ADRIANA. Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess! DUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady, It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong. ADRIANA. May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband, Who I made lord of me and all I had At your important letters, this ill day A most outrageous fit of madness took him; That desp’rately he hurried through the street, With him his bondman all as mad as he, Doing displeasure to the citizens By rushing in their houses, bearing thence Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like. Once did I get him bound and sent him home, Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed. Anon, I wot not by what strong escape, He broke from those that had the guard of him, And with his mad attendant and himself, Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords, Met us again, and, madly bent on us, Chased us away; till raising of more aid, We came again to bind them. Then they fled Into this abbey, whither we pursued them. And here the abbess shuts the gates on us, And will not suffer us to fetch him out, Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence. Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help. DUKE. Long since thy husband serv’d me in my wars, And I to thee engag’d a prince’s word, When thou didst make him master of thy bed, To do him all the grace and good I could. Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate, And bid the lady abbess come to me. I will determine this before I stir. Enter a Messenger. MESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself. My master and his man are both broke loose, Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor, Whose beard they have singed off with brands of fire, And ever as it blazed they threw on him Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair. My master preaches patience to him, and the while His man with scissors nicks him like a fool; And sure (unless you send some present help) Between them they will kill the conjurer. ADRIANA. Peace, fool, thy master and his man are here, And that is false thou dost report to us. MESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true. I have not breath’d almost since I did see it. He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you, To scorch your face and to disfigure you. [_Cry within._] Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress. Fly, be gone! DUKE. Come, stand by me, fear nothing. Guard with halberds. ADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband. Witness you That he is borne about invisible. Even now we hous’d him in the abbey here, And now he’s there, past thought of human reason. Enter Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Justice, most gracious duke; O, grant me justice! Even for the service that long since I did thee When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.