Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
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 unravelling 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 a
while from his dukedom, and depute another to the full exercise of his
power, that the law against these dishonourable lovers might be put in
effect, without giving offence by an unusual severity in kits own
person.
Angelo, a man who bore the reputation of a saint in Vienna for his
strict and rigid life, was chosen by the duke as a fit person to
undertake this important change; and when the duke imparted his design
to lord Escalus, his chief counsellor, Escalus said: 'If any man in
Vienna be of worth to undergo such ample grace and honour, it is lord
Angelo.' And now the duke departed from Vienna under presence of making
a journey into Poland, leaving Angelo to act as the lord deputy in his
absence; but the duke's absence was only a feigned one, for he
privately returned to Vienna, habited like a friar, with the intent to
watch unseen the conduct of the saintly-seeming Angelo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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