The Comedy of Errors

ACT I.

SCENE 1. A hall in the DUKE'S palace.

[Enter the DUKE, AEGEON, GAOLER, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS.]

AEGEON.

Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,

And, by the doom of death, end woes and all.

DUKE.

Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;

I am not partial to infringe our laws:

The enmity and discord which of late

Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke

To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,--

Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,

Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,--

Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.

For, since the mortal and intestine jars

'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,

It hath in solemn synods been decreed,

Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,

To admit no traffic to our adverse towns...