed at an unusual
hour?"
Afraid to confess the lie he had imposed on Angelo, the Provost said, "I had a
private message."
"You are discharged from your office," said the duke. The Provost then departed.
Angelo said, "I am sorry to have caused such sorrow. I prefer death to mercy." Soon there
was a motion in the crowd. The Provost re-appeared with Claudio. Like a big child the
Provost said, "I saved this man; he is like Claudio." The duke was amused, and said to
Isabella, "I pardon him because he is like your brother. He is like my brother, too, if you,
dear Isabel, will be mine."
She was his with a smile, and the duke forgave Angelo, and promoted the
Provost.
Lucio he condemned to marry a stout woman with a bitter tongue.
AEGEON was a merchant of Syracuse, which is a seaport in Sicily. His wife was
Aemilia, and they were very happy till Aegeon's manager died, and he was obliged to go by
himself to a place called Epidamnum on the Adriatic. As soon as she could Aemilia followed
him, and after they had been together some time two baby boys were born to them. The babies
were exactly alike; even when they were dressed differently they looked the same.
And now you must believe a very strange thing. At the same inn where these children
were born, and on the same day, two baby boys were born to a much poorer couple than Aemilia
and Aegeon; so poor, indeed, were the parents of these twins that they sold them to the
parents of the other twins.
Aemilia was eager to show her children to her friends in Syracuse, and in
treacherous weather she and Aegeon and the four babies sailed homewards. They were still far
from Syracuse when their ship sprang a leak, and the crew left it in a body by the only
boat, caring little what became of their passengers.
Aemilia fastened one of her children to a mast and tied one of the slave-children to
him; Aegeon followed her example with the remaining children. Then the parents secured
themselves to the same masts, and hoped for safety.
The ship, however, suddenly struck a rock and was split in two, and Aemilia, and the
two children whom she had tied, floated away from Aegeon and the other children. Aemilia and
her charges were picked up by some people of Epidamnum, but some fishermen of Corinth took
the babies from her by force, and she returned to Epidamnum alone, and very miserable.
Afterwards she settled in Ephesus, a famous town in Asia Minor.
Aegeon and his charges were also saved; and, more fortunate than Aemilia, he was
able to return to Syracuse and keep them till they were eighteen. His own child he called
Antipholus, and the slave-child he called Dromio; and, strangely enough, these were the
names given to the children who floated away from him.
At the age of eighteen the son who was with Aegeon grew restless with a desire to
find his brother. Aegeon let him depart with his servant, and the young men are from now on
known as Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse.
Let alone, Aegeon found his home too dreary to dwell in, and traveled for five
years. He did not, during his absence, learn all the news of Syracuse, or he would never
have gone to Ephesus.
As it was, his melancholy wandering ceased in that town, where he was arrested
almost as soon as he arrived. He then found that the duke of Syracuse had been acting in so
tyrannical a manner to Ephesians unlucky enough to fall into his hands, that the Government
of Ephesus had angrily passed a law which punished by death or a fine of a thousand pounds
any Syracusan who should come to Ephesus. Aegeon was brought before Solinus, Duke of
Ephesus, who told him that he must die or pay a thousand pounds before the end of the
day.
You will think there was fate in this when I tell you that the children who were
kidnaped by the fishermen of Corinth were now citizens of Ephesus, whither they had been
brought by Duke Menaphon, an uncle of Duke Solinus. They will from now on be called
Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus.
Moreover, on the very day when Aegeon was arrested, Antipholus of Syracuse landed in
Ephesus and pretended that he came from Epidamnum in order to avoid a penalty. He handed his
money to his servant Dromio of Syracuse, and bade him take it to the Centaur Inn and remain
there till he came.
In less than ten minutes he was met on the Mart by Dromio of Ephesus, his brother's
slave, and at once mistook him for his own Dromio. "Why are you back so soon? Where did you
leave the money?" asked Antipholus of Syracuse.
This Dromio knew of no money except sixpence, which he had received on the previous
Wednesday and given to the saddler; but he did know that his mistress was annoyed because
his master was not in to dinner, and he asked Antipholus of Syracuse to go to a house called
The Phœnix without delay. His speech angered the hearer, who would have beaten him if he had
not fled. Antipholus of Syracuse them went to The Centaur, found that his gold had been
deposited there, and walked out of the inn.
He was wandering about Ephesus when two beautiful ladies signaled to him with their
hands. They were sisters, and their names were Adriana and Luciana. Adriana was the wife of
his brother Antipholus of Ephesus, and she had made up her mind, from the strange account
given her by Dromio of Ephesus, that her husband preferred another woman to his wife. "Ay,
you may look as if you did not know me," she said to the man who was really her
brother-in-law, "but I can remember when no words were sweet unless I said them, no meat
flavorsome unless I carved it."
"Is it I you address?" said Antipholus of Syracuse stiffly. "I do not know
you."
"Fie, brother," said Luciana. "You know perfectly well that she sent Dromio to you
to bid you come to dinner"; and Adriana said, "Come, come; I have been made a fool of long
enough. My truant husband shall dine with me and confess his silly pranks and be
forgiven."
They were determined ladies, and Antipholus of Syracuse grew weary of disputing with
them, and followed them obediently to The Phœnix, where a very late "mid-day" dinner awaited
them.
