Page 1730 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

bound to believe him. [305]

EGEON

Not know my voice? O time’s extremity,
Hast thou so cracked and splitted my poor tongue
In seven short years that here my only son
Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares?
Though now this grainèd face of mine be hid [310]
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. [315]
All these old witnesses, I cannot err,
Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.

ANTIPHOLUS 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, [320]
Thou sham’st to acknowledge me in misery.

ANTIPHOLUS 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 [325]
Have I been patron to Antipholus,
During which time he ne’er saw Syracusa.
I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Enter [Æmilia,] the Abbess, with Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of
Syracuse.

ABBESS

Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wronged.