Which accidentally are met together. Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first. ANT. S. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse. DUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which. ANT. E. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord. DRO. E. And I with him. ANT. E. Brought to this town by that most famous warrior, Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle. ADR. And are not you my husband? ANT. E. No, I say, nay, to that. ANT. S. And so do I, yet did she call me so ; If this be not a dream I see, and hear. ANG. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me. ANT. S. I think it be, sir; I deny it not. ANT. E. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me. ANG. I think, I did, sir; I deny it not. ADR. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail, By Dromio; but I think, he brought it not. DRO. E. No, none by me. ANT. S. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you, And Dromio my man did bring them me: I see, we still did meet each other's man, And I was ta'en for him, and he for me, 66 sometimes childeren "May with discretion plant themselves against their fathers' wills." Again, in the sixth Iliad: "Yet had he one surviv'd to him of those three childeren." STEEVENS. And thereupon these Errors are arose. ANT. E. These ducats pawn I for my father here. DUKE. It shall not need, thy father hath his life. COUR. Sir, I must have that diamond from you, ANT. E. There, take it; and much thanks for my good cheer. ABB. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains To go with us into the abbey here, And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes:- 8 TWENTY-FIVE years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons; UNTIL this present hour My heavy burden NOT delivered:-] That for this long period of twenty-five years, I have been only in labour, my heavy burden not being delivered till this present hour. The original copy 1623, exhibits the passage thus: "Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail, 66 My heavy burthen are delivered.” The passage is manifestly corrupt; and the clumsy manner in which it is amended, is attributable to the ignorance of the reviser of the second folio, 1532, who proceeded in his usual manner; for finding a verb in the plural are, following a substantive in the singular number, he concluded that the error must have been in the substantive burthen, for which he substituted burthens; thus curing the false grammar, but leaving the passage as unintelligible as he found it. Thus, in The Winter's Tale, finding you; "I am appointed him to murder and not liking this offence against grammar, (him for he,) he printed "I have appointed him to murder you; thus entirely departing from the author's meaning, and making the passage absolute nonsense. The duke, my husband, and my children both, Nor was the reviser of that edition contented with leaving the passage in this state; he did more; for instead of reading with the original copy-have I but gone in travail, he substituted-have I been gone in travail; rejecting a very principal word in the sentence, but, which was inserted by the author more emphatically to mark that Æmilia, during the long period mentioned, had been only in travail, not having attained to parturition till that hour. Now that there was no error in the word burden, as he supposed, appears from two other passages in this play. Thus, in the present scene: 6. Thou hadst a wife once, called Æmilia, ' "That at a burden bore thee two fair sons." Again, more appositely, in the first act, where Ægeon is speaking of the two Dromios : "That very hour, and in the self-same inn, "Of such a burden, male twins both alike." It is manifest therefore, that the reading of the original copy burden is right, and it necessarily follows, from that circumstance alone, that the word are is a misprint; to say nothing of its rendering the passage perfectly unintelligible. It is equally clear, that a negative was requisite here before the word delivered, because the import of Æmilia's words is, that she was not delivered of her burthen till that hour. I have therefore not hesitated to print not instead of are. The general assertion that she had been twenty-five years in labour, having been made in the first clause, the latter member of the sentence naturally is thrown into the ablative case absolute, my heavy burden not being delivered till now. In the preceding line I have printed until instead of and till, a very happy emendation which was suggested to me by Mr. Boaden. I have no doubt that it is the true reading. The change is extremely slight; and the error might very easily have happened. In King John, Act III. Sc. I. we meet with the converse of this error. There we find, a new untrimmed bride," printed for " a new and trimmed bride," as I think I have shewn on indisputable evidence. See the note there. 66 Mr. Theobald, without adverting to the original reading, burden, endeavoured to make some sense of the passage by reading, 66 Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail "Of you my sons; nor till this present hour My heavy burdens are delivered." In all emendations it is, in my apprehension, of importance to Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me'; shew how the error which is to be corrected may have arisen; and it is a great addition to the concinnity of an emendation that it is made with as little violence to the text as possible. On these grounds, the present regulation of this evidently corrupt and embarrassed passage will, I trust, abide a very strict examination. MALONE. In former editions: Thirty-three years. 'Tis impossible the poet should be so forgetful, as to design this number here; and therefore I have ventured to alter it to twenty-five, upon a proof, that, I think, amounts to demonstration. The number, I presume, was at first wrote in figures, and, perhaps, blindly; and thence the mistake might arise. Egeon, in the first scene of the first act, is precise as to the time his son left him, in quest of his brother: 66 My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care, "At eighteen years became inquisitive "After his brother; &c. And how long it was from the son's thus parting from his father, to their meeting again at Ephesus, where Ægeon, mistakenly, recognises the twin-brother for him, we as precisely learn from another passage, in the fifth act: 66 Eg. But seven years since, in Syracusa bay, "Thou know'st we parted ; So that these two numbers, put together, settle the date of their birth beyond dispute. THEOBALD. 9 And you the CALENDARS of their nativity,] The Abbess here addresses herself to the two Dromios, whom she denominates the calendar of the nativity of her sons, because she ascertained with as much precision as a calendar, the time when her sons were born, the twin Dromios having been born on the same day with their masters. So, in Act I. Sc. II. Antipholus of Syracuse, on Dromio of Ephesus coming to him, (whom he mistakes for his own servant,) says: I 66 Here comes the almanack of my true date." Malone. and Go with me ;] We should read: and gaude with me; WARBURTON. i. e. rejoice, from the French, gaudir. The sense is clear enough without the alteration. The Revisal offers to read, more plausibly, I think : -joy with me. Dr. Warburton's conjecture may, however, be countenanced by the following passage in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540:—“I have good cause to set the cocke on the hope, and make gaudye chere." DUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast. [Exeunt Duke, Abbess, ÆGEON, Courtezna, Merchant, ANGELO, and Attendants. DRO. S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard? ANT. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd? DRO. S. Your goods, that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. ANT. S. He speaks to me; I am your master, Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon: [Exeunt ANT. S. and E. ADR. and Luc. DRO. S. There is a fat friend at your master's house, That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner; DRO. E. Methinks, you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you, I am a sweet-faced youth. DRO. E. That's a question: how shall we try it? Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Sc. XI. : "Let's have one other gaudy night." In the novel of M. Alberto, of Bologna, the author adviseth gentlewomen" to beware how they contrive their holiday talke, by waste wordes issuing forth their delicate mouths in carping, gauding, and jesting at young gentlemen, and speciallye old men,' &c. Palace of Pleasure, 1582, vol. i. fol. 60. STEEVENS. 2 After so long grief such NATIVITY!] We should surely readsuch festivity. Nativity lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words, the mistake was easy. JOHNSON. The old reading may be right. She has just said, that to her, her sons were not born till now. STEEVENS. Assuredly the old copy is right. MALONE. |