They were at dinner when Antipholus of Ephesus and his slave Dromio demanded
admittance. "Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cecily, Gillian, Ginn!" shouted Dromio of Ephesus, who
knew all his fellow-servants' names by heart.
From within came the reply, "Fool, dray-horse, coxcomb, idiot!" It was Dromio of
Syracuse unconsciously insulting his brother.
Master and man did their best to get in, short of using a crowbar, and finally went
away; but Antipholus of Ephesus felt so annoyed with his wife that he decided to give a gold
chain which he had promised her, to another woman.
Inside The Phœnix, Luciana, who believed Antipholus of Syracuse to be her sister's
husband, attempted, by a discourse in rhyme, when alone with him, to make him kinder to
Adriana. In reply he told her that he was not married, but that he loved her so much that,
if Luciana were a mermaid, he would gladly lie on the sea if he might feel beneath him her
floating golden hair.
Luciana was shocked and left him, and reported his lovemaking to Adriana, who said
that her husband was old and ugly, and not fit to be seen or heard, though secretly she was
very fond of him.
Antipholus of Syracuse soon received a visitor in the shape of Angelo the goldsmith,
of whom Antipholus of Ephesus had ordered the chain which he had promised his wife and
intended to give to another woman.
The goldsmith handed the chain to Antipholus of Syracuse, and treated his "I bespoke
it not" as mere fun, so that the puzzled merchant took the chain as good-humoredly as he had
partaken of Adriana's dinner. He offered payment, but Angelo foolishly said he would call
again.
The consequence was that Angelo was without money when a creditor of the sort that
stands no nonsense, threatened him with arrest unless he paid his debt at once. This
creditor had brought a police officer with him, and Angelo was relieved to see Antipholus of
Ephesus coming out of the house where he had been dining because he had been locked out of
The Phœnix. Bitter was Angelo's dismay when Antipholus denied receipt of the chain. Angelo
could have sent his mother to prison if she had said that, and he gave Antipholus of Ephesus
in charge.
At this moment up came Dromio of Syracuse and told the wrong Antipholus that he had
shipped his goods, and that a favorable wind was blowing. To the ears of Antipholus of
Ephesus this talk was simple nonsense. He would gladly have beaten the slave, but contented
himself with crossly telling him to hurry to Adriana and bid her send to her arrested
husband a purse of money which she would find in his desk.
Though Adriana was furious with her husband because she thought he had been making
love to her sister, she did not prevent Luciana from getting the purse, and she bade Dromio
of Syracuse bring home his master at once.
Unfortunately, before Dromio could reach the police station he met his real master,
who had never been arrested, and did not understand what he meant by offering him a purse.
Antipholus of Syracuse was further surprised when a lady whom he did not know asked him for
a chain that he had promised her. She was, of course, the lady with whom Antipholus of
Ephesus had dined when his brother was occupying his place at table. "Avaunt, you witch!"
was the answer which, to her astonishment, she received.
Meanwhile Antipholus of Ephesus waited vainly for the money which was to have
released him. Never a good-tempered man, he was crazy with anger when Dromio of Ephesus,
who, of course, had not been instructed to fetch a purse, appeared with nothing more useful
than a rope. He beat the slave in the street despite the remonstrance of the police officer;
and his temper did not mend when Adriana, Luciana, and a doctor arrived under the impression
that he was mad and must have his pulse felt. He raged so much that men came forward to bind
him. But the kindness of Adriana spared him this shame. She promised to pay the sum demanded
of him, and asked the doctor to lead him to The Phœnix.
Angelo's merchant creditor being paid, the two were friendly again, and might soon
have been seen chatting before an abbey about the odd behavior of Antipholus of Ephesus.
"Softly," said the merchant at last, "that's he, I think."
It was not; it was Antipholus of Syracuse with his servant Dromio, and he wore
Angelo's chain round his neck! The reconciled pair fairly pounced on him to know what he
meant by denying the receipt of the chain he had the impudence to wear. Antipholus of
Syracuse lost his temper, and drew his sword, and at that moment Adriana and several others
appeared. "Hold!" shouted the careful wife. "Hurt him not; he is mad. Take his sword away.
Bind him—and Dromio too."
Dromio of Syracuse did not wish to be bound, and he said to his master, "Run,
master! Into that abbey, quick, or we shall be robbed!"
They accordingly retreated into the abbey.
Adriana, Luciana, and a crowd remained outside, and the Abbess came out, and said,
"People, why do you gather here?"
"To fetch my poor distracted husband," replied Adriana.
Angelo and the merchant remarked that they had not known that he was mad.
Adriana then told the Abbess rather too much about her wifely worries, for the
Abbess received the idea that Adriana was a shrew, and that if her husband was distracted he
had better not return to her for the present.
Adriana determined, therefore, to complain to Duke Solinus, and, lo and behold! a
minute afterwards the great man appeared with officers and two others. The others were
Aegeon and the headsman. The thousand marks had not been found, and Aegeon's fate seemed
sealed.
Before the duke could pass the abbey Adriana knelt before him, and told a woeful
tale of a mad husband rushing about stealing jewelry and drawing his sword, adding that the
Abbess refused to allow her to lead him home.
The duke bade the Abbess be summoned, and no sooner had he given the order than a
servant from The Phœnix ran to Adriana with the tale that his master had singed off the
doctor's beard.
