William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

I never saw you in my life, till now.

       AEGEON.

       Oh! grief hath chang’d me since you saw me last;

       And careful hours with Time’s deformed hand,

       Have written strange defeatures in my face:

       But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       Neither.

       AEGEON.

       Dromio, nor thou?

       DROMIO OF EPHESUS.

       No, trust me, sir, nor I.

       AEGEON.

       I am sure thou dost.

       DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.

       AEGEON.

       Not know my voice! O time’s extremity!

       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 untun’d cares?

       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 lamps 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.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       I never saw my father in my life.

       AEGEON.

       But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,

       Thou know’st we parted; but perhaps, my son,

       Thou sham’st to acknowledge me in misery.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       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 DROMIO

       SYRACUSAN.]

       ABBESS.

       Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong’d.

       [All gather to see them.]

       ADRIANA.

       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?

       DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

       I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.

       DROMIO OF EPHESUS.

       I, sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       Aegeon, art thou not? or else his ghost?

       DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

       O, my old master! who hath bound him here?

       ABBESS.

       Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,

       And gain a husband by his liberty.—

       Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be’st the man

       That hadst a wife once called Aemilia,

       That bore thee at a burden two fair sons:

       O, if thou be’st the same Aegeon, speak,

       And speak unto the same Aemilia!

       AEGEON.

       If I dream not, thou art Aemilia:

       If thou art she, tell me where is that son

       That floated with thee on the fatal raft?

       ABBESS.

       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’, these two so like,

       And these two Dromios, one in semblance,—

       Besides her urging of her wreck at sea,—

       These are the parents to these children,

       Which accidentally are met together.

       Antipholus, thou cam’st from Corinth first?

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

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

       DUKE.

       Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.

       DROMIO OF EPHESUS.

       And I with him.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       Brought to this town by that most famous warrior,

       Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.

       ADRIANA.

       Which of you two did dine with me to-day?

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       I, gentle mistress.

       ADRIANA.

       And are not you my husband?

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       No; I say nay to that.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       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.

       ANGELO.

       That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       I think it be, sir; I deny it not.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.

       And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.

       ANGELO.

       I think I did, sir: I deny it not.

       ADRIANA.

       I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,

       By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.

       DROMIO OF EPHESUS.

       No, none by me.

       ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.

       This purse of ducats I receiv’d from you,

       And Dromio my man did bring them me:

       I see we still