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Promising to bring it to the porcupine,
Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
I went to seek him: in the street I met him;

And in his company, that gentleman,

There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down,
That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,
Which, God he knows, I saw not: for the which,
He did arrest me with an officer.

I did obey; and sent my peasant home
For certain ducats: he with none return'd.
Then fairly I bespoke the officer,

Το go in person with me to my house.

By the way we met

My wife, her sister, and a rabble more
Of vile confederates; along with them
They brought one Pinch; a hungry lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,

A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune teller;
A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man 17: this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer;
And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possess'd: then altogether
They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence;

And in a dark and dankish vault at home
There left me and my man, both bound together;
Till gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
I gain'd my freedom, and immediately
Ran hither to your grace; whom I beseech
To give me ample satisfaction

For these deep shames and great indignities.

17

but as a living death,

So ded alive of life he drew the breath.'

Sackville's Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates.

Ang. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him; That he dined not at home, but was lock'd out.

Duke. But had he such a chain of thee, or no? Ang. He had, my lord: and when he ran in here, These people saw the chain about his neck.

Mer. Besides, I will be sworn, these ears of mine Heard you confess, you had the chain of him,

After you first forswore it on the mart,
And, thereupon, I drew my sword on you;
And then you fled into this abbey here,
From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.
Ant. E. I never came within these abbey walls,
Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me:
I never saw the chain, so help me heaven!
And this is false, you burden me withal.

Duke. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think, you all have drunk of Circe's cup.
If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly:—
You say, he dined at home; the goldsmith here
Denies that saying:-Sirrah, what say you?

Dro. E. Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porcupine.

Cour. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.

Ant. E. 'Tis true, my liege, this ring I had of her. Duke. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here? Cour. As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace. Duke. Why, this is strange :--Go call the abbess hither;

I think, you are all mated 18, or stark mad.

[Exit an Attendant. Ege. Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word;

18 Mated is confounded. See note on Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 1.

Haply I see a friend will save my life,
And pay the sum that may deliver me.

Duke. Speak freely, Syracusan, what thou wilt. Ege. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus? And is not 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.

Ege. 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?

Ege. Why look you strange on me? you know me well.

Ant. E. I never saw you in my life, till now. Ege. Oh! grief hath chang'd me, since you saw me last;

And careful hours, with Time's deformed 19 hand Have written strange defeatures in my face:

20

But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
Ant. E. Neither.

Ege.

Dromio, nor thou?

I am sure, thou dost.

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

Ege.

Dro. E. Ay, sir? but I am sure, I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him 21.

Ege. 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?

19 Deformed for deforming.

20 See note on Act ii. Sc. 1, p. 144, note 12.

21 Dromio delights in a quibble, and the word bound has before been the subject of his mirth.

22 i. e. the weak and discordant tone of my voice, which is changed by grief.

up;

Though now this grained 23 face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze
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 24 (I cannot err),
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 DROMIO 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. Ægeon, art thou not? or else his ghost? Dro. S. O, my old master! who hath bound him here?

23 Furrowed, lined.

24 But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,

Grave witnesses of true experience.'

Titus Andronicus, Sc. ult.

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 Æmilia!

Ege. If I dream not, thou art Æmilia 25;
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.

27

Duke. Why, here begins his morning story right 26; These two Antipholuses, these two so alike, And these two Dromioes, one in semblance 7,Besides her urging of her wreck at sea,These are the parents to these children 28, Which accidentally are met together. Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first.

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

25 In the old copy this speech of Ægeon, and the subsequent one of the abbess, follow the speech of the Duke. It is evident that they were transposed by mistake.

26 The morning story' is what Ægeon tells the Duke in the first scene of this play.

27 Semblance is here a trisyllable. It appears probable that a line has been omitted here, the import of which may have been: 'These circumstances all concur to prove

These are the parents,' &c.

If it began with the word these as well as the succeeding one, the error would easily happen.

28 Children is here a trisyllable, it is often spelled as it was pronounced then childeren.

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