"Nonsense!" said Adriana, "he's in the abbey."
"As sure as I live I speak the truth," said the servant.
Antipholus of Syracuse had not come out of the abbey, before his brother of Ephesus
prostrated himself in front of the duke, exclaiming, "Justice, most gracious Duke, against
that woman." He pointed to Adriana. "She has treated another man like her husband in my own
house."
Even while he was speaking Aegeon said, "Unless I am delirious, I see my son
Antipholus."
No one noticed him, and Antipholus of Ephesus went on to say how the doctor, whom he
called "a threadbare juggler," had been one of a gang who tied him to his slave Dromio, and
thrust them into a vault whence he had escaped by gnawing through his bonds.
The duke could not understand how the same man who spoke to him was seen to go into
the abbey, and he was still wondering when Aegeon asked Antipholus of Ephesus if he was not
his son. He replied, "I never saw my father in my life;" but so deceived was Aegeon by his
likeness to the brother whom he had brought up, that he said, "You art ashamed to
acknowledge me in misery."
Soon, however, the Abbess advanced with Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of
Syracuse.
Then cried Adriana, "I see two husbands or mine eyes deceive me;" and Antipholus,
espying his father, said, "You art Aegeon or his ghost."
It was a day of surprises, for the Abbess said, "I will free that man by paying his
fine, and gain my husband whom I lost. Speak, Aegeon, for I am your wife Aemilia."
The duke was touched. "He is free without a fine," he said.
So Aegeon and Aemilia were reunited, and Adriana and her husband reconciled; but no
one was happier than Antipholus of Syracuse, who, in the duke's presence, went to Luciana
and said, "I told you I loved you. Will you be my wife?"
Her answer was given by a look, and therefore is not written.
The two Dromios were glad to think they would receive no more beatings.
LEONTES was the king of Sicily, and his dearest friend was Polixenes, King of
Bohemia. They had been brought up together, and only separated when they reached man's
estate and each had to go and rule over his kingdom. After many years, when each was married
and had a son, Polixenes came to stay with Leontes in Sicily.
Leontes was a violent-tempered man and rather silly, and he took it into his stupid
head that his wife, Hermione, liked Polixenes better than she did him, her own husband. When
once he had got this into his head, nothing could put it out; and he ordered one of his
lords, Camillo, to put a poison in Polixenes' wine. Camillo tried to dissuade him from this
wicked action, but finding he was not to be moved, pretended to consent. He then told
Polixenes what was proposed against him, and they fled from the court of Sicily that night,
and returned to Bohemia, where Camillo lived on as Polixenes' friend and
counselor.
Leontes threw the queen into prison; and her son, the heir to the throne, died of
sorrow to see his mother so unjustly and cruelly treated.
While the queen was in prison she had a little baby, and a friend of hers, named
Paulina, had the baby dressed in its best, and took it to show the king, thinking that the
sight of his helpless little daughter would soften his heart towards his dear Queen, who had
never done him any wrong, and who loved him a great deal more than he deserved; but the king
would not look at the baby, and ordered Paulina's husband to take it away in a ship, and
leave it in the most desert and dreadful place he could find, which Paulina's husband, very
much against his will, was obliged to do.
Then the poor Queen was brought up to be tried for treason in preferring Polixenes
to her King; but really she had never thought of anyone except Leontes, her husband. Leontes
had sent some messengers to ask the god, Apollo, whether he was not right in his cruel
thoughts of the queen. But he had not patience to wait till they came back, and so it
happened that they arrived in the middle of the trial. The Oracle said:
"Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a
jealous tyrant, and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not
found."
Then a man came and told them that the little Prince was dead. The poor Queen,
hearing this, fell down in a fit; and then the king saw how wicked and wrong he had been. He
ordered Paulina and the ladies who were with the queen to take her away, and try to restore
her. But Paulina came back in a few moments, and told the king that Hermione was
dead.
Now Leontes' eyes were at last opened to his folly. His Queen was dead, and the
little daughter who might have been a comfort to him he had sent away to be the prey of
wolves and kites. Life had nothing left for him now. He gave himself up to his grief, and
passed many sad years in prayer and remorse.
The baby Princess was left on the seacoast of Bohemia, the very kingdom where
Polixenes reigned. Paulina's husband never went home to tell Leontes where he had left the
baby; for as he was going back to the ship, he met a bear and was torn to pieces. So there
was an end of him.
But the poor deserted little baby was found by a shepherd. She was richly dressed,
and had with her some jewels, and a paper was pinned to her cloak, saying that her name was
Perdita, and that she came of noble parents.
The shepherd, being a kind-hearted man, took home the little baby to his wife, and
they brought it up as their own child. She had no more teaching than a shepherd's child
generally has, but she inherited from her royal mother many graces and charms, so that she
was quite different from the other maidens in the village where she lived.
One day Prince Florizel, the son of the good King of Bohemia, was hunting near the
shepherd's house and saw Perdita, now grown up to a charming woman. He made friends with the
shepherd, not telling him that he was the prince, but saying that his name was Doricles, and
that he was a private gentleman; and then, being deeply in love with the pretty Perdita, he
came almost daily to see her.
