Chr. Sophrona!
Soph. He knows my name!
Chr. Look at me, Sophrona.
Soph. (looking close at him). Oh! gracious heavens!
What! are you Stilpho?
Chr. (making signs to her to he silent). No.
Soph. Can you deny it?
Chr. Hush-sh! come further off!—
A little further from the door, good Sophrona—
And never call me by that name again!
Soph. Why, by that name we always knew you!
Chr. (pointing to the door opposite). —Sh!
Soph. What makes you afraid of that door?
Chr. (coming near her, in a half-whisper). Why, because
It's got my wife inside—an awful woman!
That's why I took another name, you see.
For fear lest you might blab my real one,
And she (pointing to the door) should hear it.
Soph. 'Twas no wonder, then,
We could hear nothing of you here in Athens.
He learns from the old nurse that his Lemnian wife is dead, and that his daughter is just married to his nephew Antipho. In the bewilderment of the moment he fails to identify the fair subject of the lawsuit with his own daughter: and perhaps only those who have seen this play acted by Westminster scholars can appreciate the comic earnestness with which the uncle, with his own double relations strong in his mind, and fancying that bis young nephew is in the same predicament, asks of Sophrona—
"What—has he two wives?"
When he finds out that the two wives are one and the
