Egeon. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus ? And is not that your bondman Dromio?

Dro. E. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,

But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords:
Now am I Dromio, and his man, unbound.

Egeon. I am sure, you both of you remember

me.

Dro. E. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you; For lately we were bound as you are now. You are not Pinch's patient, are you sir? Egeon. Why look you strange on me? you

me well.

know

Ant. E. I never saw you in my life till now. Egeon. O! grief hath changed me since you saw

me last;

2

And careful hours,1 with Time's deformed hand,

Have written strange defeatures 3 in my face.
But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
Ant. E. Neither.

Ægeon.

Dromio, nor thou?

Dro. E. No, trust me, sir, nor I.

Egeon.

I am sure, thou dost.

Dro. E. Ay, sir? but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.

Egeon. Not know my voice! O, time's extremity!

1 Hours of distress and sorrow.

Alteration of features.

2 Deforming.

Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue,
In seven short years, that here my only son
Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares ? 1
Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up;
Yet hath my night of life some memory,
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear :
All these old witnesses (I cannot err)
Tell me, thou art my son Antipholus.

Ant. E. I never saw my father in my life.
Egeon. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,
Thou know'st, we parted: but, perhaps, my son,
Thou shamest to acknowlege 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, Syracusian, 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 ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO O

SYRACUSE.

Abb. Most mighty duke, behold a man much [all gather to see him.

wrong'd.

1 The weak and discordant tone of my voice, that is changed

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. Ægeon, 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 hadst a wife once call'd Æmilia,
That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.
O, if thou be'st the same Ægeon, speak,
And speak unto the same Emilia !

Egeon. 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,
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: 1

The morning story is what Ægeon tells the Duk? in the first scene of this play.