The king could not understand what it was that took his son nearly every day from
home; so he set people to watch him, and then found out that the heir of the king of Bohemia
was in love with Perdita, the pretty shepherd girl. Polixenes, wishing to see whether this
was true, disguised himself, and went with the faithful Camillo, in disguise too, to the old
shepherd's house. They arrived at the feast of sheep-shearing, and, though strangers, they
were made very welcome. There was dancing going on, and a peddler was selling ribbons and
laces and gloves, which the young men bought for their sweethearts.
Florizel and Perdita, however, were taking no part in this gay scene, but sat
quietly together talking. The king noticed the charming manners and great beauty of Perdita,
never guessing that she was the daughter of his old friend, Leontes. He said to
Camillo:
"This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward. Nothing she
does or seems but smacks of something greater than herself—too noble for this
place."
And Camillo answered, "In truth she is the queen of curds and cream."
But when Florizel, who did not recognize his father, called on the strangers to
witness his betrothal with the pretty shepherdess, the king made himself known and forbade
the marriage, adding that if ever she saw Florizel again, he would kill her and her old
father, the shepherd; and with that he left them. But Camillo remained behind, for he was
charmed with Perdita, and wished to befriend her.
Camillo had long known how sorry Leontes was for that foolish madness of his, and he
longed to go back to Sicily to see his old master. He now proposed that the young people
should go there and claim the protection of Leontes. So they went, and the shepherd went
with them, taking Perdita's jewels, her baby clothes, and the paper he had found pinned to
her cloak.
Leontes received them with great kindness. He was very polite to Prince Florizel,
but all his looks were for Perdita. He saw how much she was like the queen Hermione, and
said again and again:
"Such a sweet creature my daughter might have been, if I had not cruelly sent her
from me."
When the old shepherd heard that the king had lost a baby daughter, who had been
left on the coast of Bohemia, he felt sure that Perdita, the child he had reared, must be
the king's daughter, and when he told his tale and showed the jewels and the paper, the king
perceived that Perdita was indeed his long-lost child. He welcomed her with joy, and
rewarded the good shepherd.
Polixenes had hastened after his son to prevent his marriage with Perdita, but when
he found that she was the daughter of his old friend, he was only too glad to give his
consent.
Yet Leontes could not be happy. He remembered how his fair Queen, who should have
been at his side to share his joy in his daughter's happiness, was dead through his
unkindness, and he could say nothing for a long time but—
"Oh, your mother! your mother!" and ask forgiveness of the king of Bohemia, and then
kiss his daughter again, and then the prince Florizel, and then thank the old shepherd for
all his goodness.
Then Paulina, who had been high all these years in the king's favor, because of her
kindness to the dead Queen Hermione, said:"I have a statue made in the likeness of the dead
Queen, a piece many years in doing, and performed by the rare Italian master, Giulio Romano.
I keep it in a private house apart, and there, ever since you lost your queen, I have gone
twice or thrice a day. Will it please your Majesty to go and see the statue?"
So Leontes and Polixenes, and Florizel and Perdita, with Camillo and their
attendants, went to Paulina's house where there was a heavy purple curtain screening off an
alcove; and Paulina, with her hand on the curtain, said:
"She was peerless when she was alive, and I do believe that her dead likeness excels
whatever yet you have looked on, or that the hand of man hath done. Therefore I keep it
lonely, apart. But here it is—behold, and say, 'tis well."
And with that she drew back the curtain and showed them the statue. The king gazed
and gazed on the beautiful statue of his dead wife, but said nothing.
"I like your silence," said Paulina; "it the more shows off your wonder. But speak,
is it not like her?"
"It is almost herself," said the king, "and yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much
wrinkled, nothing like so old as this seems."
"Oh, not by much," said Polixenes.
"Ah," said Paulina, "that is the cleverness of the carver, who shows her to us as
she would have been had she lived till now."
And still Leontes looked at the statue and could not take his eyes away.
"If I had known," said Paulina, "that this poor image would so have stirred your
grief, and love, I would not have shown it to you."
But he only answered, "Do not draw the curtain."
"No, you must not look any longer," said Paulina, "or you will think it
moves."
"Let be! let be!" said the king. "Would you not think it breathed?"
"I will draw the curtain," said Paulina; "you will think it lives
presently."
"Ah, sweet Paulina," said Leontes, "make me to think so twenty years
together."
"If you can bear it," said Paulina, "I can make the statue move, make it come down
and take you by the hand. Only you would think it was by wicked magic."
"Whatever you can make her do, I am content to look on," said the king.
And then, all folks there admiring and beholding, the statue moved from its
pedestal, and came down the steps and put its arms round the king's neck, and he held her
face and kissed her many times, for this was no statue, but the real living Queen Hermione
herself. She had lived hidden, by Paulina's kindness, all these years, and would not
discover herself to her husband, though she knew he had repented, because she could not
quite forgive him till she knew what had become of her little baby.
Now that Perdita was found, she forgave her husband everything, and it was like a
new and beautiful marriage to them, to be together once more.
Florizel and Perdita were married and lived long and happily.
To Leontes his many years of suffering were well paid for in the moment when, after
long grief and pain, he felt the arms of his true love around him once again.
IN the year thirteen hundred and something, the countess of Rousillon was unhappy in
her palace near the Pyrenees. She had lost her husband, and the king of France had summoned
her son Bertram to Paris, hundreds of miles away.
