EGEON.
I am sure thou dost.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS.
Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not, and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.
EGEON.
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?
Though now this grained face of mine be hid
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.
All these old witnesses, I cannot err,
Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
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,
Thou sham’st to acknowledge me in misery.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS.
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
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 of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse.
ABBESS.
Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong’d.
[All gather to see them.]