Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail

Of you, my sons; and till this present hour
My heavy burthen ne'er delivered.

The Duke, my husband, and my children both,
And you the calendars of their nativity,

400

Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;
After so long grief, such nativity!

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 fetch your stuff from ship-
board?

Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou em

bark'd?

405

Dro. S. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. Ant. S. He speaks to me.-I am your master, Dromio: 410 Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon:

Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.

[Exeunt Ant. S. and Ant. E.

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

415

Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.

Dro. E.

That's a question: how shall we try it?

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 another.

[Exeunt.

senior] Pope. signior F,F2.

signiority F3 F4.

422. [embracing. Rowe.

420

NOTES.

NOTE I.

IN the spelling of the name of 'Solinus' we have followed the first Folio. In the subsequent Folios it was altered, most probably by an accident in F2 to 'Salinus.' The name occurs only once in the copies, and that in the first line of the text. The name which we have given as 'Antipholus' is spelt indifferently thus, and Antipholis' in the Folios. It will hardly be doubted that the lines in the rhyming passage, III. 2. 2, 4, where the Folios read 'Antipholus,' are correctly amended by Capell, and prove that ‘Antipholus' is the spelling of Shakespeare. Either word is evidently corrupted from 'Antiphilus.' These names are merely arbitrary, but the surnames, 'Erotes' and 'Sereptus,' are most probably errors for 'Errans,' or 'Erraticus' and 'Surreptus,' of which the latter is plainly derived from Plautus' Menæchmus Surreptus, a well-known character in Shakespeare's day: see Brian Melbancke's Philotimus (1582), p. 160: 'Thou art like Menechmus Subreptus his wife...whose "husband shall not neede to be justice of peace" for she "will have a charter to make her justice of coram." See Merry Wives, I. 1. 4, 5. In spelling Syracusian' instead of Syracusan' we follow the practice of the Folios in an indifferent matter. 'Epidamnum' not 'Epidamium' is found in the English translation of the Menæchmi, 1595, so the latter form in F, is probably a printer's error.

NOTE II.

I. 2. I. That this scene is laid at the Mart appears from Antipholus's allusion to this place in II. 2. 5, 6:

'I could not speak with Dromio since at first

I sent him from the mart.'

As this play is derived from a classical prototype, Capell has supposed

no change of scene, but lays the whole action in 'a Publick Place;' evidently with much inconvenience to the Persons.

NOTE III.

II. I. 30. Johnson's ingenious conjecture may have been suggested to him by a passage in As you like it, IV. 3. 17:

'Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.'

But the received reading of the Folios is perhaps confirmed by a line in the present play, III. 2. 7:

'Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth.'

NOTE IV.

II. I. 108 sqq. The only correction of this passage which we believe to be quite free from doubt is that in line 111, 'Wear' for 'Where.' Accordingly, with this exception, we have retained the precise words of the first Folio.

NOTE V.

IV. 2. 38. Grey's conjecture of 'lanes' for 'lands' is made somewhat more probable by the existence of copies of F, in which the word appears 'lans.' A corrector would naturally change this rather to 'lands' than to 'lanes,' because of the rhyme.

NOTE VI.

IV. 2. 46. The Folios have 'send him Mistris redemption,' and Rowe, by his punctuation and capital R, made Dromio call Luciana 'Redemption.' Pope and Theobald seem to have followed him, though they give the small r. The Folios cannot be made chargeable with this error, for the comma does not regularly follow vocatives in these editions where we expect it. There is no comma, for instance, following the word 'Mistress' in IV. 3. 74 or in IV. 4. 39.

NOTE VII.

IV. 4. 29. The word 'ears' might probably be better printed "'ears' for 'years;' for a pun-hitherto, however, unnoticed-seems to be indicated by the following words. A very farfetched explanation has been offered by Steevens, and accepted by Delius and, we believe,

by all the modern editors, namely, that Antipholus has wrung Dromio's ears so often that they have attained a length like an ass's.

NOTE VIII.

V. I. I. Shakespeare uses the words 'Priory' and 'Abbey' as synonymous. Compare v. I. 37 and V. I. 122.

NOTE IX.

V. I. 235. It might possibly be better to print this line as two lines, the first being broken:

'By the way we met

My wife...'

But the place is probably corrupt.

NOTE X.

V. I. 399. The number Thirty-three has been altered by editors to bring the figures into harmony with other periods named in the play. From I. 1. 126, 133 the age of Antipholus has been computed at twenty-three; from I. 1. 126 and V. 1. 308 we derive twenty-five. The Duke says he has been patron to Antipholus for twenty years, V. I. 325; but three or five seems too small an age to assign for the commencement of this patronage. Antipholus saved the Duke's life in the wars 'long since,' v. 1. 161, 191. His 'long experience' of his wife's 'wisdom' and her 'years' are mentioned, III. 1. 89, 90. But Shakespeare probably did not compute the result of his own figures with any great care or accuracy.