Bertram was a pretty youth with curling hair, finely arched eyebrows, and eyes as
keen as a hawk's. He was as proud as ignorance could make him, and would lie with a face
like truth itself to gain a selfish end. But a pretty youth is a pretty youth, and Helena
was in love with him.
Helena was the daughter of a great doctor who had died in the service of the count
of Rousillon. Her sole fortune consisted in a few of her father's prescriptions.
When Bertram had gone, Helena's forlorn look was noticed by the countess, who told
her that she was exactly the same to her as her own child. Tears then gathered in Helena's
eyes, for she felt that the countess made Bertram seem like a brother whom she could never
marry. The countess guessed her secret forthwith, and Helena confessed that Bertram was to
her as the sun is to the day.
She hoped, however, to win this sun by earning the gratitude of the king of France,
who suffered from a lingering illness, which made him lame. The great doctors attached to
the court despaired of curing him, but Helena had confidence in a prescription which her
father had used with success.
Taking an affectionate leave of the countess, she went to Paris, and was allowed to
see the king.
He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack. "It would not become
me," he said, "to apply to a simple maiden for the relief which all the learned doctors
cannot give me."
"Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes," said Helena, and she declared that she
would forfeit her life if she failed to make him well.
"And if you succeed?" questioned the king.
"Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom I
choose!"
So earnest a young lady could not be resisted for ever by a suffering king. Helena,
therefore, became the king's doctor, and in two days the royal cripple could skip.
He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in the throne room of
his palace. Well might the country girl have been dazzled, and seen a dozen husbands worth
dreaming of among the handsome young noblemen before her. But her eyes only wandered till
they found Bertram. Then she went up to him, and said, "I dare not say I take you, but I am
yours!" Raising her voice that the king might hear, she added, "This is the man!"
"Bertram," said the king, "take her; she's your wife!"
"My wife, my liege?" said Bertram. "I beg your Majesty to permit me to choose a
wife."
"Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your king?" asked the monarch, who had
treated Bertram like a son.
"Yes, your Majesty," replied Bertram; "but why should I marry a girl who owes her
breeding to my father's charity?"
"You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title," said the king;
and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and he added, "Strange that you
think so much of blood when you could not distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw
them mixed together in a bowl."
"I cannot love her," asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently, "Urge him not, your
Majesty. I am glad to have cured my King for my country's sake."
"My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience," said the king. "Bertram, make up
your mind to this. You marry this lady, of whom you are so unworthy, or you learn how a king
can hate. Your answer?"
Bertram bowed low and said, "Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by your interest in
her. I submit."
"Take her by the hand," said the king, "and tell her she is yours."
Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was married to Helena.
Fear of the king, however, could not make him a lover. Ridicule helped to sour him.
A base soldier named Parolles told him to his face that now he had a "kicky-wicky" his
business was not to fight but to stay at home. "Kicky-wicky" was only a silly epithet for a
wife, but it made Bertram feel he could not bear having a wife, and that he must go to the
war in Italy, though the king had forbidden him.
Helena he ordered to take leave of the king and return to Rousillon, giving her
letters for his mother and herself. He then rode off, bidding her a cold good-bye.
She opened the letter addressed to herself, and read, "When you can get the ring
from my finger you can call me husband, but against that 'when' I write 'never.' "
Dry-eyed had Helena been when she entered the king's presence and said farewell, but
he was uneasy on her account, and gave her a ring from his own finger, saying, "If you send
this to me, I shall know you are in trouble, and help you."
She did not show him Bertram's letter to his wife; it would have made him wish to
kill the truant Count; but she went back to Rousillon and handed her mother-in-law the
second letter. It was short and bitter. "I have run away," it said. "If the world be broad
enough, I will be always far away from her."
"Cheer up," said the noble widow to the deserted wife. "I wash his name out of my
blood, and you alone are my child."
The Dowager Countess, however, was still mother enough to Bertram to lay the blame
of his conduct on Parolles, whom she called "a very tainted fellow."
Helena did not stay long at Rousillon. She clad herself as a pilgrim, and, leaving a
letter for her mother-in-law, secretly set out for Florence.
On entering that city she inquired of a woman the way to the Pilgrims' House of
Rest, but the woman begged "the holy pilgrim" to lodge with her.
Helena found that her hostess was a widow, who had a beautiful daughter named
Diana.
When Diana heard that Helena came from France, she said, "A countryman of yours,
Count Rousillon, has done worthy service for Florence." But after a time, Diana had
something to tell which was not at all worthy of Helena's husband. Bertram was making love
to Diana. He did not hide the fact that he was married, but Diana heard from Parolles that
his wife was not worth caring for.
The widow was anxious for Diana's sake, and Helena decided to inform her that she
was the countess Rousillon.
"He keeps asking Diana for a lock of her hair," said the widow.
Helena smiled mournfully, for her hair was as fine as Diana's and of the same color.
Then an idea struck her, and she said, "Take this purse of gold for yourself. I will give
Diana three thousand crowns if she will help me to carry out this plan. Let her promise to
give a lock of her hair to my husband if he will give her the ring which he wears on his
finger. It is an ancestral ring. Five Counts of Rousillon have worn it, yet he will yield
it up for a lock of your daughter's hair. Let your daughter insist that he shall cut the
lock of hair from her in a dark room, and agree in advance that she shall not speak a single
word."
