The Comedy of Errors

Summary

The Comedy of Errors takes place in a single day in the Greek city of Ephesus, where two sets of identical twins, separated as babies, are mistaken for each other until the whole town seems bewitched. Egeon, an old merchant of Syracuse, has been arrested because the two cities are at war and any Syracusan found in Ephesus must pay a thousand marks or die. Asked by Duke Solinus why he came, Egeon tells his story: years ago in Epidamnum his wife Emilia bore twin sons, and on the same day a poor woman bore twin boys whom Egeon bought to serve them. A shipwreck split the family, Egeon keeping one son and one servant, Emilia the others. When his son turned eighteen he went in search of his brother, and Egeon has been searching for both for five years. Moved, the Duke gives him until sunset to find the money. That son, Antipholus of Syracuse, has just landed in Ephesus with his servant Dromio of Syracuse. Unknown to him, his twin, Antipholus of Ephesus, is a respected citizen married to Adriana, with a servant who is the twin Dromio of Ephesus. The Ephesian Dromio summons the wrong master home to dinner and is beaten for talking nonsense about a wife; Adriana and her sister Luciana then claim the bewildered traveler, who goes along with them, wondering whether he is dreaming or mad. While he dines upstairs, the real husband is locked out of his own house by his own servant's twin and goes off angrily to dine with a Courtesan, promising her a gold chain meant for his wife. Antipholus of Syracuse falls in love with Luciana, and his Dromio flees the attentions of the kitchen maid, Nell. Angelo the goldsmith hands the chain to the wrong brother and has the right one arrested for not paying. Money, a rope's end and a ring go astray, and each master beats the other's servant. Adriana fetches Doctor Pinch, a schoolmaster and conjurer, who pronounces her husband possessed; Antipholus of Ephesus and his Dromio are bound and shut in a dark room. The Syracusan pair, terrified of the town's witchcraft, take sanctuary in a priory, whose Abbess rebukes Adriana for driving her husband mad with jealousy. At sunset the Duke leads Egeon to execution past the priory; the escaped Ephesian Antipholus demands justice, and the Abbess brings out the other twins. The two Antipholuses and two Dromios stand together, the Abbess reveals that she is Emilia, Egeon's lost wife, the Duke pardons Egeon, Antipholus of Syracuse renews his suit to Luciana, and the Dromios go in hand in hand. The play, based on Plautus's Menaechmi, was performed at Gray's Inn on 28 December 1594 and first printed in the First Folio of 1623.

Top Lessons

• Who am I when no one knows me?

  Antipholus of Syracuse compares himself to a drop of water seeking another drop in the ocean: he feels he has lost himself in searching for his family. When everyone in Ephesus calls him by another man's life, he begins to doubt his own mind. The comedy shows how much our sense of self depends on being known by the people who love us.

• Jealousy and patience in marriage

  Adriana and Luciana argue in Act 2 about whether a wife should bear her husband's absences patiently, and in Act 5 the Abbess draws out of Adriana how often she scolded him. Shakespeare treats Adriana's love sympathetically while showing that constant reproach can wound the person it is meant to hold.

• Everyone is sure and everyone is wrong

  Each character judges by what he sees, and each judgment is reasonable and mistaken. The goldsmith, the wife, the Courtesan and Pinch all conclude that someone else is lying or mad. The play is a lesson in humility about appearances and in patience before passing judgment.

• Mercy at sunset

  The day begins with a law that condemns Egeon for being born in the wrong city and ends with a reunited family and a pardon. The Duke cannot break the law at first, but the discovery of the truth opens the way for mercy without payment.

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Medical Lens

For a farce, the play contains an unusually full Elizabethan picture of how madness was recognized and treated. Characters read ordinary confusion as madness or demonic possession, and Adriana calls in Pinch, a schoolmaster and conjurer who takes the pulse like a physician, then exorcises in the name of the saints and orders the patient bound and laid in a dark room, the standard period handling of the mad. Antipholus later describes Pinch as a mountebank and a living anatomy, a satirical sketch of the hungry quack. The Abbess offers a rival account in Act 5: disturbed sleep, unquiet meals and lack of recreation breed fever, melancholy and madness, a list that matches the humoral doctrine of the six non-naturals (diet, sleep, exercise, passions and the rest), and she proposes to cure him with wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers. The play thus sets folk exorcism, humoral medicine and religious care side by side. Its madness is mistaken, which makes the treatments the satire's target rather than any real illness.

• Act 2, Scene 2 and Act 4, Scene 3

  Antipholus of Syracuse wonders whether he is mad or dreaming and concludes that Ephesus is full of sorcerers; the Courtesan decides the Ephesian brother is mad.

• Act 4, Scene 4

  Pinch feels the patient's pulse, attempts an exorcism, and has the husband and his servant bound and confined in a dark room.

• Act 5, Scene 1

  The Abbess traces the husband's supposed madness to broken sleep, disturbed meals and barred recreation leading to fever and melancholy, and offers syrups, drugs and prayers.

• Act 5, Scene 1

  Antipholus of Ephesus describes Pinch as a hollow-eyed mountebank and fortune-teller and tells how he gnawed through his bonds in the dark vault.