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.

340

Speak, old Ægeon, if thou be'st the man
That hadst a wife once called Æmilia,

That bore thee at a burden two fair sons :

O, if thou be'st the same Ægeon, speak,

345

And speak unto the same Æmilia !

Æge. If I dream not, thou art Æmilia:

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

350

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;

355

I to this fortune that you see me in.

Duke. Why, here begins his morning story right:
These two Antipholuses, these two so like,
And these two Dromios, one in semblance,

340. loose] lose F 1. 348, 349. tell me, where . . . raft?] Capell; tell me, where . rafte Ff 1, 2, 3; tell me where . . raft F 4. 357-362. Why, together.] Ff insert this speech after line 346; the alteration is due to Capell. 357. his] Ff 1, 2; this Ff 3, 4; the Rowe (ed. 2). story right] story's light Capell. 358. Antipholuses, these] Antipholus, these F 1; Antipholis these Ff 2, 3, 4; Antipholis's, these Rowe (ed. 2); Antipholus', these S. Walker conj. 359. these] Ff 1, 4; those Ff 2, 3.

360

Besides her urging of her wrack at sea ;—
These are the parents to these children,
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. 365 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.

370

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. [To Luciana.] What I told you

then,

375

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.

380

360. Besides her urging of her] Both sides emerging from their Hanmer; Besides his urging of her Mason conj.; Besides his urging of his Collier; Besides his urging of their Cartwright conj.; Besides her urging of the Hudson (S. Walker conj.); Malone supposes a line, beginning with These, lost after line 360. 363. Ff prefix Duke. first?] Capell; first. Ff. 374. her sister] F 1; omitted in Ff 2, 3, 4. 375. [To Luciana] Clark and Glover; Aside to Luciana Staunton conj.

361. children] trisyllabic; a relic of the old plural. It should perhaps be printed childeren, a form which

Chapman uses in his translation of the Iliad.

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 received 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.

385

390

Ant. E. There, take it; and much thanks for my good

cheer.

Abb. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains

To go with us into the abbey here,

395

And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;
And all that are assembled in this place,
That by this sympathizéd one day's Error
Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
And we shall make full satisfaction.
Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail

Of

400

you, my sons; and till this present hour 385. from] for Capell conj. 389. are arose] Ff; all arose Rowe; rare arose Staunton; here arose Anon. conj. 398. wrong, go] Rowe; wrong, Goe Ff 1, 2; wrong. Go, F 3; wrong. Go F 4. 401. Thirty-three] Ff; Twenty-five Theobald; Twenty-three Capell. 402. and till] nor till Theobald; until Malone (Boaden conj.); and at Collier (ed. 2).

398. sympathised] shared in, suffered by all.

401. Thirty-three years] Theobald altered this to twenty-five, on the ground that eighteen years had elapsed between the wreck and the separation from Antiph. S. (see 1. i. 125), and seven years between that and the present time (see v. i. 321). The number,

Theobald presumed, "was at first wrote in figures, and perhaps blindly." But Shakespeare in the practical matters of the stage was not given to mathematical accuracy in figures. He knew his spectators would not "regulate their imagination by a chronometer." See A Midsummer-Night's Dream (Arden ed.), Introduction, p.xxi.

My heavy burden ne'er delivered.

The duke, my husband, and my children both,

And you the calendars of their nativity,

405

Go to a gossips' feast and joy with me

After so long grief such festivity!

Duke. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.

[Exeunt all but Ant. S., Ant. E., Dro. S., and Dro. E. Dro. S. Master, shall I go fetch your stuff from shipboard? Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embarked? 410 Dro. S. Your goods, that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. 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. and Ant. E.

burden here Singer (ed. 1).

ne'er

403. burden ne'er] Dyce; burthen are F 1; burthens are Ff 2, 3, 4; burdens are Warburton; burden not Capell; delivered] undelivered Collier (ed. 1). 406. gossips'] Dyce; gossips Ff; gossip's Rowe. and joy] Dyce, ed. 2 (Heath conj.); and go Ff 1, 3, 4; and goe F 2. 407. festivity] Staunton and Dyce, ed. 1 (Johnson conj.), withdrawn; nativity Ff; felicity Hanmer. 408. [Exeunt ] Exeunt omnes. Manet the two Dromio's and two Brothers Ff. 409. SCENE VIII. Pope.

go fetch] Dyce, ed. 2 (S. Walker conj.); fetch F 1. shipboard] shipboard for you Capell conj.; ship-board now Keightley. 414. [Exeunt. ]Exit. Ff. 403. ne'er] See line 316 supra, note on "lamp.'

405. calendars] the Dromios. Compare 1. ii. 41 ante.

406. gossips' feast] A christening or baptismal feast; "gossip" being a sponsor. Compare MidsummerNight's Dream, II. i. 47, and note (Arden ed.).

406. joy] enjoy. I think the prefix has been dropped here, just as in 2 Henry VI. III. ii. 365: "live thou to joy thy life." Compare "rejoice," line 414 post.

407. festivity] Probably the true reading. Johnson, reading "festivity," assigns the reason for the blunder of the Folio: "Nativity lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words, the

mistake was easy." Hanmer's felicity is also excellent, as it affords a good antithesis to "grief"; but, having regard to the "gossips' feast," I think the balance inclines to Johnson's correction. Grant White, following Steevens, defends the palpable blunder of the Folio, on the ground that a long travail and a happy birth is plainly the dominant thought of Emilia's speech, and a "gossips' feast " was a feast of those who assisted at a birth or came in immediately after it." But surely the dominant word is feast? As for the punctuation, it is difficult to understand the editors who print a colon after "me."

409. stuff] Compare IV. iv. 148, 157. 411. at host] Compare 1. ii. 9.

415

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?

420

Dro. S. We'll 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 [Exeunt. 425

another.

422. we try it?] we trie it. F 1; I try it. Ff 2, 3, 4; we try it, brother? Capell. 423. We'll] we will Capell, ending lines 421-423 at question. draw... first. senior] Rowe (ed. 2); signior Ff1, 2; signiority Ff 3, 4. 424. [embracing] Rowe. Nay, then, thus: . . . brother ;] one line, Editor. 416. kitchen'd] entertained. two drew cuts for pastime . . . Antonius always lost."

419. sweet-faced] handsome. Craig compares Marlowe's Jew of Malta, IV. iv. "Is't not a sweet-faced youth, Pilia?" He might also have instanced Pyramus the " sweet-faced man of Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1. ii. 88.

423. draw cuts] draw lots, e.g. with papers cut of unequal lengths. Not elsewhere in Shakespeare. See Chaucer, Prologue, 835 (Skeat, 1894):

Now draweth cut, er that we
ferrer twinne;

He which that hath the shortest

shall beginne";

and Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, III. i. 30 (Variorum, 1904, vol. i. p. 404): "Faith let's draw cuts." The expression is also found in North's Plutarch, Life of Antony, referring to the latter being "unfortunate in sport and earnest against Octavius Cæsar": "As often as they

424,425. Nay,... another] The final speech of Dromio E. should be printed in two lines, as in the text, and not in three lines, as in the Folio and all other editions which I have seen. It is somewhat remarkable that this error of the Folio seems never to have been so much as noticed. The scansion shows it clearly:

Náy, then, thús: we came into the world like brother and brother;

And now let's go hánd in hánd,

not one before another. The lines are examples of what Malone called the "long doggrel verses that Shakespeare has attributed in this play to the two Dromios, written in that kind of metre which was usually attributed, by the dramatick poets before his time, in their comick pieces, to some of their inferior characters." See Introduction.