The widow listened attentively, with the purse of gold in her lap. She said at last,
"I consent, if Diana is willing."
Diana was willing, and, strange to say, the prospect of cutting off a lock of hair
from a silent girl in a dark room was so pleasing to Bertram that he handed Diana his ring,
and was told when to follow her into the dark room. At the time appointed he came with a
sharp knife, and felt a sweet face touch his as he cut off the lock of hair, and he left the
room satisfied, like a man who is filled with renown, and on his finger was a ring which the
girl in the dark room had given him.
The war was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught Bertram that the
soldier who had been impudent enough to call Helena his "kicky-wicky" was far less
courageous than a wife. Parolles was such a boaster, and so fond of trimmings to his
clothes, that the French officers played him a trick to discover what he was made of. He had
lost his drum, and had said that he would regain it unless he was killed in the attempt. His
attempt was a very poor one, and he was inventing the story of a heroic failure, when he was
surrounded and disarmed.
"Portotartarossa," said a French lord.
"What horrible lingo is this?" thought Parolles, who had been blindfolded.
"He's calling for the tortures," said a Frenchman, affecting to act as interpreter.
"What will you say without them?"
"As much," replied Parolles, "as I could possibly say if you pinched me like a
pasty." He was as good as his word. He told them how many there were in each regiment of the
Florentine army, and he refreshed them with spicy anecdotes of the officers commanding
it.
Bertram was present, and heard a letter read, in which Parolles told Diana that he
was a fool.
"This is your devoted friend," said a French lord.
"He is a cat to me now," said Bertram, who detested our hearthrug pets.
Parolles was finally let go, but from now on he felt like a sneak, and was not
addicted to boasting.
We now return to France with Helena, who had spread a report of her death, which was
conveyed to the Dowager Countess at Rousillon by Lafeu, a lord who wished to marry his
daughter Magdalen to Bertram.
The king mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed for Bertram,
and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it accomplished.
"His great offense is dead," he said. "Let Bertram approach me."
Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign, and said that if he
had not loved Lafeu's daughter before he married Helena, he would have prized his wife, whom
he now loved when it was too late.
"Love that is late offends the Great Sender," said the king. "Forget sweet Helena,
and give a ring to Magdalen."
Bertram at once gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly, "It's
Helena's!"
"It's not!" said Bertram.
Hereupon the king asked to look at the ring, and said, "This is the ring I gave to
Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she needed help. So you had the cunning to get from
her what could help her most."
Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena's, but even his mother said it
was.
"You lie!" exclaimed the king. "Seize him, guards!" but even while they were seizing
him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he thought Diana had given him, came to be so like
Helena's.
A gentleman now entered, craving permission to deliver a petition to the king. It
was a petition signed Diana Capilet, and it begged that the king would order Bertram to
marry her whom he had deserted after winning her love.
"I'd sooner buy a son-in-law at a fair than take Bertram now," said Lafeu.
"Admit the petitioner," said the king.
Bertram found himself confronted by Diana and her mother. He denied that Diana had
any claim on him, and spoke of her as though her life was spent in the gutter. But she asked
him what sort of gentlewoman it was to whom he gave, as to her he gave, the ring of his
ancestors now missing from his finger?
Bertram was ready to sink into the earth, but fate had one crowning generosity
reserved for him. Helena entered.
"Do I see reality?" asked the king.
"O pardon! pardon!" cried Bertram.
She held up his ancestral ring. "Now that I have this," said she, "will you love me,
Bertram?"
"To the end of my life," cried he.
"My eyes smell onions," said Lafeu. Tears for Helena were twinkling in
them.
The king praised Diana when he was fully informed by that not very shy young lady of
the meaning of her conduct. For Helena's sake she had wished to expose Bertram's meanness,
not only to the king, but to himself. His pride was now in shreds, and it is believed that
he made a husband of some sort after all.
PROSPERO, the duke of Milan, was a learned and studious man, who lived among his
books, leaving the management of his dukedom to his brother Antonio, in whom indeed he had
complete trust. But that trust was ill-rewarded, for Antonio wanted to wear the duke's crown
himself, and, to gain his ends, would have killed his brother but for the love the people
bore him. However, with the help of Prospero's great enemy, Alonso, King of Naples, he
managed to get into his hands the dukedom with all its honor, power, and riches. For they
took Prospero to sea, and when they were far away from land, forced him into a little boat
with no tackle, mast, or sail. In their cruelty and hatred they put his little daughter,
Miranda (not yet three years old), into the boat with him, and sailed away, leaving them to
their fate.
But one among the courtiers with Antonio was true to his rightful master, Prospero.
To save the duke from his enemies was impossible, but much could be done to remind him of a
subject's love. So this worthy lord, whose name was Gonzalo, secretly placed in the boat
some fresh water, provisions, and clothes, and what Prospero valued most of all, some of his
precious books.
The boat was cast on an island, and Prospero and his little one landed in safety.
Now this island was enchanted, and for years had lain under the spell of a fell witch,
Sycorax, who had imprisoned in the trunks of trees all the good spirits she found there. She
died shortly before Prospero was cast on those shores, but the spirits, of whom Ariel was
the chief, still remained in their prisons.
Prospero was a great magician, for he had devoted himself almost entirely to the
study of magic during the years in which he allowed his brother to manage the affairs of
Milan. By his art he set free the imprisoned spirits, yet kept them obedient to his will,
and they were more truly his subjects than his people in Milan had been. For he treated them
kindly as long as they did his bidding, and he exercised his power over them wisely and
well. One creature alone he found it necessary to treat with harshness: this was Caliban,
the son of the wicked old witch, a hideous, deformed monster, horrible to look on, and
vicious and brutal in all his habits.
When Miranda was grown up into a maiden, sweet and fair to see, it chanced that
Antonio and Alonso, with Sebastian, his brother, and Ferdinand, his son, were at sea
together with old Gonzalo, and their ship came near Prospero's island. Prospero, knowing
they were there, raised by his art a great storm, so that even the sailors on board gave
themselves up for lost; and first among them all Prince Ferdinand leaped into the sea, and,
as his father thought in his grief, was drowned. But Ariel brought him safe ashore; and all
the rest of the crew, although they were washed overboard, were landed unhurt in different
parts of the island, and the good ship herself, which they all thought had been wrecked, lay
at anchor in the harbor whither Ariel had brought her. Such wonders could Prospero and his
spirits perform.
While yet the tempest was raging, Prospero showed his daughter the brave ship
laboring in the trough of the sea, and told her that it was filled with living human beings
like themselves. She, in pity of their lives, prayed him who had raised this storm to quell
it. Then her father bade her to have no fear, for he intended to save every one of
them.
Then, for the first time, he told her the story of his life and hers, and that he
had caused this storm to rise in order that his enemies, Antonio and Alonso, who were on
board, might be delivered into his hands.
When he had made an end of his story he charmed her into sleep, for Ariel was at
hand, and he had work for him to do. Ariel, who longed for his complete freedom, grumbled to
be kept in drudgery, but on being threateningly reminded of all the sufferings he had
undergone when Sycorax ruled in the land, and of the debt of gratitude he owed to the master
who had made those sufferings to end, he ceased to complain, and promised faithfully to do
whatever Prospero might command.
"Do so," said Prospero, "and in two days I will discharge you."
Then he bade Ariel take the form of a water nymph and sent him in search of the
young prince. And Ariel, invisible to Ferdinand, hovered near him, singing the
while:
"Come to these yellow sands
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
(The wild waves whist),
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear!"
And Ferdinand followed the magic singing, as the song changed to a solemn air, and the words
brought grief to his heart, and tears to his eyes, for thus they ran:
"Full fathom five your father lies;
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding dong bell!"
And so singing, Ariel led the spell-bound prince into the presence of Prospero and Miranda.
Then, behold! all happened as Prospero desired. For Miranda, who had never, since she could
first remember, seen any human being save her father, looked on the youthful prince with
reverence in her eyes, and love in her secret heart.
"I might call him," she said, "a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so
noble!"
And Ferdinand, beholding her beauty with wonder and delight, exclaimed:
"Most sure the goddess on whom these airs attend!"
Nor did he attempt to hide the passion which she inspired in him, for scarcely had
they exchanged half a dozen sentences, before he vowed to make her his queen if she were
willing. But Prospero, though secretly delighted, pretended wrath.
"You come here as a spy," he said to Ferdinand. "I will manacle your neck and feet
together, and you shall feed on fresh water mussels, withered roots and husk, and have
sea-water to drink. Follow."
"No," said Ferdinand, and drew his sword. But on the instant Prospero charmed him so
that he stood there like a statue, still as stone; and Miranda in terror prayed her father
to have mercy on her lover. But he harshly refused her, and made Ferdinand follow him to his
cell. There he set the prince to work, making him remove thousands of heavy logs of timber
and pile them up; and Ferdinand patiently obeyed, and thought his toil all too well repaid
by the sympathy of the sweet Miranda.
She in very pity would have helped him in his hard work, but he would not let her,
yet he could not keep from her the secret of his love, and she, hearing it, rejoiced and
promised to be his wife.
Then Prospero released him from his servitude, and glad at heart, he gave his
consent to their marriage.
"Take her," he said, "she is thine own."
In the meantime, Antonio and Sebastian in another part of the island were plotting
the murder of Alonso, the king of Naples, for Ferdinand being dead, as they thought,
Sebastian would succeed to the throne on Alonso's death. And they would have carried out
their wicked purpose while their victim was asleep, but that Ariel woke him in good
time.
Many tricks did Ariel play them. Once he set a banquet before them, and just as they
were going to fall to, he appeared to them amid thunder and lightning in the form of a
harpy, and at once the banquet disappeared. Then Ariel upbraided them with their sins and
vanished too.
Prospero by his enchantments drew them all to the grove without his cell, where they
waited, trembling and afraid, and now at last bitterly repenting them of their
sins.
Prospero determined to make one last use of his magic power, "And then," said he,
"I'll break my staff and deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book."
