Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
While Antipholus of Syracuse was dining with his brother’s wife,
his brother, the real husband, returned home to dinner with his
slave Dromio; but the servants would not open the door, because
their mistress had ordered them not to admit any company; and
when they repeatedly knocked, and said they were Antipholus and
Dromio, the maids laughed at them, and said that Antipholus was
at dinner with their mistress, and Dromio was in the kitchen, and
though they almost knocked the door down, they could not gain
admittance, and at last Antipholus went away very angry, and
strangely surprised at, hearing a gentleman was dining with his
wife.
When Antipholus of Syracuse had finished his dinner, he was so
perplexed at the lady’s still persisting in calling him husband,
and at hearing that Dromio had also been claimed by the cookmaid,
that he left the house as soon as he could find any pretense to
get away; for though he was very much pleased with Luciana, the
sister, yet the jealous-tempered Adriana he disliked very much,
nor was Dromio at all better satisfied with his fair wife in the
kitchen; therefore both master and man were glad to get away from
their new wives as fast as they could.
The moment Antipholus of Syracuse had left the house he was met
by a goldsmith, who, mistaking him, as Adriana had done, for
Antipholus of Ephesus, gave him a gold chain, calling him by his
name; and when Antipholus would have refused the chain, saying it
did not belong to him, the goldsmith replied he made it by his
own orders, and went away, leaving the chain in the hands of
Antipholus, who ordered his man Dromio to get his things on board
a ship, not choosing to stay in a place any longer where he met
with such strange adventures that he surely thought himself
bewitched.
The goldsmith who had given the chain to the wrong Antipholus was
arrested immediately after for a sum of money he owed; and
Antipholus, the married brother, to whom the goldsmith thought he
had given the chain, happened to come to the place where the
officer was arresting the goldsmith, who, when he saw Antipholus,
asked him to pay for the gold chain he had just delivered to him,
the price amounting to nearly the same sum as that for which he
had been arrested. Antipholus denying the having received the
chain, and the goldsmith persisting to declare that he had but a
few minutes before given it to him, they disputed this matter a
long time, both thinking they were right; for Antipholus knew the
goldsmith never gave him the chain, and so like were the two
brothers, the goldsmith was as certain he had delivered the chain
into his hands, till at last the officer took the goldsmith away
to prison for the debt he owed, and at the same time the
goldsmith made the officer arrest Antipholus for the price of the
chain; so that at the conclusion of their dispute Antipholus and
the merchant were both taken away to prison together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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