Tell me, thou art my son Antipholus.

Ant. E. I never saw my father in my life.

Ege. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy, Thou know'st, we parted: but, perhaps, my son, Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.

Ant. E. The duke, and all that know me in the city, Can witness with me that it is not so;

I ne'er saw Syracusa in my life.

Duke. I tell thee, Syracusan, twenty years
Have I been patron to Antipholus;

During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa:
I see, thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Enter the Abbess, with ANTIPHOLUS Syracusan, and
DROмIO Syracusan.

Abb. Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong'd.
[All gather to see him.
Adr. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.
Duke. One of these men is Genius to the other;
And so of these: Which is the natural man,
And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?
Dro. S. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.
Dro. E. I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay.
Ant. S. Egeon, art thou not? or else his ghost?
Dro. S. O, my old master! who hath bound him here?
Abb. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,
And gain a husband by his liberty:-

Speak, old Ægeon, if thou be'st the man
That had'st a wife once called Emilia,
That bore thee at a burden two fair sons:
O, if thou be'st the same Ægeon, speak,
And speak unto the same Emilia!

9

Æge. If I dream not, thou art Æmilia;

The old reading is the true one, as well as the most poetical. The words I cannot err, should be thrown into a parenthesis. By old witnesses I believe he means experienced, accustomed ones, which are therefore less likely to err. So, in The Tempest:

"If these be true spies that I wear in my head," &c. Again, in Titus Andronicus, sc. ult:

"But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,"

"Grave witnesses of true experience," &c. Steevens.

9 If I dream not,] In the old copy, this speech of Ægeon, and the subsequent one of the Abbess, follow the speech of the Duke,

If thou art she, tell me, where is that son
That floated with thee on the fatal raft?

Abb. By men of Epidamnum, he, and I,
And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;
But, by and by, rude fishermen of Corinth
By force took Dromio, and my son from them,
And me they left with those of Epidamnum:
What then became of them, I cannot tell;
I, to this fortune that you see me in.

Duke. Why, here begins his morning story right: These two Antipholus's, these two so like,

And these two Dromio's, one in semblance,2-
Besides her urging of her wreck at sea,3.
These are the parents to these children,

4

beginning with the words-"Why, here" &c. The transposition was suggested by Mr. Steevens. It scarcely requires any justification. Egeon's answer to Emilia's adjuration would necessarily immediately succeed to it. Besides, as Mr. Steevens has observed, as these speeches stand in the old copy, the Duke comments on Emilia's words before she has uttered them. The slight change now made renders the whole clear. Malone.

That, however, will scarcely remove the difficulty: the next speech is Egeon's. Both it and the following one should precede the Duke's; or there is possibly a line lost. Ritson.

If this be the right reading, it is, as Steevens justly remarks, one of Shakspeare's oversights, as the Abbess had not hinted at her shipwreck. But possibly we should read

"Besides his urging of her wreck at sea."

M. Mason. 1 Why, here begins his morning story right:] "The morning story" is what Egeon tells the Duke in the first scene of this play. H. White.

2 semblance,] Semblance (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed) is here a trisyllable. Steevens.

3 of her wreck at sea,] I suspect that a line following this has been lost; the import of which was, that These circumstances all concurred to prove-that These were the parents, &c. The line which I suppose to have been lost, and the following one, beginning perhaps with the same word, the omission might have been occasioned by the compositor's eye glancing from one to the other. Malone.

4

children,] This plural is here used as a trisyllable. So, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Iliad:

"Abhor'd Chimera; and such bane now caught his childeren."

Again, in the fourth Iliad:

Which accidentally are met together.
Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first.

Ant. S. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.

Duke. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which. Ant. E. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord. Dro. E. And I with him.

Ant. E. Brought to this town by that most famous warrior

Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.

Adr. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?
Ant. S. I, gentle mistress.

Adr.

And are not you my husband?

Ant. E. No, I say nay to that.

Ant. S. And so do I, yet did she call me so;
And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
Did call me brother:-What I told you then,
I hope, I shall have leisure to make good;
If this be not a dream, I see, and hear.

Ang. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.
Ant. S. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.

Ant. E. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.
Ang. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.

Adr. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.

Dro. E. No, none by me.

Ant. S. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,
And Dromio my man did bring them me:

I see, we still did meet each other's man,
And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
And thereupon these Errors are arose.

Ant. E. These ducats pawn I for my father here.
Duke. It shall not need, thy father hath his life.
Cour, Sir, I must have that diamond from you.
Ant. E. There, take it; and much thanks for my good

cheer.

Abb. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains

"May with discretion plant themselves against their father's wills."

Again, in the sixth Iliad:

"Yet had he one surviv'd to him of those three childeren.”

Steevens.

To go with us into the abbey here,

And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes:-
And all that are assembled in this place,
That by this sympathized one day's error
Have suffer'd wrong, go, keep us company,
And we shall make full satisfaction.-
Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons; nor, till this present hour,
My heavy burdens are delivered:-

The duke, my husband, and my children both,
And you the calendars of their nativity,
Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me;7

5 Twenty-five years-] In former editions: Thirty-three years.

'Tis impossible the poet should be so forgetful, as to design this number here; and therefore I have ventured to alter it to twenty-five, upon a proof, that, I think, amounts to demonstration. The number, I presume, was at first wrote in figures, and, perhaps, blindly; and thence the mistake might arise. Egeon, in the first scene of the first Act, is precise as to the time his son left him, in quest of his brother:

"My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,

"At eighteen years became inquisitive

"After his brother;" &c.

And how long it was from the son's thus parting from his father, to their meeting again at Ephesus, where Ægeon, mistakenly, recognizes the twin-brother, for him, we as precisely learn from another passage, in the fifth Act:

"Ege. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy, "Thou know'st we parted:

So that these two numbers, put together, settle the date of their birth beyond dispute. Theobald.

till

nor, till this present hour,] The old copy reads-and The emendation was made by Mr. Theobald. Burden, in the next line, was corrected by the editor of the second folio.

Malone.

and gaude with me;

i. e. rejoice, from the French, gaudir. Warburton.

The sense is clear enough without the alteration. The Revisal offers to read, more plausibly, I think:

joy with me.

Dr. Warburton's conjecture may, however, be countenanced by the following passage in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540:—“ 'I have good cause to set the cocke on the hope, and make gaudye chere.” Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, sc. xi: "Let's have one other gaudy night."

After so long grief, such nativity!

Duke. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast. [Exeunt Duke, Abb. EGE. Cour. Mer. ANG. and Attendants.

Dro. S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?

Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou em

bark'd?

Dro. S. Your goods, that lay at host, sir, in the Cen

taur.

Ant. S. He speaks to me; I am your master, Dromio: Come, go with us; we 'll look to that anon: Embrace thy brother there, rejoice with him.

[Exeunt ANT. S. ANT. E. ADR. and Luc. Dro. S. There is a fat friend at your master's house, That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;

She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

Dro. E. Methinks, you are my glass, and not my brother:

I see by you, I am a sweet-faced youth.
Will you walk in to see their gossiping?

Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.

Dro. E. That's a question: how shall we try it? Dro. S. We will draw cuts for the senior: till then, lead thou first.

Dro. E. Nay, then thus:

We came into the world, like brother and brother; And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. [Exeunt.

In the novel of M. Alberto, of Bologna, the author adviseth gentlewomen "to beware how they contrive their holyday talke, by waste wordes issuing forth their delicate mouths in carping, gauding, and jesting at young gentlemen, and speciallye old men," &c. Palace of Pleasure, 1582, Vol. I, fol. 60. Steevens.

8 After so long grief, such nativity!] We should surely read: After so long grief, such festivity.

Nativity lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words, the mistake was easy. Johnson.

The old reading may be right. She has just said, that to her, her sons were not born till now. Steevens.

9 On a careful revision of the foregoing scenes, I do not hesitate to pronounce them the composition of two very unequal writers. Shakspeare had undoubtedly a share in them; but that the entire play was no work of his, is an opinion which (as Be