So he made heavenly music to sound in the air, and appeared to them in his proper
shape as the duke of Milan. Because they repented, he forgave them and told them the story
of his life since they had cruelly committed him and his baby daughter to the mercy of wind
and waves. Alonso, who seemed sorriest of them all for his past crimes, lamented the loss of
his heir. But Prospero drew back a curtain and showed them Ferdinand and Miranda playing at
chess. Great was Alonso's joy to greet his loved son again, and when he heard that the fair
maid with whom Ferdinand was playing was Prospero's daughter, and that the young folks had
plighted their troth, he said:
"Give me your hands, let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart that doth not wish
you joy."
So all ended happily. The ship was safe in the harbor, and next day they all set
sail for Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda were to be married. Ariel gave them calm seas
and auspicious gales; and many were the rejoicings at the wedding.
Then Prospero, after many years of absence, went back to his own dukedom, where he
was welcomed with great joy by his faithful subjects. He practiced the arts of magic no
more, but his life was happy, and not only because he had found his own again, but chiefly
because, when his bitterest foes who had done him deadly wrong lay at his mercy, he took no
vengeance on them, but nobly forgave them.
As for Ariel, Prospero made him free as air, so that he could wander where he would,
and sing with a light heart his sweet song:
"Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."
THERE lived in Padua a gentleman named Baptista, who had two fair daughters. The
eldest, Katharine, was so very cross and ill-tempered, and unmannerly, that no one ever
dreamed of marrying her, while her sister, Bianca, was so sweet and pretty, and
pleasant-spoken, that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand. But Baptista said
the elder daughter must marry first.
So Bianca's suitors decided among themselves to try and get some one to marry
Katharine—and then the father could at least be got to listen to their suit for
Bianca.
A gentleman from Verona, named Petruchio, was the one they thought of, and, half in
jest, they asked him if he would marry Katharine, the disagreeable scold. Much to their
surprise he said yes, that was just the sort of wife for him, and if Katharine were handsome
and rich, he himself would undertake soon to make her good-tempered.
Petruchio began by asking Baptista's permission to pay court to his gentle daughter
Katharine—and Baptista was obliged to own that she was anything but gentle. And just
then her music master rushed in, complaining that the naughty girl had broken her lute over
his head, because he told her she was not playing correctly.
"Never mind," said Petruchio, "I love her better than ever, and long to have some
chat with her."
When Katharine came, he said, "Good-morrow, Kate—for that, I hear, is your
name."
"You've only heard half," said Katharine, rudely.
"Oh, no," said Petruchio, "they call you plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes
Kate the shrew, and so, hearing your mildness praised in every town, and your beauty too, I
ask you for my wife."
"Your wife!" cried Kate. "Never!" She said some extremely disagreeable things to
him, and, I am sorry to say, ended by boxing his ears.
"If you do that again, I'll cuff you," he said quietly; and still protested, with
many compliments, that he would marry none but her.
When Baptista came back, he asked at once:
"How speed you with my daughter?"
"How should I speed but well," replied Petruchio—"how, but well?"
"How now, daughter Katharine?" the father went on.
"I don't think," said Katharine, angrily, "you are acting a father's part in wishing
me to marry this mad-cap ruffian."
"Ah!" said Petruchio, "you and all the world would talk amiss of her. You should see
how kind she is to me when we are alone. In short, I will go off to Venice to buy fine
things for our wedding—for—kiss me, Kate! we will be married on Sunday."
With that, Katharine flounced out of the room by one door in a violent temper, and
he, laughing, went out by the other. But whether she fell in love with Petruchio, or whether
she was only glad to meet a man who was not afraid of her, or whether she was flattered
that, in spite of her rough words and spiteful usage, he still desired her for his
wife—she did indeed marry him on Sunday, as he had sworn she should.
To vex and humble Katharine's naughty, proud spirit, he was late at the wedding, and
when he came, came wearing such shabby clothes that she was ashamed to be seen with him. His
servant was dressed in the same shabby way, and the horses they rode were the sport of
everyone they passed.
And, after the marriage, when should have been the wedding breakfast, Petruchio
carried his wife away, not allowing her to eat or drink—saying that she was his now,
and he could do as he liked with her.
And his manner was so violent, and he behaved all through his wedding in so mad and
dreadful a manner, that Katharine trembled and went with him. He mounted her on a stumbling,
lean, old horse, and they journeyed by rough muddy ways to Petruchio's house, he scolding
and snarling all the way.
She was terribly tired when she reached her new home, but Petruchio was determined
that she should neither eat nor sleep that night, for he had made up his mind to teach his
bad-tempered wife a lesson she would never forget.
So he welcomed her kindly to his house, but when supper was served he found fault
with everything—the meat was burnt, he said, and ill-served, and he loved her far too
much to let her eat anything but the best. At last Katharine, tired out with her journey,
went supperless to bed. Then her husband, still telling her how he loved her, and how
anxious he was that she should sleep well, pulled her bed to pieces, throwing the pillows
and bedclothes on the floor, so that she could not go to bed at all, and still kept growling
and scolding at the servants so that Kate might see how unbeautiful a thing ill-temper
was.
The next day, too, Katharine's food was all found fault with, and caught away before
she could touch a mouthful, and she was sick and giddy for want of sleep. Then she said to
one of the servants:
"I pray you go and get me some repast. I care not what."
"What say you to a neat's foot?" said the servant.
Katharine said "Yes," eagerly; but the servant, who was in his master's secret, said
he fe |
7 
2 
2 
Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed
throughout: