Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
Joyful congratulations and affectionate greetings between these
long-separated parents and their children made them for a while
forget that Aegeon was yet under sentence of death. When they
were become a little calm, Antipholus of Ephesus offered the duke
the ransom money for his father’s life; but the duke freely
pardoned Aegeon, and would not take the money. And the duke went
with the abbess and her newly found husband and children into the
convent, to hear this happy family discourse at leisure of the
blessed ending of their adverse fortunes. And the two Dromios’
humble joy must not be forgotten; they had their congratulations
and greetings, too, and each Dromio pleasantly complimented his
brother on his good looks, being well pleased to see his own
person (as in a glass) show so handsome in his brother.
Adriana had so well profited by the good counsel of her
mother-in-law that she never after cherished unjust suspicions
nor was jealous of her husband.
Antipholus of Syracuse married the fair Luciana, the sister of
his brother’s wife; and the good old Aegeon, with his wife and
sons, lived at Ephesus many years. Nor did the unraveling of
these perplexities so entirely remove every ground of mistake for
the future but that sometimes, to remind them of adventures past,
comical blunders would happen, and the one Antipholus, and the
one Dromio, be mistaken for the other, making altogether a
pleasant and diverting Comedy of Errors.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
In the city of Vienna there once reigned a duke of such a mild
and gentle temper that he suffered his subjects to neglect the
laws with impunity; and there was in particular one law the
existence of which was almost forgotten, the duke never having
put it in force during his whole reign. This was a law dooming
any man to the punishment of death who should live with a woman
that was not his wife; and this law, through the lenity of the
duke, being utterly disregarded, the holy institution of marriage
became neglected, and complaints were every day made to the duke
by the parents of the young ladies in Vienna that their daughters
had been seduced from their protection and were living as the
companions of single men.
The good duke perceived with sorrow this growing evil among his
subjects; but he thought that a sudden change in himself from the
indulgence he had hitherto shown, to the strict severity
requisite to check this abuse, would make his people (who had
hitherto loved him) consider him as a tyrant; therefore he
determined to absent himself awhile from his dukedom and depute
another to the full exercise of his power, that the law against
these dishonorable lovers might be put in effect, without giving
offense by an unusual severity in his own person.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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