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.

DUKE. Why, here begins his morning story

right:4

These two Antipholus's, these two so like,
And these two Dromio's, one in semblance, 5-
Besides her urging of her wreck at sea, 6-
These are the parents to these children,"

speech is Ægeon's. Both it and the following one should precede the Duke's; or there is possibly a line lost. RITSON.

If this be the right reading, it is, as Steevens justly remarks, one of Shakspeare's oversights, as the Abbess had not hinted at her shipwreck. But possibly we should read

4

"Besides his urging of her wreck at sea." M. MASON.

"The morn

Why, here begins his morning story right:] ing story" is what Ægeon tells the Duke in the first scene of this play. HOLT WHITE.

5

semblance, Semblance (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed)

is here a trisyllable. STEEVENS.

6

of her wreck at sea,] I suspect that a line following this has been lost; the import of which was, that These circumstances all concurred to prove that These were the parents, &c. The line which I suppose to have been lost, and the following one, beginning perhaps with the same word, the omission might have been occasioned by the compositor's eye glancing from one to the other. MALONE.

7children,] This plural is here used as a trisyllable. So, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Iliad:

" Abhor'd Chimæra; and such bane now caught his

childeren."

Again, in the fourth Iliad:

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.

DUKE. Why, here begins his morning story

right:4

These two Antipholus's, these two so like,
And these two Dromio's, one in semblance,-
Besides her urging of her wreck at sea, -
These are the parents to these children,"

speech is Ægeon's. Both it and the following one should precede the Duke's; or there is possibly a line lost. RITSON.

If this be the right reading, it is, as Steevens justly remarks, one of Shakspeare's oversights, as the Abbess had not hinted at her shipwreck. But possibly we should read

4

"Besides his urging of her wreck at sea." M. MASON. Why, here begins his morning story right:] "The morning story" is what Ægeon tells the Duke in the first scene of this play. HOLT WHITE.

5

semblance, Semblance (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed)

is here a trisyllable. STEEVENS.

6

of her wreck at sea,] I suspect that a line following this has been lost; the import of which was, that These circumstances all concurred to prove that These were the parents, &c. The line which I suppose to have been lost, and the following one, beginning perhaps with the same word, the omission might have been occasioned by the compositor's eye glancing from one to the other. MALONE.

children,] This plural is here used as a trisyllable.

So, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Iliad:

" Abhor'd Chimæra; and such bane now caught his

childeren."

Again, in the fourth Iliad: