Shakespeare's The comedy of errors

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Ephesus.

shakespeare's
The Comedy of Errors

EDITED, WITH NOTES

BY

WILLIAM J. gOLFE, Litt.D.

FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK-:. CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

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Copyright, z88x and 1898, by
HARPER & BROTHERS.

Copyright, 1905, by
WILLIAM J. ROLFE.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.
W. P. I

PREFATORY NOTE

This play, which I first edited in 1881, has now
been very thoroughly revised on the same general plan
as the earlier volumes in the series. The Notes have
been materially enlarged.

CONTENTS

PAGB

Introduction to The Comedy of Errors ... 9

The History of the Play 9

The Source of the Plot 14

General Comments on the Play 15

The Comedy of Errors 25

Act I 27

Act II 38

Act III S3

Act IV 68

Act V 89

Notes 109

Appendix

Meres's Mention of the Play 181

Plautus and Shakespeare 182

The Period of the Action 187

The Characters of the Twins 190

The Duration of the Action 195

List of Characters in the Play 195

Index of Words and Phrases explained . . . 197

7

V

Corinth

INTRODUCTION TO THE COMEDY OF
ERRORS

The History of the Play

The precise order of the early comedies cannot be
definitely settled, but The Comedy of Errors prob-
ably followed The Two Gentlemen of Verona, though
some critics believe that it preceded that play. All
agree that it was one of the earliest of the plays, though
first printed in the folio of 1623. It is quite certainly
the "Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus"
which, according to the Gesta Grayorum, was played at
Gray's Inn, in December, 1594. The pun in iii. 2. 121
on France " making war against her heir " would seem
to show that the play was written between August, 1589,
when the civil war about the succession of Henx^ IV.

9

io The Comedy of Errors

began, and July, 1593, when it ended. A writer in
the North British Review (April, 1870) attempts to show
that events in French history of earlier date are alluded
to. Henry of Navarre, he says, became heir to the
throne on the death of the Duke of Anjou in 1584, and
remained so until he became king on the murder of
Henry III., August 2, 1589.

The majority of editors date the play in 1591, though
some place it as early as 1589 and others as late as

1593-

The performance of the play at Gray's Inn during
the Christmas holidays of 1594 was notable in more
ways than one. The students had made preparations
for revels on a scale of exceptional magnificence. The
sports were to include burlesque performances, masques,
plays, and dances, as well as processions through Lon-
don and on the Thames. A mock court was held at
the Inn under the presidency of one Henry Helmes, a
Norfolk gentleman, who was elected Prince of Purpoole,
the ancient name of the manor, other students being
elected to serve under him in the various offices apper-
taining to royal government. The grand entertainment
of all was arranged for the evening of Innocents' Day,
December 28, on which occasion high scaffolds had
been erected in the hall for the accommodation of the
revellers and the principal guests. The students of
the Inner Temple, as an embassy credited by their
Emperor, arrived about nine o'clock "very gallantly
appointed." The ambassador was "brought in very

Introduction 1 1

solemnly, with sound of trumpets, the King-at-Arms
and Lords of Purpoole making to his company, which
marched before him in order; he was received very
kindly by the Prince, and placed in a chair beside his
Highness, to the end that he might be partaker of the
sports intended." Complimentary addresses were then
exchanged between the Prince and the ambassador, but,
owing to defective arrangements for a limitation of the
number of those entitled to admission on the stage,
there followed a scene of confusion which ended in the
students of the Temple retiring in dudgeon. "After
their departure, the throngs and tumults did somewhat
cease, although so much of them continued as was able
to disorder and confound any good inventions whatso-
ever; in regard whereof, as also for that the sports
intended were especially for the gracing of the Templa-
rians, it was thought good not to offer anything of ac-
count saving dancing and revelling with gentlewomen ;
and after such sports a Comedy of Errors . . . was
played by the players, so that night was begun and con-
tinued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors,
whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of
Errors."

On the next evening there was a Commission of
Oyer and Terminer at Gray's Inn to inquire into the
disturbances of the previous night, the cause of the
tumult being ascribed to the intervention of a sorcerer,
who was accused of having " foisted a company of base
and common fellows to make up our disorders mtk ^

n The Comedy of Errors

play of error and confusions." It is almost certain that
this uncomplimentary description refers to the Lord
Chamberlain's company, who were the owners of the
play and performed it on this occasion. It was the cus-
tom of the Inns of Court at that time to engage pro-
fessional actors for their dramatic entertainments. It
would appear that the students endeavoured to excul-
pate themselves by throwing the blame of the disorder
upon the players.

Gray's Inn still stands in Gray's Inn Lane (leading
from the north side of Holborn) in London. It derives
its name from the family of Grey de Wilton, to whom
it anciently belonged. The vast court, with the steep
roofs and small-paned windows, encloses the elegant
hall (built in 1560), in which, at all festive meetings,
the only toast proposed is " the glorious, pious, and im-
mortal memory of Queen Elizabeth," who always treated
the members of the Inn with great distinction.

Bacon, who became a bencher of Gray's Inn in 1586,
wrote his Novum Organum there — but not The Comedy
of Errors^ we may safely say. His father, Sir Nicho-
las Bacon, had been among the many eminent men
who were members of the institution ; like Sir William
Gascoigne, the judge who condemned Prince Hal to
prison for contempt of court, Bishop Gardiner, Bishop
Hall, and Archbishop Laud. On the west side of the
gardens "Lord Bacon's Mount" stood until recent
years, corresponding to the "mount of some pretty
height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to

Introduction 13

look abroad into the fields," which he recommends in
his Essay " On Gardens."

These gardens were a fashionable promenade in the
time of Charles II. Pepys, writing in May, 1662, says :
"When church was done, my wife and I walked to
Gray's Inn, to observe the fashions of the ladies, be-
cause of my wife's making some clothes." In 162 1
Howell had written of them as " the pleasantest place
about London, with the choicest society." At that time,
and much later, the Inn was almost in the country, for
we read in the Spectator (no. 269) : " I was no sooner
come into Gray's Inn Walks but I heard my friend
(Sir Roger de Coverley) upon the terrace, hemming
twice or thrice to himself with great vigour, for he loves
to clear his pipes in good air, to make use of his own
phrase," etc.

Gray's Inn is described by Dickens in The Uncom-
mercial Traveller, and by Hawthorne in his English
Note Books. The latter remarks : " Gray's Inn is a
great quiet domain, quadrangle beyond quadrangle,
close beside Holborn, and a large space of greensward
enclosed within it. It is very strange to find so much of
ancient quietude right in the monster city's very jaws,
which yet the monster shall not eat up — right in its
very belly, indeed, which yet, in all these ages, it shall
not digest and convert into the same substance as the
rest of its bustling streets. Nothing else in London is
so like the effect of a spell as to pass under one of
these archways and feel yourself transported from the

14 The Comedy of Errors

jumble, rush, tumult, uproar, as of an age of week-days
condensed into the present hour, into what seems an
eternal Sabbath."

More than one writer has referred to the Middle
Temple Hall (where Twelfth Night was played in 1602)
as the only building still remaining in London where
one of Shakespeare's plays is known to have been per-
formed in his lifetime ; but the hall of Gray's Inn is
another, though the only other.

The Comedy of Errors is the shortest of the plays,
having only 1778 lines (" Globe " edition), while Ham-
tet, the longest, has 3930, Richard III. 3620, Troilus and
Cressida 3496, etc. The next shortest is The Tempest
with 2065, the next Macbeth with 2108, and the next
A Midsummer-nigh fs Dream with 2180. The average
length of the entire series of plays is about 3000 lines.

The Source of the Plot

The general idea of the plot is taken from the
Mencechmi of Plautus, but with material changes and
additions. To the twin brothers of the Latin dramatist
are added twin servants, and though this increases the
improbability, yet, as Schlegel observes, "when once
we have lent ourselves to the first, which certainly
borders on the incredible, we should not probably be
disposed to cavil about the second ; and if the spectator
is to be entertained with mere perplexities, they cannot
be too much varied."

Introduction 15

General Comments on the Play

Coleridge, commenting on this play in his Literary
Remains, remarks : " The myriad-minded man, our, and
all men's, Shakspeare, has in this piece presented us
with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the
philosophical principles and character of farce, as dis-
tinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A
proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by
the license allowed, and even required, in the fable, in
order to produce strange and laughable situations.
The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is
possible. A comedy would scarcely allow even the two
Antipholuses ; because, although there have been in- \
stances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two per- \
sons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus
ludentis naturce, and the verum will not excuse the in-
verisimile. But farce dares add the two Dromios, and
is justified in so doing by the laws of its end and con-
stitution. In a word, farces commence in a postulate
which must be granted."

But though the play is a farce rather than a comedy,
so far as the plot is based upon the confusion of iden-
tity in the adventures of the twin brothers and the twin
slaves, it is not a mere farce — something, indeed, which
Shakespeare seems to have been incapable of writing.
With this farcical plot he has interwoven a pathetic
story of domestic affection and misfortune, with which
the play begins and with which it ends, when the sor-

j

1 6 The Comedy of Errors

row upon which the curtain rose is turned to gladness
as it falls. There is nothing of this in the old Latin
play, and only one or two of the commentators have
alluded to the manner in which the young Shakespeare
idealized and ennobled the story. Drake, in his Shake-
speare and his Times (1817), hints at it thus : "In a play
of which the plot is so intricate, occupied in a great
measure by mere personal mistakes and their whimsical
results, no elaborate development of character can be
expected ; yet is the portrait of Mgzon touched with a
discriminative hand, and the pressure of age and mis-
fortune is so painted as to throw a solemn, dignified,
and impressive tone of colouring over this part of the
fable, contrasting well with the lighter scenes which
immediately follow — a mode of relief which is again
resorted to at the close of the drama, where the re-
union of JEgeon and ^Emilia, and the recognition of
their children, produce an interest in the denouement
of a nature more affecting than the tone of the pre-
ceding scenes had taught us to expect."

Verplanck (whom I quote, as elsewhere, because his
admirable criticisms are out of print, and seldom to be
found in the libraries) remarks : —

" There are about ten or twelve plots of comic acci-
dent that have come down to our times from remote
antiquity — some in the narrative form and others in
the dramatic — which are so rich in unexpected or ludi-
crous situations and circumstances, so fertile in new
suggestions and combinations, that they have passed

Introduction 17

along from generation to generation, through various
languages and widely differing forms of society, always
preserving the power of interesting and amusing, and
affording to one race of wits and authors after another
a happy groundwork for their own gayety or invention.
" Among these is the story of the Menachmi of Plautus,
founded on the whimsical mistakes and confusion aris-
ing from the perfect resemblance of twin brothers.
Plautus is to us the original author of this amusing
piot ; but it is quite probable that the old Latin comic
writer stands in the same relation to some Greek pre-
decessor that the moderns do to him. There are some
Greek fragments preserved of a lost play of Menander's,
entitled Didymi, or The Twins, which, there is great
probability, was the original comedy here adapted by
Plautus, as it is known he did other Greek originals, to
the Latin stage. The subject became a favourite one
among the dramatists of the Continent at an early
period of our modern literature. A paraphrastic ver-
sion or adaptation of the Mencechmi was, it is supposed,
the very earliest specimen of dramatic composition in
the Italian language ; and, in various forms and addi-
tions, more or less fanciful, the subject has kept pos-
session of the Italian stage. There is also a Spanish
version of it about the date of The Comedy of Errors.
In France, Rotrou, the acknowledged father of the legi-
timate French drama, introduced a free translation or
imitation of Plautus 's original upon the French stage.
Le Noble farcified it some years after into The Two

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 2

1 8 The Comedy of Errors

Harlequins ; and, finally, Regnard, in a free and spir-
ited imitation, transferred the scene from Asia Minor to
Paris, adapted to French manners and habits, clothed
his dialogue in gay and polished verses worthy of the
rival of Molifcre, and made the Mencechmi a part of the
classic French comedy.

" Such was the early and wide-spread popularity of this
plot, before and soon after Shakespeare's time, which I
mention rather as a curious fact of literary history, or
perhaps of the philosophy of our lighter literature, than
as directly connected with Shakespeare's choice of a
subject ; for, indeed, there is no clear indication that he
had recourse to any other original than the Latin of
Plautus himself. Of this there was, indeed, a bald and
somewhat paraphrastical translation by Warner, which
it is possible (though there is little probability of it)
that Shakespeare may have seen in manuscript. This
was published in 1595, which is later than the probable
date of The Comedy of Errors. There is also evidence
of the existence of an old play called The Historie of
Error, which was acted at court in 1576-77, and again
in 1582, and is conjectured by the critics to have been
founded on the same plot ; but this seems a mere gra-
tuitous conjecture, for which no reason but the use of
the word ' error ' in the title has been assigned. That
title would rather designate a masque or allegorical
pageant of Error than a comedy of laughable mistakes.
There is no resemblance between Warner's translation
and The Comedy of Errors, in any peculiarity of Ian-

Introduction 19

guage, of names, or any matter, however slight, which
could not (like the main plot) have been drawn from
the original by a very humble Latinist. The accurate
Ritson has ascertained that there is not a single name,
or thought, or phrase peculiar to Warner to be traced
in Shakespeare's play. Steevens and others maintain
the opinion (to which Collier also seems to incline) that
the old court-drama of The Historic of Error was the
basis of the present play, that much of the dialogue,
incident, and character is retained, and that Shake-
speare merely remodeled the whole, and added some
of those scenes and portions which bear their own evi-
dence that they could have come from his pen alone.

"All these conjectural opinions, though made with
great confidence by several critics, seem to me wholly
unfounded. There is no external evidence whatever of
the existence of any such play as is alleged to have
been incorporated in this comedy, and the internal
evidence seems to me equally clear against a double
authorship by writers of different times and tastes.
The whole piece is written in the same buoyant spirit,
with no more pause to its gayety than was needed to
add to the interest by graver narrative dialogue. Broad ■;
and farciful as much of it is, it has as much unity of pur-
pose and spirit as Macbeth itself. The dramatist used
the Latin comedy (whether in the original or a transla-
tion is immaterial on this occasion), as he afterwards
did Holinshed's history, using the incidents only as the
materials of his own invention ; and this was dofe& va.

ao The Comedy of Errors

an unbroken strain of merry humour, as if the author
enjoyed all the while his own frolic conceptions and
the puzzle of his audience. Plautus had on his stage
a pair of resembling brothers, to form the central action
of his plot. Such a resemblance, though rare, is not
out of the ordinary probability of life. Resemblances
sufficient to puzzle strangers and occasion ludicrous
mistakes are by no means uncommon ; while the judicial
annals of France (see Causes CeVebres) in the case of
Martin Guerre, and of New York in that of Hoag (1804),
exhibit a well-attested chain of perplexities arising from
such similarity of person, etc., even surpassing those of
the Menaechmi, or the Antipholuses and Dromios. Such
a resemblance then, however rare, is within the legiti-
mate range of classic comedy as a picture of ordinary
social life ; and Regnard has treated the subject accord-
ingly in a pure vein of chastised comic wit. But Shake-
speare, writing for a less polished audience, and himself
in the joyous mood of frolic youth, boldly overleaped
these bounds, added to the twin gentlemen of his pages
a pair of undistinguishable buffoon servants, and revelled
in the unrestrained indulgence of broad drollery. . . .

"The date of 1593, placing this among the author's
earlier works, corresponds with various other indications
of style and versification, and cast of thought, not de-
cisive in themselves. Thus the alternate rhymes in
which the courtship of the Syracusian Antipholus is
clothed is in the taste of Shakespeare's earlier poems, and
corresponds also with the versification of some of the

Introduction li

love-scenes in the first edition of Romeo and Juliet, as
well as with passages in Love's Labour's Lost The long
doggerel lines, in which so much of the more farcical
part is written, is a vestige of the older versification
still used on the stage at the commencement of Shake-
speare's dramatic career. This, in various forms of the
longer rhythm, had come down through English litera-
ture even from Saxon poetry, and had been employed
for the gravest subjects, as not unworthy of epic, narra-
tive, or devotional poetry. It had gradually given way,
for such purposes, to more cultivated metres, such as
are now in use, but was still used in dramatic composi-
tion by Shakespeare's immediate predecessors for all
purposes of dialogue, whether grave or gay. Shake-
speare (so far as I can trace the subject) seems to have
been the first who perceived the peculiar adaptation of
these long hobbling measures for ludicrous effect, and
who used them for nothing else."

I add some extracts from Charles Cowden-Clarke's
comments on the play : * —

" The reading of the play is like threading the mazes
of a dream, where people and things are the same and
not the same in the same moment. The mistakes,
crosses, and vexations in the plot so rapidly succeed
that to keep the course of events distinct in the mind

1 From the unpublished "Second Series" of the Shakespeare-Char-
acters, kindly sent to me by Mrs. Mary Cowden-Clarke for publication
in my former edition. Both series were originally written as popular
lectures, which were widely delivered in England.

22 The Comedy of Errors

is almost as desperate an achievement as following all
the ramifications of a genealogical tree. . . .

" Hazlitt speaks of the 'formidable anachronism* com-
mitted by Shakespeare in introducing Pinch, the school-
master and conjurer, in Ephesus. It should appear,
however, that our poet has offered a greater violence to
consistency in establishing a convent and a lady abbess
under the nose of the goddess Diana. Nevertheless,
there is an admirably characteristic dialogue, and quite
in his own manner, between the Abbess and Adriana,
wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, in which the shrewd old
lady makes the jealous woman confess that heir own
injudicious treatment of her husband's vagaries has
driven him mad [v. i. 44-86]. . . .

" Balthazar, the sober, sedate friend of Antipholus of
Ephesus, is like a first sketch of the staid and serious
Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. He commences
with a similar air of sadness ; and the judicious remon-
strance which the Ephesian merchant addresses to his
young friend, bidding him have patience and forbear-
ance with his wife's apparent caprice, is in the same
tone of quiet resignation of character which distinguishes
the Venetian merchant.

" Pinch (whom we cannot afford to part with for the
sake of avoiding the anachronism pointed out by Hazlitt
— who, by the way, was himself too good a judge of
excellence seriously to give up the character on that
score) affords a pleasant instance of Shakespeare's gay
exaggeration in humour ; the high spirits of an author

Introduction 23

taking shape in his writing, as it were. The descrip-
tion of the fellow is capital : —

' Along with them
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man. This pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer ;
And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 't were, outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possess'd.'

That touch of the ' no face * sets the man, with his
attenuated vacant countenance and glowering eyes,
jpalpably before us.

" It forms an interesting examination to observe the
way in which the two greatest comic dramatic geniuses
that ever lived — Shakespeare and Molifcre — have
each treated a similar subject. Both writers have taken
a comedy of Plautus ; a comedy curiously alike in main
particular — that of perfect resemblance of person in
the pairs of heroes. Shakespeare took the Roman's
comedy where the likeness between the twin brothers
Menaechmus forms the groundwork ; and Moltere took
the play where the precise doubling of the parts of
Amphitryon and Sosia by Jupiter and Mercury occasions
the dramatic intrigue. The task of adapting the Latin
author's humours to English apprehension of drollery,
and the rendering them appreciable to French taste,*

24 The Comedy of Errors

has been felicitously achieved in both instances ; and
while the fine philosophic gravity of Shakespeare has
thrown that intermixture of poetic feeling into the piece
with which his large soul could not help investing every
thing he touched, by the introduction of old ^Egeon's
opening story and the Lady Abbess's admonition,
Molifcre's refined wit has retained his version through-
out in the enchanted region of mirth and vivacity. In
Shakespeare's play there is precisely that serious charm
added which we find in Nature herself throughout her
works ; while in the delightful mercurial Frenchman's
play every scene floats in an atmosphere of brilliancy
and buoyancy which suits the sportive theme he treats.
No dramatic writer comes so near to Shakespeare's
excellence as Molifcre; and even he only approaches
him on one ground — comic humour. But in his wit —
in the grace and wondrous naturalness of his wit — he
vies with the Prince of Dramatists.

" A main interest attaching to this play of The Comedy
of Errors is in the evidence it presents that Shake-
speare's earlier taste led him to classical ground for
subjects. His choice of the Venus and Adonis and of
the Lucrece for poems, and his selection of one of
Plautus's dramas for the plot of this comedy — most
probably one of Shakespeare's earliest plays — show his
student tendency for Greek and Roman themes ; a ten-
dency often evinced by youthful worshippers of the
muse."

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

DRAMATIS PERSON M

Solinus, duke of Ephesus.
JEcBOS f a merchant of Syracuse.
/ Antipholus of Ephesus, J twin brothers, and sons of Mgeon and
(0 Antipholus of Syracuse, j iEmilia.

Dromio of Ephesus, i twin brothers, and attendants on the two

Dromio of Syracuse, f Antipholuses.

Balthazar, a merchant. >., , m •■

Angblo, a goldsmith. *.•*'"**•■ !»*■—■
< First Merchant, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse.
Second Merchant, to whom Angelo is a debtor.
^inch, a schoolmaster.
Emilia, wife to jEgeon.
Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus.
Luciana, her sister.
Luce, servant to Adriana.
A Courtesan.

Gaoler, Officers, and Other Attendants. .

Scene: Ephesus.

5

^** =^" ' ' - ■

The Shipwreck

ACT I

Scene I. A Hall in the Duke's Palace

Enter Duke, ^Egeon, Gaoler, Officers, and other
Attendants

^Egeon. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,
And by the doom of death end woes and all.

Duke. Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more.
I am not partial to infringe our laws ;
The enmity and discord which of late
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
Who wanting guilders to redeem their lives
Have seaFd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
Excludes all pity from our threatening looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars

27

28 The Comedy of Errors [Act I

'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,

It hath in solemn synods been decreed,

Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,

To admit no traffic to our adverse towns.

Nay, more, if any born at Ephesus

Be seen at Syracusian marts and fairs, —

Again, if any Syracusian born

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,

His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose, 20

Unless a thousand marks be levied,

To quit the penalty and to ransom him.

Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,

Cannot amount unto a hundred marks ;

Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.

s&geon. Yet this my comfort : when your words are
done,
My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

Duke. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
Why thou departedst from thy native home,
And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus. 30

s&geon. A heavier task could not have been impos'd
Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable ;
Yet, that the world may witness that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I '11 utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
In Syracusa was I born, and wed
Unto a woman, happy but for me,
And by me too, had not our hap been bad.
With her I hVd in joy ; our wealth increas'd

Scene ij The Comedy of Errors 29

By prosperous voyages I often made 40

To Epidamnum, till my factor's death

And the great care of goods at random left

Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse,

From whom my absence was not six months old

Before herself, almost at fainting under

The pleasing punishment that women bear,

Had made provision for her following me,

And soon and safe arrived where I was.

There had she not been long but she became

A joyful mother of two goodly sons ; 50

And, which was strange, the one so like the other

As could not be distinguish 'd but by names.

That very hour and in the selfsame inn

A meaner woman was delivered

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.

Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,

I bought and brought up to attend my sons.

My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,

Made daily motions for our home return.

Unwilling I agreed ; alas 1 too soon 60

We came aboard.

A league from Epidamnum had we saiFd

Before the always-wind-obeying deep

Gave any tragic instance of our harm ;

But longer did we not retain much hope,

For what obscured light the heavens did grant

Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant of immediate death,

30 The Comedy of Errors [Act I

Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife, 70

Weeping before for what she saw must come,

And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,

That mourn 'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,

Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.

And this it was, for other means was none :

The sailors sought for safety by our boat,

And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us.

My wife, more careful for the latter-born,

Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,

Such as seafaring men provide for storms ; 80

To him one of the other twins was bound,

Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.

The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,

Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,

Fasten 'd ourselves at either end the mast,

And floating straight, obedient to the stream,

Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.

At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,

Disperse those vapours that offended us,

And, by the benefit of his wished light, 90

The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered

Two ships from far making amain to us,

Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this ;

But ere they came, — O, let me say no more 1

Gather the sequel by that went before.

Duke. Nay, forward, old man ; do not break off $0,
For we may pity, though not pardon thee.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 3 1

sEgton. O, had the gods done so, I had not
now
Worthily term'd them merciless to us 1
For, ere jthe ships could meet by twice five leagues, 100
We were encountered by a mighty rock,
Which being violently borne upon,
Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst ;
So that, in this unjust divorce of us,
Fortune had left to both of us alike
What to delight in, what to sorrow for.
Her part, poor soul 1 seeming as burdened
With lesser weight but not with lesser woe,
Was carried with more speed before the wind ;
And in our sight they three were taken up no

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.
At length, another ship had seiz'd on us,
And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,
Gave healthful welcome to their shipwrack'd guests,
And would have reft the fishers of their prey,
Had not their bark been very slow of sail ;
And therefore homeward did they bend their course. —
Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,
That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,
To tell sad stories of my own mishaps. 120

Duke. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest
for,
Do me the favour to dilate at full
What hath befallen of them and thee till now.

sEgean. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,

32 The Comedy of Errors

At eighteen years became inquisitive
After his brother, and importun'd me
That his attendant — for his case was like,
Reft of his brother, but retain 'd his name —
Might bear him company in the quest of him
Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see,
I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.
Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece,
Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,
And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus ;
Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought
Or that or any place that harbours men.
But here must end the story of my life ;
And happy were I in my timely death,
Could all my travels warrant me they live.

Duke. Hapless ^Egeon, whom the fates have
To bear the extremity of dire mishap !
Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,
Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,
Which princes, would they, may not disannul,
My soul should sue as advocate for thee.
But, though thou art adjudged to the death,
And passed sentence may not be recalPd
But to our honour's great disparagement,
Yet I will favour thee in what I can.
Therefore, merchant, I '11 limit thee this day
To seek thy help by beneficial help.
Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus.
Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,

Scene ii] The Comedy of Errors 23

And live ; if no, then thou art doom'd to die. —
Gaoler, take him to thy custody.

Gaoler, I will, my lord.

yEgeon. Hopeless and helpless doth ^Egeon wend
But to procrastinate his lifeless end. [Exeunt

Scene II. The Mart

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse, Dromio of Syra-
cuse, and First Merchant {.■■•»' './I A* -■

/ -, "*

i Merchant Therefore give out you are of E^i-

damnum,
Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
This very day a Syracusian merchant
Is apprehended for arrival here,
And not being able to buy out his life
According to the statute of the town
Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.
There is your money that I had to keep.

Antipholus of S. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we

host,
And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. 10

Within this hour it will be dinner-time ;
Till that, I '11 view the manners of the town,
Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
And then return and sleep within mine inn,
For with long travel I am stiff and weary.
Get thee away.

COMEDY OF ERRORS— 3

34 The Comedy of Errors [Act I

Dromio of S. Many a man would take you at your
word,
And go indeed, having so good a mean. [Exit

Antipholus ofS.A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,
When I am dull with care and melancholy, 20

Lightens my humour with his merry jests.
What, will you walk with me about the town,
And then go to my inn and dine with me ?

1 Merchant I am invited, sir, to certain mer-
chants,
Of whom I hope to make much benefit ;
I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,
Please you, I '11 meet with you upon the mart,
And afterward consort you till bedtime ;
My present business calls me from you now.

Antipholus of S. Farewell till then ; I will go lose
myself 30

And wander up and down to view the city.

1 Merchant Sir, I commend you to your own
content. [Exit

Antipholus of S. He that commends me to mine own
content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get
(I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself ;
So I, to find a mother and a brother,
In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. 40

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors . 35

Enter Dromio of Ephesus

Here comes the almanac of my true date. —
What now ? how chance thou art return 'd so soon ?

Dromio of E. Return 'd so soon I rather approach 'd
too late.
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit,
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell ;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek.
She is so hot because the meat is cold ;
The meat is cold because you come not home ;
You come not home because you have no stomach ;
You have no stomach having broke your fast ; 50

But we that know what \ is to fast and pray .
Are penitent for your default to-day.

Antipholus of S. Stop in your wind, sir. Tell me
this, I pray :
Where have you left the money that I gave you ?

Dromio ofE.0 1 — sixpence, that I had o' Wednes-
day last
To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper ?
The saddler had it, sir ; I kept it not.

Antipholus of S. I am not in a sportive humour now ;
Tell me, and dally not, where is the money ?
We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust 60

So great a charge from thine own custody ?

Dromio of E. I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at
dinner.
I from my mistress come to you in post ;

36 The Comedy of Errors [Act I

If I return, I shall be post indeed,
For she will score your fault upon my pate.
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
And strike you home without a messenger.
Antipholus of S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are
out of season ;
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee ? 70

Dromio of E. To me, sir ? why, you gave no gold to

me.
Antipholus of S. Come on, sir knave, have done your
foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.

Dromio of E. My charge was but to fetch you from
the mart
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner ;
My mistress and her sister stays for you.
Antipholus of S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer
me
In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours
That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd. 80

Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me ?
Dromio of E. I have some marks of yours upon my
pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Scene ii] The Comedy of Errors 37

Antipholus of S. Thy mistress' marks ? what mistress,
slave, hast thou ?

Drotnio of E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at
the Phoenix;
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner. 90

Antipholus of S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto
my face,
Being forbid ? There, take you that, sir knave.

Dromio of E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake,
hold your hands 1

Nay, an you will not, sir, I '11 take my heels. [Exit

Antipholus of S. Upon life, by some device or other
The villain is o'er-raught of all my money.
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body, 100

Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin ;
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I '11 to the Centaur, to go seek this slave ;
I greatly fear my money is not safe. [Exit

Remains of Gate at Ephesus

ACT II

Scene I. The House of Antipholus of Ephesus
Enter Adriana and Luciana

Adriana. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master 1
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luciana. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he 's somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine and never fret.
A man is master of his liberty ;
\ Time is their master, and when they see time
They '11 go or come. If so, be patient, sister.

3&

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 39

Adriana. Why should their liberty than ours be

more ? 10

Luciana. Because their business still lies out o'

door.
Adriana. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
Luciana. O, know he is the bridle of your will.
Adriana. There 's none but asses will be bridled so.
Luciana. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
There 's nothing situate under heaven's eye
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls
Are their males' subjects and at their controls ;
Men, more divine, the masters of all these, 20

Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.
Then let your will attend on their accords.

Adriana. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
Luciana. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.
Adriana. But, were you wedded, you would bear

some sway.
Luciana. Ere I learn love, I '11 practise to obey.
Adriana. How if your husband start some other

where ?
Luciana. Till he come home again, I would for-
bear. 31
Adriana. Patience unmov'd ! no marvel though she
pause ;

40 The Comedy of Errors [Act II

They can be meek that have no other cause.

A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry ;

But were we burden 'd with like weight of pain,

As much or more we should ourselves complain.

So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,

With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me ;

But, if thou live to see like right bereft, 40

This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.

Luciana, Well, I will marry one day but to try.
Here comes your man ; now is your husband nigh.

Enter Dromio of Ephesus

Adriana. Say, is your tardy master now at hand ?

Dromio of E. Nay, he 's at two hands with me,
and that my two ears can witness.

Adriana. Say, didst thou speak with him ? know'st
thou his mind ?

Dromio of E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

Luciana. Spake he so doubtfully thou couldst not
feel his meaning ? 52

Dromio of E. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could
too well feel his blows ; and withal so doubtfully that
I could scarce understand them.

Adriana. But say, I prithee, is he coming home ?
It seems he hath great care to please his wife.

Dromio of E. Why, mistress, sure my master is
horn-mad.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 41

- Adriana. Horn-mad, thou villain 1

Drotnio of E. I mean not cuckold-mad ;

But, sure, he is stark mad.

When I desir'd him to come home to dinner, 60

He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.

* *T is dinner-time/ quoth I ; ' My gold I ' quoth he.

* Your meat doth burn,' quoth I ; ' My gold ! ' quoth he.

* Will you come home ? ' quoth I ; * My gold I ' quoth he,

* Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain ? '

* The pig,' quoth I, ' is burn'd ; ' ' My gold I ' quoth he.
' My mistress, sir,' quoth I ; ' Hang up thy mistress 1
I know not thy mistress ; out on thy mistress 1 '

Luciana. Quoth who ?

Drotnio of E. Quoth my master. 70

* I know,' quoth he, ' no house, no wife, no mistress.'
So that my errand, due unto my tongue,

I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders ;
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.
Adriana. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him

home.
Drotnio of E. Go back again, and be new beaten
home?
For God's sake, send some other messenger.

Adriana. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.

Drotnio of E. And he will bless that cross with other

beating.

Between you I shall have a holy head. 80

Adriana. Hence, prating peasant 1 fetch thy master

. home.

42 The Comedy of Errors TAct u

Dromio of E. Am I so round with you as you with me,.
That like a football you do spurn me thus ?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither ;
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

[Exit

Luciana. Fie, how impatience lowereth in your face I

Adriana. His company must do his minions grace,
Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. N

Hath homely age the alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek ? then he hath wasted it. 90 .

Are my discourses dull ? barren my wit ?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.
Do their gay vestments his affections bait ?
That 's not my fault ; he 's master of my state.
What ruins are in me that can be found,
By him not ruin'd ? then is he the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair,
But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale 100

And feeds from home ; poor I am but his stale.

Luciana. Self-harming jealousy I fie, beat it hence 1
' Adriana. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dis-
pense.
I know his eye doth homage other where,
Or else what lets it but he would be here ?
Sister, you know he promised me a chain ;
Would that alone, alone he would detain,
So he would keep fair quarter with his bed I

Scene n] The Comedy of Errors 43

I see the jewel best enamelled

Will lose his beauty, and though gold bides still no

That others touch, yet often touching will

Wear gold ; and so a man that hath a name

By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,

I '11 weep what 's left away, and weeping die.

Luciana. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy I

[Exeunt

Scene II. A Public Place

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse

Antipholus of S* The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
Safe at the Centaur ; and the heedful slave
Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out.
By computation and mine host's report,
I could not speak with Dromio since at first
I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes. —

Enter Dromio of Syracuse

How now, sir ! is your merry humour alter'd ?
As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
You know no Centaur ? you receiv'd no gold ?
Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner ? 10

My house was at the Phoenix ? Wast thou mad
That thus so madly thou didst answer me ?
Dromio of S. What answer, sir? when spake I such
a word?

44 The Comedy of Errors [Act II

Antipholus of S. Even now, even here, not half an

hour since.
Dromio of S. I did not see you since you sent me
hence,
Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.
Antipholus of S. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's
receipt,
And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner,
For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.
Dromio of S. I am glad to see you in this merry
vein ; 20

What means this jest ? I pray you, master, tell me.
Antipholus of S. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in
the teeth ?
Think'st thou I jest ? Hold, take thou that, and that.

[Beating him.
Dromio of S. Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your
jest is earnest.
Upon what bargain do you give it me ?
Antipholus of S. Because that I familiarly some-
times
Do use you for my fool and chat with you,
Your sauciness will jest upon my love
And make a common of my serious hours.
/When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, 30
\JBut creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
If you will jest with me, know my aspect
And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.

Scene n] The Comedy of Errors 45

Dromio of S. Sconce call you it ? so you would
leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you
use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my
head and insconce it too ; or else I shall seek my
wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, sir, why am I
beaten ? 40

Antipholus of S. Dost thou not know ?

Dromio of S. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

Antipholus ofS. Shall I tell you why ?

Dromio of S. Ay, sir, and wherefore ; for they say
every why hath a wherefore.

Aritipholus of S. Why, first, — for flouting me; and
then, wherefore, —
For urging it the second time to me.

Dromio of S. Was there ever any man thus beaten
out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme

nor reason ?
Well, sir, I thank you. 50

Antipholus ofS. Thank me, sir! for what?

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, for this something that
you gave me for nothing.

Antipholus of S. I '11 make you amends next, to
give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it
dinner-time ?

Dromio of S. No, sir ; I think the meat wants that
I have.

Antipholus of S. In good time, sir ; what *s that ?

Dromio of S. Basting. 60

46 The Comedy of Errors [Act II

Antipholus of S. Well, sir, then 't will be dry.

Drotnio of S. If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none
of it.

Antipholus of S. Your reason ?

Drotnio of S. Lest it make you choleric, and pur-
chase me another dry basting.

Antipholus of S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good
time; there's a time for all things.

Drotnio of S. I durst have denied that, before you
were so choleric. 70

Antipholus of S. By what rule, sir ?

Drotnio of S. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the
plain bald pate of father Time himself.

Antipholus of S. Let 's hear it.

Drotnio ofS. There 's no time for a man to recover
his hair that grows bald by nature.

Antipholus of S. May he not do it by fine and
recovery ?

Drotnio of S. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and
recover the lost hair of another man. 80

Antipholus of S. Why is Time such a niggard of
hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement ?

Drotnio of S. Because it is a blessing that he be-
stows on beasts ; and what he hath scanted men in
hair he hath given them in wit.

Antipholus of S. Why, but there *s many a man
hath more hair than wit.

Drotnio of S. Not a man of those but he hath the
wit to lose his hair.

Scene n] The Comedy of Errors 47

Antipholus of S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy
men plain dealers without wit. 91

Drotnio of S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;
yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.

Antipholus ofS. For what reason ?

Drotnio of S. For two ; and sound ones too.

Antipholus of S. Nay, not sound, I pray you.

Drotnio of S. Sure ones then.

Antipholus ofS. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.

Drotnio of S. Certain ones then.

Antipholus of S. Name them. 100

Drotnio of S. The one, to save the money that he
spends in trimming ; the other, that at dinner they
should not drop in his porridge.

Antipholus of S. You would all this time have
proved there is no time for all things.

Drotnio of S. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no
time to recover hair lost by nature.

Antipholus of S. But your reason was not substan-
tial why there is no time to recover.

Drotnio of S. Thus I mend it : Time himself is
bald, and therefore to the world's end will have bald
followers. 112

Antipholus ofS. I knew 'twould be a bald conclu-
sion. — But, soft I Who wafts us yonder ?

Enter Adriana and Luciana

Adriana. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects ;

48 The Comedy of Errors [Act 11

I am not Adriana nor thy wife.

The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow

That never words were music to thine ear,

That never object pleasing in thine eye, 120

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet savour 'd in thy taste,

Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch 'd, or carv'd to thee.

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,

That thou art thus estranged from thyself?

Thyself I call it, being strange to me,

That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear self's better part.

Ah, do not tear away thyself from me !

For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall 130

A drop of water in the breaking gulf,

And take unmingled thence that drop again,

Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyself and not me too.

How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,

Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,

And that this body, consecrate to thee,

By ruffian lust should be contaminate I

Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,

And hurl the name of husband in my face, 140

And tear the stain 'd skin off my harlot-brow,

And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,

And break it with a deep-divorcing vow ?

I know thou canst ; and therefore see thou do it.

I am possess'd with an adulterate blot,

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 49

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust ;

For if we two be one and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed, 150

I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured.

Antipholus of S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I
know you not.
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk,
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

Luciana. Fie, brother 1 how the world is chang'd
with you!
When were you wont to use my sister thus ?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Antipholus of S. By Dromio? 160

Dromio of S. By me ?

Adriana. By thee ; and this thou didst return from
him, —
That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.

Antipholus of S. Did you converse, sir, with this
gentlewoman ?
What is the course and drift of your compact ?

Dromio of S. I, sir? I never saw her till this time.

Antipholus of S. Villain, thou liest; for even her very
words
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 4

5<d The Comedy of Errors [Actn

Drotnio of S. I never spake with her in all my life.

Antipholus of S. How can she thus then call us by
our names, 171

Unless it be by inspiration ?

Adriana. How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood 1
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt
Come, I will fasten on. this sleeve of thine ;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state 180

Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss,
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

Antipholus of S. To me she speaks ; she moves me
for her theme !
What, was I married to her in my dream ?
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this ?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss ?
Until I know this sure uncertainty 190

I 41 entertain the ofler'd fallacy.

Luciana. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for
dinner.

Dromio of S. O, for my beads I I cross me for a
sinner.
This is the fairy land ; O spite of spites 1

Scene ii] The Comedy of Errors 51

We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.
If we obey them not, this will ensue, —
They '11 suck our breath or pinch us black and blue.

Luciana. Why prat'st thou to thyself and answer'st
not?
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot I 199

Drotnio of S. I am transformed, master, am I not?

Antipholus of S. I think thou art in mind, and so
am I.

Drotnio of S. Nay, master, both in mind and in my
shape.

Antipholus of S. Thou hast thine own form.

Drotnio of S. No, I am an ape.

Luciana. If thou art chang'd to aught, *t is to an ass.

Drotnio of S. *T is true ; she rides me and I long
for grass.
'T is so, I am an ass ; else it could never be
But I should know her as well as she knows me.

Adriana. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep,
Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn. 2x0
Come, sir, to dinner. — Dromio, keep the gate. —
Husband, I '11 dine above with you to-day,
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks. —
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
Say he dines forth and let no creature enter. —
Come, sister. — Dromio, play the porter well.

Antipholus of S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in
hell?

52 The Comedy of Errors [Act n

Sleeping or waking ? mad or well-advis'd ?

Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd I

I '11 say as they say and persever so, aao

And in this mist at all adventures go.

Dromio of S, Master, shall I be porter at the gate ?
Adriana. Ay ; and let none enter, lest I break your

pate.
Luciana. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

\Exeunt

Ruins of Aqueduct at Ephesus

ACT III

Scene I. Before the House of Antipholus of Ephesus

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Ephesus,
Angelo, and Balthazar

Antipholus of E. Good Signior Angelo, you must ex-
cuse us all ;
My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.
Say that I linger'd with you at your shop
To see the making of her carcanet,
And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
But here 's a villain that would face me down
He met me on the mart, and that I beat him
And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,
And that I did deny my wife and house. —
Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this ? 10

S3

54 The Comedy of Errors [Act Hi

Dromio of E. Say what you will, sir, but I know
what I know;
That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show.
If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave

were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
Antipholus of E. I think thou art an ass.
Dromio of E. Marry, so it doth appear

By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick, being kick'd ; and, being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.
Antipholus of E. You 're sad, Signior Balthazar; pray
God our cheer 19

May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
Balthazar, I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your

welcome dear.
Antipholus of E. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh
or fish,
A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
Balthazar. Good meat, sir, is common; that every

churl affords.
Antipholus of E. And welcome more common, for

that *s nothing but words.
Balthazar. Small cheer and great welcome makes a

merry feast.
Antipholus of E. Ay, to a niggardly host and more
sparing guest.
But though my cates be mean, take them in good part ;
Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.

Scene i] The Comedy of Errors 55

But, softl my door is lock'd. — Go bid them let us in.
Dromio of E. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian,
Ginn 1 31

Dromio of S. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, cox-
comb, idiot, patch !
Either get thee from the door or sit down at the hatch.
Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou calFst for

such store,
When one is one too many ? Go get thee from the door.
Dromio of E, What patch is made our porter ? My

master stays in the street.
Dromio ofS. [Within] Let him walk from whence he

came, lest he catch cold on 's feet.
Antipholus of E. Who talks within there ? ho, open

the doorl
Dromio of S. [Within] Right, sir; I '11 tell you when,

an you '11 tell me wherefore.
Antipholus of E. Wherefore ? for my dinner ; I have
not din'd to-day. 40

Dromio of S. [Within] Nor to-day here you must

not; come again when you may.
Antipholus of E. What art thou that keep'st me out

from the house I owe ?
Dromio of S. [ Within] The porter for this time, sir,

and my name is Dromio.
Dromio ofE.O villain 1 thou hast stolen both mine
office and my name.
The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
If thou hadst be*en Dromio to-day in my place,

56 The Comedy of Errors [Act ra

Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name or thy

name for an ass.
Luce. [ Within] What a coil is there, Dromio ? who are

those at the gate ?
Dromio of E. Let my master in, Luce.
Luce. [Within] Faith, no! he comes too late;

And so tell your master.

Dromio of E. O Lord, I must laugh 1 50

Have at you with a proverb — Shall I set in my staff ?
Luce. [ Withiri\ Have at you with another ; that *s —

When ? can you tell ?
Dromio of S. [Within] If thy name be calFd Luce, —

Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.
Antipholus of E. Do you hear, you minion ? you '11 let

us in, I hope ?
Luce. [ Within] I thought to have ask'd you.
Dromio of S. [ Within] And you said no.

• Dromio of E. So, come, help ! well struck 1 there was

blow for blow.
Antipholus of E. Thou baggage, let me in.
Luce. [ Within] Can you tell for whose sake ?

Dromio of E. Master, knock the door hard.
Luce. [ Within] Let him knock till it ache.

Antipholus of E. You '11 cry for this, minion, if I

beat the door down.
Luce. [ Within] What needs all that, and a pair of

stocks in the town ? 60

Adriana. [ Within] Who is that at the door that keeps

all this noise ?

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 57

Dromio of S.\_ Within] By my troth, your town is

troubled with unruly boys.
Antipholus of E. Are you there, wife ? you might have

come before.
Adriana. [ Within] Your wife, sir knave 1 go get you

from the door.
Dromio of E. If you went in pain, master, this knave

would go sore.
Angelo. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome ; we

would fain have either.
Balthazar. In debating which was best, we shall part

with neither.
Dromio of E. They stand at the door, master ; bid

them welcome hither.
[Antipholus of E. There is something in the wind, that

we cannot get in.
Dromio of E. You would say so, master, if your gar-
ments were thin. 70
Your cake is warm within, you stand here in the cold ;
It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought

and sold.
Antipholus of E. Go fetch me something ; I '11 break

ope the gate.
Dromio of S. [Within] Break any breaking here, and

I '11 break your knave's pate.
Dromio ofE.A man may break a word with you, sir,

and words are but wind.
Dromio of S. [Within] It seems thou want'st break-
ing ; out upon thee, hind 1

58 The Comedy of Errors [Act in

Dromio of E. Here's too much out upon theel I

pray thee, let me in.
Dromio of S. [Within] Ay, when fowls have no

feathers and fish have no fin.
Antipholus of E. Well, I '11 break in ; go borrow me a

crow.

Dromio of E. A crow without feather? Master,

mean you so? 80

For a fish without a fin, there 's a fowl without a feather;

If a crow help us in, sirrah, we '11 pluck a crow together.

Antipholus of E. Go get thee gone ; fetch me an iron

crow.
Balthazar. Have patience, sir ; O, let it not be so 1
Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compass of suspect
The unviolated honour of your wife.
Once this,— lyour long experience of her wisdom,
.' Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown ; 90

And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
Why at this time the doors are made against you.
Be rul'd by me : depart in patience,
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner ;
And about evening come yourself alone,
To know the reason of this strange restraint.
If by strong hand you offer to break in
Now in the stirring passage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it,
And that supposed by the common rout too

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 59

Against your yet ungalled estimation

That may with foul intrusion enter in,

And dwell upon your grave when you are dead ;

For slander lives upon succession,

For ever hous'd where it gets possession.

Antipholus of E. You have prevaiFd ; I will depart
in quiet,
And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry.
I know a wench of excellent discourse,
Pretty and witty, wild and yet, too, gentle ;
There will we dine. This woman that I mean, no

My wife — but, I protest, without desert —
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal ;
To her will we to dinner. — [To Angelo\ Get you home
And fetch the chain ; by this I know 't is made.
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine ;
For there 's the house. (That chain will I bestow —
Be it for nothing but to spite my wife —
Upon mine hostess there) Good sir, make haste.
Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I '11 knock elsewhere, to see if they '11 disdain me. 120

Angelo. I '11 meet you at that place some hour hence.

Antipholus of E. Do so. This jest shall cost me
some expense. [Exeunt.

Scene II. The Same
Enter Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse
Luciana. And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband's office ? shall, Antipholus,

6o The Comedy of JErrors [Act in

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot ?

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous ?
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness.
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth ;

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness.
Let not my sister read it in your eye ;

Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator ; 10

Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty ;

Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger ;
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted ;

Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint ;
Be secret-false ; what need she be acquainted ?

What simple thief brags of his own attaint ?
'T is double wrong, to truant with your bed,

And let her read it in thy looks at board.
Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed ;

111 deeds are doubled with an evil word. 20

Alas, poor women 1 make us but believe,

Being compact of credit, that you love us ;
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve ;

We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
Then, gentle brother, get you in again,

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife ;
T is holy sport to be a little vain

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

Antipholus of S. Sweet mistress, — what your name
is else, I know not,

Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine, — 50

Scene n] The Comedy of Errors 61

Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not

Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak ;

Lay open to my earthly-gross conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded meaning of your words' deceit. .
Against my souFs pure truth why labour you

To make it wander in an unknown field ?
Are you a god ? would you create me new ?

Transform me then, and to your power I '11 yield. 40
But if that I am I, then well I know

Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe ;

Far more, far more to you do I decline.
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,

To drown me in thy sister's £eod ^f tears. '
Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote ;

Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairtf,
And as a bed I '11 take them and there lie,

And in that glorious supposition think 50

He gains by death that hath such means to die.

Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink 1

Luciana. What, are you mad, that you do reason
so?

Antipholus of S, Not mad, but mated ; how, I do not
know.

Luciana. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

Antipholus o/S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun,
being by.

62 The Comedy of Errors * [Act m

Luciana. Gaze where you should, and that will clear
your sight.

Antipholus of S. As good to wink, sweet love, as
look on night.

Luciana. Why call you me love ? call my sister
so.

Antipholus of S. Thy sister's sister.

Luciana. That 's my sister.

Antipholus of S. No;

It is thyself, mine own self's better part, 61

Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.

Luciana. All this my sister is, or else should be.

Antipholus of S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim
thee.
Thee will I love and with thee lead my life ;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
Give me thy hand.

Luciana. O, soft, sir 1 .hold you still ;

I '11 fetch my sister, to get her good will. [Exit

Enter Dromio of Syracuse

Antipholus of S. Why, how now, Dromio 1 where
runn'st thou so fast ? 72

Dromio of S. Do you know me, sir ? am I Dromio?
am I your man ? am I myself ?

Antipholus of S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my
man, thou art thyself.

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 63

Dromio of S. I am an ass, I am a woman's man,
and besides myself.

Antipholus of S. What woman's man ? and how
besides thyself ? 80

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due
to a woman ; one that claims me, one that haunts ,
me, one that will have me. .-(ma

Antipholus of S. What claim lays she to thee?

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, such a claim as you would
lay to your horse, and she would have me as a beast ;
not that I, being a beast, she would have trie, but that
she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

Antipholus of S. What is she ?

Dromio of S. A very reverent body ; ay, such a 90
one as a man may not speak of without he say
sir-reverence. I have but lean luck in the match,
and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.

Antipholus of S. How dost thou mean a fat mar-
riage ?

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, she 's the kitchen wench
and all grease ; and I know not what use to put her to
but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her
own light. I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them
will burn a Poland winter ; if she lives till dooms-
day, she '11 burn a week longer than the whole world.

Antipholus of S. What complexion is she of? 102

Dromio of S. Swart, like my shoe, but her face
nothing like so clean kept : for why, she sweats ; a
man may go over shoes in the grime of it.

64 The Comedy of Errors [Act in

Antipholus ofS. That 's a fault that water will mend.

Dromio of S. No, sir, 't is in grain ; Noah's flood
could not do it.

Antipholus of S. What 's her name ?

Dromio of S. Nell, sir ; but her name and three
quarters, that 's an ell and three quarters, will not
measure her from hip to hip. us

Antipholus of S. Then she bears some breadth ?

Dromio of S. No longer from head to foot than
from hip to hip. She is spherical, like a globe ; I
could find out countries in her.

Antipholus of S. In what part of her body stands
Scotland?

Dromio of S. I found it by the barrenness ; hard
in the palm of the hand. 12c

Antipholus of S. Where France?

Dromio of S. In her forehead; armed and re-
verted, making war against her heir.

Antipholus of S. Where England?

Dromio of S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but
I could find no whiteness in them ; but I guess it
stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran be-
tween France and it

Antipholus of S. Where Spain?

Dromio of S. Faith, I saw it not ; but I felt it hot
in her breath. 131

Antipholus ofS. Where America, the Indies ?

Dromio of S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er em-
bellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining

Scene n] The Comedy of Errors 65

their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent
whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.

Antipholus of S. Where stood Belgia, the Nether-
lands ? 138

Dromio of S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To
conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me,
called me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told
me what privy marks I had about me, as, the mark
of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart
on my left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a ^
witch ; ^**

And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith

and my heart of steel,
She had transform^ me to a curtal dog and made me
turn i' the wheel.

Antipholus ofS. Go hie thee presently post to the road.
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town to-night. 150

If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If every one knows us and we know none, \

'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone./

Dromio of S. As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit

Antipholus of S. There 's none but witches do inhabit
here;
And therefore *t is high time that I were hence.
She that doth call me husband, even my soul
Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, 160

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 5

~f"

66 The Comedy of Errors [Act in

Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
Hath almost made me traitor to myself ;
But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
I '11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

Enter Angelo with the chain

Angeio. Master Antipholus, —

Antipholus of S. Ay, that 's my name.

Angeio. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.
I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine ;
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

Antipholus of S. What is your will that I shall do
with this? 170

Angeio. What please yourself, sir; I have made it
for you.

Antipholus of S. Made it for me, sir 1 I bespoke it not.

Angeio. Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
Go home with it and please your wife withal ;
And soon at supper-time I '11 visit you,
And then receive my money for the chain.

Antipholus of S. I pray you, sir, receive the money
now,
For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.

Angeio. You are a merry man, sir ; fare you well. [Exit.

Antipholus of S. What I should think of this, I can-
not tell; 180
But this I think, there 's no man is so vain
That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.

Scene H] The Comedy of Errors 67

I see a man here needs not live by shifts

When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

I '11 to the mart and there for Dromio stay ;

If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit

Remains of Gymnasium at Ephesus

ACT IV

Scene I. A Public Place
Enter Second Merchant, Angelo, and an Officer

2 Merchant. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,
And since I have not much importun'd you ;
Nor now I had not but that I am bound
To Persia and want guilders for my voyage.
Therefore make present satisfaction,
Or I '11 attach you by this officer.

Angelo. Even just the sum that I do owe to you
Is growing to me by Antipholus,
And in the instant that I met with you
He had of me a chain ; at five o'clock 10

I shall receive the money for the same.

68

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 69

Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
I will discharge my bond and thank you too.

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of
Ephesus, from the Courtesan's

Officer. That labour may you save; see where he
comes.

Antipholus of E. While I go to the goldsmith's house,
go thou
And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates
For locking me out of my doors by day.
But, soft ! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone ;
Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me. 20

Dromio of E. I buy a thousand pound a year I I
buy a rope I [Exit.

Antipholus of E. A man is well holp up that trusts to
you!
I promised your presence and the chain,
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
Belike you thought our love would last too long
If it were chain 'd together, and therefore came not.

Angelo. Saving your merry humour, here 's the note
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
Which doth amount to three odd ducats more 30

Than I stand debted to this gentleman.
I pray you, see him presently discharg'd,
For he is bound to sea and stays but for it.

70 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Antipholus of E. I am not furnish 'd with the present
money ;
Besides, I have some business in the town.
Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
And with you take the chain and bid my wife
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof ;
Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
Angelo. Then you will bring the chain to her your-
self ? 40
Antipholus of E. No; bear it with you, lest I come

not time enough.
Angelo. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about

you?
Antipholus of E. An if I have not, sir, I hope you
have ;
Or else you may return without your money.

Angelo. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the
chain ;
Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
And I, to blame, have held him here too long.

Antipholus of E. Good Lord ! you use this dalliance
to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.
I should have chid you for not bringing it, 50

But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.

2 Merchant The hour steals on ; I pray you, sir,

dispatch.
Angelo. You hear how he importunes me; — the
* chain I

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 7 1

Antipholus of E. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch

your money.
Angelo. Come, come, you know I gave it you even
now.
Either send the chain or send me by some token.
Antipholus of E. Fie, now you run this humour out
of breath.
Come, where 's the chain ? I pray you, let me see it.

2 Merchant My business cannot brook this dalliance.
Good sir, say whether you '11 answer me or no ; 60

If not, I '11 leave him to the officer.

Antipholus of E. I answer you 1 what should I answer

you?
Angelo. The money that you owe me for the chain.
Antipholus of E. I .owe you none till I receive the

chain.
Angelo. You know I gave it you half an hour since.
Antipholus of E. You gave me none ; you wrong me

much to say so.
Angelo. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it ;
Consider how it stands upon my credit.

2 Merchant Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
Officer. I do, and charge you in the duke's name to
obey me. 70

Angelo. This touches me in reputation.
Either consent to pay this sum for me,
Or I attach you by this officer.

Antipholus of E. Consent to pay thee that I never had !
Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.

72 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Angelo. Here is thy fee ; arrest him, officer. —
I would not spare my brother in this case,
If he should scorn me so apparently.

Officer. I do arrest you, sir ; you hear the suit.

Antipholus of E. I do obey thee till I give thee
bail. — 80

But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
As all the metal in your shop will answer.

Angelo. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,
To your notorious shame ; I doubt it not.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse, from the bay

Dromio of S. Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum
That stays but till her owner comes aboard,
And then she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
I have convey 'd aboard, and I have bought
The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitae.
The ship is in her trim, the merry wind 90

Blows fair from land ; they stay for nought at all
But for their owner, master, and yourself.

Antipholus of E. How now ! a madman 1 Why, thou
peevish sheep,
What ship of Epidamnum stays for me ?

Dromio of S. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.

Antipholus of E. Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for
a rope,
And told thee to what purpose and what end.

Dromio of S. You sent me for a rope's end as soon ;
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 73

Antipholus of E. I will debate this matter at more
leisure, 100

And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight,
Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk
That 's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry
There is a purse of ducats ; let her send it.
Tell her I am arrested in the street,
And that shall bail me. Hie thee, slave, be gone 1 —
On, officer, to prison till it come.
[Exeunt 2 Merchant, Angelo, Officer, and Antipholus of E.

Dromio of S. To Adriana ! that is where we din'd,
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband ; no
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
Thither I must, although against my will,
For servants must their masters' minds fulfil. [Exit.

Scene II. The House of Antipholus of Ephesus
Enter Adriana and Luciana

Adriana. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so ?

Mightst thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest ? yea or no ?

Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily ?
What observation mad'st thou in this case
Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face ?

Luciana. First he denied you had in him no right.

Adriana. He meant he did me none, the more my
spite.

64 The Comedy of Errors [Act ill

Antipholus ofS. That 's a fault that water will mend.

Dromio of S. No, sir, *t is in grain ; Noah's flood
could not do it.

Antipholus of S. What 's her name ?

Dromio of S. Nell, sir ; but her name and three
quarters, that 's an ell and three quarters, will not
measure her from hip to hip. 112

Antipholus of S. Then she bears some breadth ?

Dromio of S. No longer from head to foot than
from hip to hip. She is spherical, like a globe ; I
could find out countries in her.

Antipholus of S. In what part of her body stands
Scotland?

Dromio of S. I found it by the barrenness ; hard
in the palm of the hand. 120

Antipholus of S. Where France?

Dromio of S. In her forehead; armed and re-
verted, making war against her heir.

Antipholus of S. Where England?

Dromio of S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but
I could find no whiteness in them ; but I guess it
stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran be-
tween France and it.

Antipholus of S. Where Spain?

Dromio of S. Faith, I saw it not ; but I felt it hot
in her breath. 131

Antipholus of S. Where America, the Indies ?

Dromio of S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er em-
bellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 65

their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent
whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.

Antipholus of S. Where stood Belgia, the Nether-
lands ? 138

Dromio of S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To
conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me,
called me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told
me what privy marks I had about me, as, the mark
of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart
on my left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a ^
witch ; js&

And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith

and my heart of steel,
She had transform^ me to a curtal dog and made me
turn i' the wheel.

Antipholus of S. Go hie thee presently post to the road.
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town to-night. 150

If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If every one knows us and we know none, \ _}.

'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone./

Dromio of S. As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit

Antipholus of S. There 's none but witches do inhabit
here;
And therefore 't is high time that I were hence.
She that doth call me husband, even my soul
Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, 160

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 5

66 The Comedy of Errors [Act ill

Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
Hath almost made me traitor to myself ;
But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
I '11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

Enter Angelo with the chain

Angelo. Master Antipholus, —

Antipholus of S. Ay, that *s my name.

Angelo. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.
I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine ;
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.

Antipholus of S. What is your will that I shall do
with this? 170

Angelo. What please yourself, sir; I have made it
for you.

Antipholus of S. Made it for me, sir 1 I bespoke it not.

Angelo. Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
Go home with it and please your wife withal ;
And soon at supper-time I '11 visit you,
And then receive my money for the chain.

Antipholus of S. I pray you, sir, receive the money
now,
For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.

Angelo. You are a merry man, sir ; fare you well. [Exit.

Antipholus of S. What I should think of this, I can-
not tell; 180
But this I think, there 's no man is so vain
That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.

Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 67

I see a man here needs not live by shifts

When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

I '11 to the mart and there for Dromio stay ;

If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit

Remains of Gymnasium at Ephesus

ACT IV

Scene I. A Public Place
Enter Second Merchant, Angelo, and an Officer

2 Merchant. You know since Pentecost the sum is due
And since I have not much importun'd you ;
Nor now I had not but that I am bound
To Persia and want guilders for my voyage.
Therefore make present satisfaction,
Or I '11 attach you by this officer.

Angelo. Even just the sum that I do owe to you
Is growing to me by Antipholus,
And in the instant that I met with you
He had of me a chain ; at five o'clock n

I shall receive the money for the same.

68

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 69

Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
I will discharge my bond and thank you too.

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of
Ephesus, from the Courtesan's

Officer. That labour may you save; see where he
comes.

Antipholus of E. While I go to the goldsmith's house,
go thou
And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates
For locking me out of my doors by day.
But, soft ! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone ;
Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me. 20

Dromio of E. I buy a thousand pound a year ! I
buy a rope ! [Exit

Antipholus of E. A man is well holp up that trusts to
youl
I promised your presence and the chain,
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
Belike you thought our love would last too long
If it were chain 'd together, and therefore came not.

Angelo. Saving your merry humour, here *s the note
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
Which doth amount to three odd ducats more 30

Than I stand debted to this gentleman.
I pray you, see him presently discharg'd,
For he is bound to sea and stays but for it.

70 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Antipholus of E. I am not furnish'd with the present
money ;
Besides, I have some business in the town.
Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
And with you take the chain and bid my wife
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof ;
Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
Angelo. Then you will bring the chain to her your-
self ? 40
Antipholus of E. No; bear it with you, lest I come

not time enough.
Angelo. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about

you?
Antipholus of E. An if I have not, sir, I hope you
have ;
Or else you may return without your money.

Angelo. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the
chain ;
Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
And I, to blame, have held him here too long.
Antipholus of E. Good Lord ! you use this dalliance
to excuse
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine.
I should have chid you for not bringing it, 50

But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.

2 Merchant The hour steals on ; I pray you, sir,

dispatch.
Angelo. You hear how he importunes me; — the
* chain 1

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 7 1

Antipholus of E. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch

your money.
Angelo. Come, come, you know I gave it you even
now.
Either send the chain or send me by some token.
Antipholus of E. Fie, now you run this humour out
of breath.
Come, where 's the chain ? I pray you, let me see it.

2 Merchant My business cannot brook this dalliance.
Good sir, say whether you '11 answer me or no ; 60

If not, I '11 leave him to the officer.

Antipholus of E. I answer you 1 what should I answer

you?
Angelo. The money that you owe me for the chain.
Antipholus of E. I .owe you none till I receive the

chain.
Angelo. You know I gave it you half an hour since.
Antipholus of E. You gave me none ; you wrong me

much to say so.
Angelo. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it ;
Consider how it stands upon my credit.

2 Merchant. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
Officer. I do, and charge you in the duke's name to
obey me. 70

Angelo. This touches me in reputation.
Either consent to pay this sum for me,
Or I attach you by this officer.

Antipholus of E. Consent to pay thee that I never had !
Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.

82 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Officer, Good sir, be patient.

Dromio of E. Nay, 't is for me to be patient ; I
am in adversity. 21

Officer. Good now, hold thy tongue.

Dromio of E. Nay, rather persuade him to hold
his hands.

Antipholus of E. Thou whoreson, senseless villain 1

Dromio of E. I would I were senseless, sir, that I
might not feel your blows.

Antipholus of E. Thou art sensible in nothing but
blows, and so is an ass. 29

Dromio of E. I am an ass, indeed ; you may prove
it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour
of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his
hands for my service but blows. When I am cold,
he heats me with beating ; when I am warm, he cools
me with beating. I am waked with it when I sleep,
raised with it when I sit, driven out of doors with it
when I go from home, welcomed home with it when
I return ; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar
wont her brat, and, I think, when he hath lamed me,
I shall beg with it from door to door. 40

Antipholus of E. Come, go along ; my wife is coming
yonder.

Enter Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and Pinch

Dromio of E. Mistress, respice finem, respect
your end ; or rather, the prophecy like the parrot,
beware the rope's-end.

Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 83

Antipholus of E. Wilt thou still talk ? \B eating him.
Courtesan. How say you now ? is not your husband

mad?
Adriana. His incivility confirms no less. —
Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand. 50

Luciana. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks 1
Courtesan. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy !
Pinch. Give me your hand, and let me feel your

pulse.
Antipholus of E. There is my hand, and let it feel
your ear. [Striking him.

Pinch. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight ;
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven !

Antipholus ofE. Peace, doting wizard, peace I I am

not mad.
Adriana. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed
soul ! 60

Antipholus of E. You minion, you, are these your
customers ?
Did this companion with the saffron face
Revel and feast it at my house to-day,
Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut
And I denied to enter in my house ?
Adriana. O husband, God doth know you din'd at
home,

84 The Comedy of Errors [Act nr

Where would you had remain'd until this time,
Free from these slanders and this open shame 1
Antipholus of E. Din'd at home 1— Thou villain,

what say'st thou ?
Dromio of E. Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at

home. 70

Antipholus of E. Were not my doors Ipck'd up and I

shut out ?
Dromio of E. Perdy, your doors were locked and you

shut out.
Antipholus of E. And did not she herself revile me

there?
Dromio of E. Sans fable, she herself reviPd you

there.
Antipholus of E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt,

and scorn me ?
Dromio of E. Certes, she did ; the kitchen-vestal

scorn'd you.
Antipholus of E. And did not I in rage depart from

thence ?
Dromio of E. In verity you did ; my bones bear

witness,
That since have felt the vigour of his rage.
Adriana. Is 't good to soothe him in these con-
traries ? 80
Pinch. It is no shame ; the fellow finds his vein,
And yielding to him humours well his frenzy.
Antipholus of E. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith

to arrest me.

Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 85

Adriana. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.

Dromio of E. Money by me 1 heart and good-will you
might; —
But surely, master, not a rag of money.

Aniipholus of E. Went'st not thou to her for a purse

of ducats?
Adriana. He came to me and I deliver'd it.
Luciana. And I am witness with her that she did.
Dromio of E. God and the rope-maker bear me
witness 91

That I was sent for nothing but a rope 1

Pinch. Mistress, both man and master is possess 'd ;
I know it by their pale and deadly looks.
They must be bound and laid in some dark room.
Aniipholus of E. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me
forth to-day? —
And why dost thou deny the bag of gold ?
Adriana. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.
Dromio of E. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold ;
But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out. 100

Adriana. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in

both.
Aniipholus of E. Dissembling harlot, thou art false
in all,
And art confederate with a damned pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me ;
But with these nails I '11 pluck out these false eyes
That would behold in me this shameful sport.

86 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Enter three or four and offer to bind him. He strives

Adriana. O, bind him, bind him 1 let him not come
near me.

Pinch. More company I The fiend is strong within
him.

Luciana. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he
looks !

Antipholus of E. What, will you murther me ? — Thou
gaoler, thou, no

I am thy prisoner ; wilt thou suffer them
To make a rescue ?

Officer. Masters, let him go ;

He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.

Pinch. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.

[They offer to bind Dromio of E.

Adriana. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer ?
Hast thou delight to see a wretched man
Do outrage and displeasure to himself ?

Officer. He is my prisoner ; if I let him go,
The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.

Adriana. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee.
Bear me forthwith unto his creditor, iai

And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it. —
Good master doctor, see him safe convey'd
Home to my house. — O most unhappy day I

Antipholus ofE.O most unhappy strumpet I

Dromio of E. Master, I am here enter'd in bond for
you.

Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 87

Antipholus of E. Out on thee, villain 1 wherefore dost
thou mad me ?

Dromio of E. Will you be bound for nothing ? be
mad, good master ; cry * The devil 1 ' 130

Luciana. God help, poor souls, how idly do they
talk!

Adriana. Go bear him hence. — Sister, go you with
me. —
[Exeunt all but Adriana, Luciana, Officer, and Courtesan.
Say now, whose suit is he arrested at ?

Officer. One Angelo, a goldsmith ; do you know him ?

Adriana. I know the man. What is the sum he owes ?

Officer. Two hundred ducats.

Adriana. Say, how grows it due ?

Officer. Due for a chain your husband had of him.

Adriana. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it
not.

Courtesan. Whenas your husband all in rage to-day
Came to my house and took away my. ring — 140

The ring I saw upon his finger now —
Straight after did I meet him with a chain.

Adriana. It may be so, but I did never see it. —
Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is ;
I long to know the truth hereof at large.

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse with his rapier drawn,
and Dromio of Syracuse

Luciana. God, for thy mercy I they are loose again.
Adriana. And come with naked swords.

88 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV

Let y s call more help to have them bound again.
Officer, Away I they '11 kill us.

[Exeunt all but Antipholus of S. and Drotnio of S.

Antipholus of S. I see these witches are afraid of

swords. 150

Drotnio of S. She that would be your wife now ran

from you.
Antipholus of S. Come to the Centaur ; fetch our stuff
from thence.
I long that we were safe and sound aboard.

Dromio of S. Faith, stay here this night, they will
surely do us no harm ; you saw they speak us fair, give
us gold. Methinks they are such a gentle nation that,
but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage
of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still and
turn witch.

Antipholus of S. I will not stay to-night for all the

town ; 160

Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard. [Exeunt

ACT Y

Scene I, A Sireet before a Priory

Enter Second Merchant and Angelo

Angela, I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you ;
But* I protest, he had the chain of me,
Though most dishonestly he doth deny it,

2 Merchant How is the man esteem'd here in the

city ?
Angela. Of very reverend reputation, sir,
Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,
Second to none that lives here in the city ;
His word might bear my wealth at any time.

2 Merchant Speak softly; yonder, as I, think, he
walks*

89

90 The Comedy of Errors [Act v

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of
Syracuse

Angelo. 'T is so ; and that self chain about his neck
Which he forswore most monstrously to have. n

Good sir, draw near to me, I '11 speak to him. —
Signior Antipholus, I wonder much
That you would put me to this shame and trouble,
And, not without some scandal to yourself,
With circumstance and oaths so to deny
This chain which now you wear so openly.
Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,
You have done wrong to this my honest friend,
Who, but for staying on our controversy, 20

Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.
This chain you had of me ; can you deny it ?

Antipholus of S. I think I had ; I never did deny it.

2 Merchant Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it
too.

Antipholus of S. Who heard me to deny it or for-
swear it ?

2 Merchant. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did
hear thee.
Fie on thee, wretch I 't is pity that thou liv'st
To walk where any honest men resort.

Antipholus of S. Thou art a villain to impeach me
thus;
I '11 prove mine honour and mine honesty 30

Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 91

2 Merchant. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.

[They draw.

Enter Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and others

Adriana. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake 1 he is
mad. —
Some get within him, take his sword away.
Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.

Dromio of S. Run, master, run ; for God's sake, take
a house 1
This is some priory. In, or we are spoiPd 1
[Exeunt Antipholus of S. and Dromio of S. to the Priory.

Enter the Lady Abbess

Abbess. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you

hither ?
Adriana. To fetch my poor distracted husband
hence.
Let us come in that we may bind him fast 40

And bear him home for his recovery.

Angeio. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.

2 Merchant I am sorry now that I did draw on

him.
Abbess. How long hath this possession held the

man?
Adriana. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
And much different from the man he was ;
But till this afternoon his passion
Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.

92 The Comedy of Errors [Act V

Abbess. Hath he not lost much wealth by wrack of
sea?
Buried some dear friend ? Hath not else his eye 50
Stray'd his affection in unlawful love ?
A sin prevailing much in youthful men
Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
Which of these sorrows is he subject to ?

Adriana. To none of these, except it be the last ;
Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.

Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him.

Adriana. Why, so I did.

Abbess. Ay, but not rough enough.

Adriana. As roughly as my modesty would let me.

Abbess. Haply, in private.

Adriana. And in assemblies too.

Abbess. Ay, but not enough. 61

Adriana. It was the copy of our conference :
In bed he slept not for my urging it ;
At board he fed not for my urging it ;
Alone, it was the subject of my theme ;
In company I often glanced it ;
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.

Abbess. And thereof came it that the man was mad.
The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 70

It seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing,
And thereof comes it that his head is light.
Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings.
Unquiet meals make ill digestions ;

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 93

Thereof the raging fire of fever bred,

And what 's a fever but a fit of madness ?

Thou say'st his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls.

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue

But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair, 80

And at her heels a huge infectious troop

Of pale distemperatures and foes to life ?

In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest

To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.

The consequence is then thy jealous fits

Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.

Luciana. She never reprehended him but mildly,
When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly. —
Why bear you these rebukes and answer not ?

Adriana. She did betray me to my own reproof. —
Good people, enter and lay hold on him. 91

Abbess. No, not a creature enters in my house.

Adriana. Then let your servants bring my husband
forth.

Abbess. Neither ; he took this place for sanctuary,
And it shall privilege him from your hands
Till I have brought him to his wits again,
Or lose my labour in assaying it.

Adriana. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
And will have no attorney but myself ; 100

And therefore let me have him home with me.

Abbess. Be patient ; for I will not let him stir

94 The Comedy of Errors [Act V

Till I have us'd the approved means I have,

With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,

To make of him a formal man again.

It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,

A charitable duty of my order.

Therefore depart and leave him here with me.

Adriana. I will not hence and leave my husband here ;
And ill it doth beseem your holiness no

To separate the husband and the wife.

Abbess. Be quiet and depart ; thou shalt not have
him. [Exit.

Luciana. Complain unto the duke of this indignity.
, Adtiana. Come, go ; I will fall prostrate at his feet,
And never rise until my tears and prayers
Have won his grace to come in person hither
And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

2 Merchant By this, I think, the dial points at five.
Anon, I 'm sure, the duke himself in person
Comes this way to the melancholy vale, 120

The place of death and sorry execution,
Behind the ditches of the abbey here.

Ange/o. Upon what cause ?

2 Merchant. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,
Who put unluckily into this bay
Against the laws and statutes of this town,
Beheaded publicly for his offence.

Angelo. See where they come ; we will behold his
death.

Luciana. Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 95

Enter Duke, attended; ^Egeon bareheaded; with the
Headsman and other Officers

Duke. Yet once again proclaim it publicly, 130

If any friend will pay the sum for him,
He shall not die ; so much we tender him.

Adriana. Justice, most sacred duke, against the
abbess 1

Duke. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady ;
It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.

Adriana. May it please your grace, Antipholus my
husband,
Who I made lord of me and all I had
At your important letters, — this ill day
A most outrageous fit of madness took him ;
That desperately he hurried through the street, — 140
With him his bondman, all as mad as he, —
Doing displeasure to the citizens
By rushing in their houses, bearing thence
Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like.
Once did I get him bound and sent him home,
Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went
That here and there his fury had committed.
Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,
He broke from those that had the guard of him,
And with his mad attendant and himself, 150

Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,
Met us again, and madly bent on us
Chas'd us away, till raising of more aid

g6 The Comedy of Errors [Act V

We came again to bind them. Then they fled
Into this abbey, whither we pursued them ;
And here the abbess shuts the gates on us,
And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help. 160
Duke. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,
And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,
When thou didst make him master of thy bed,
To do him all the grace and good I could. —
Go, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate
And bid the lady abbess come to me. —
I will determine this before I stir.

Enter a Servant

Servant O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself 1
My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor, 170

Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire ;
And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.
My master preaches patience to him, and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool ;
And sure, unless you send some present help,
Between them they will kill the conjurer.

Adriana. Peace, fool ! thy master and his man are
here,
And that is false thou dost report to us.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 97

Servant Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true ; ' 180
I have not breath 'd almost since I did see it.
He cries for you and vows, if he can take you,
To scorch your face and to disfigure you. —

[Cry within.
Hark, hark 1 I hear him, mistress ; fly, be gone !

Duke. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. — Guard
with halberds 1

Adriana. Ay me, it is my husband 1 — Witness you,
That he is borne about invisible.
Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here ;
And now he 's there, past thought of human reason.

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of
Ephesus

Antipholus of E. Justice, most gracious duke, O,
grant me justice 1 190

Even for the service that long since I did thee,
When I bestrid thee in the wars and took
Deep scars to save thy life ; even for the blood
That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.

^Egeon. Unless the fear of death doth make me
dote,
I see my son Antipholus and Dromio.

Antipholus of E. Justice, sweet prince, against that
woman there 1
She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,
That hath abused and dishonour^ me
Even in the strength and height of injury I 200

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 1

98 The Comedy of Errors [Act v

Beyond imagination is the wrong

That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.

Duke. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.

Antipholus of E. This day, great duke, she shut the
doors upon me,
While she with harlots feasted in my house.

Duke. A grievous fault 1 Say, woman, didst thou
so?

Adriana. No, my good lord; myself, he, and my
sister
To-day did dine together. So befall my soul
As this is false he burdens me withal 1

Luciana. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on
night 210

But she tells to your highness simple truth 1

Angelo. O perjur'd woman 1 They are both forsworn;
In this the madman justly chargeth them.

Antipholus of E. My liege, I am advised what I say,
Neither disturbs with the effect of wine,
Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,
Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner.
That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,
Could witness it, for he was with me then, 220

Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,
Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,
Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
I went to seek him ; in the street I met him

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 99

And in his company that gentleman.

There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down

That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,

Which, God he knows, I saw not ; for the which

He did arrest me with an officer. 230

I did obey, and sent my peasant home

For certain ducats ; he with none return'd.

Then fairly I bespoke the officer

To go in person with me to my house.

By the way we met

My wife, her sister, and a rabble more

Of vile confederates. Along with them

They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,

A mere anatomy, a mountebank,

A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, 240

A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,

A living dead man ; this pernicious slave,

Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,

And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,

And with no face, as *t were, outfacing me,

Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together

They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,

And in a dark and dankish vault at home

There left me and my man, both bound together ;

Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder, 250

I gain'd my freedom and immediately

Ran hither to your grace, whom I beseech

To give me ample satisfaction

For these deep shames and great indignities.

ioo The Comedy of Errors [Act v

Ange/o. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,
That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.

Duke. But had he such a chain of thee or no ?

Angelo. He had, my lord ; and when he ran in here,
These people saw the chain about his neck.

2 Merchant Besides, I will be sworn these ears of
mine 260

Heard you confess you had the chain of him
After you first forswore it on the mart,
And thereupon I drew my sword on you ;
And then you fled into this abbey here,
From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.

Antipholus of E. I never came within these abbey-
walls,
Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me ;
I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven 1
And this is false you burden me withal.

Duke. Why, what an intricate impeach is this I 270
I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup. —
If here you hous'd him, here he would have been ;
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly. —
You say he din'd at home ; the goldsmith here
Denies that saying. — Sirrah, what say you ?

Drotnio of E. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the
Porpentine.

Courtesan. He did, and from my finger snatch 'd that
ring.

Antipholus of E. 'T is true, my liege ; this ring I had
of her.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 101

Duke. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here ?
Courtesan. As sure, my liege, as I do see your
grace. 280

Duke. Why, this is strange. — Go call the abbess
hither. —
I think you are all mated or stark mad.

[Exit one to the Abbess.
dLgeon. Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a
word.
Haply I see a friend will save my life
And pay the sum that may deliver me.

Duke. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.
j&geon. Is not your name, sir, calPd Antipholus ?
And is not that your bondman, Dromio ?

Dromio of E. Within this hour I was his bondman,
sir,
But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords ; 290

Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.

dlgeon. I am sure you both of you remember me.
Dromio of E. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by
you;
For lately we were bound, as you are now.
You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir ?
AZgeon. Why look you strange on me ? you know me

well.
Antipholus ofE.I never saw you in my life till now.
ALgeon. O, grief hath chang'd me since"you saw me
last,
And careful hours with time's deformed hand

102 The Comedy of Errors [Act V

Have written strange defeatures in my face ; 300

But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice ?

Antipholus of E. Neither.

jEgeon. Dromio, nor thou ?

Dromio of E. No, trust me, sir, nor I.

j&geon. I am sure thou dost.

Dromio of E. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not ; and
whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to be-
lieve him.

jEgeon. Not know my voice 1 O time's extremity,
Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue
In seven short years, that here my only son 310

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. 319

Antipholus of E. I never saw my father in my life.

Algeon. 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 E. 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.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 103

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. 330

Re-enter Abbess, with Antipholus of Syracuse and
Dromio of Syracuse

Abbess. Most mighty duke, behold a man much

wrong'd. [A// gather to see them.

Adriana. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive

me.
Duke. One of these men is Genius to the other ;
And so of these. Which is the natural man,
And which the spirit ? who deciphers them ?

Dromio of S. I, sir, am Dromio; command him

away.
Dromio of E. I, sir, am Dromio ; pray, let me stay.
Antipholus of S. -^Egeon art thou not? or else his

ghost ?
Dromio of S. O, my old master 1 who hath bound

him here?
Abbess. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds
And gain a husband by his liberty. — 341

Speak, old JEgeon, if thou be'st the man
That hadst a wife once calPd ^Emilia
That bore thee at a burden two fair sons, —
O, if thou be'st the same -^Egeon, speak,
And speak unto the same ^Emilia 1

^£geon. If I dream not, thou art Amelia ;

104 The Comedy of Errors [Act v

If thou art she, tell me where is that son
That floated with thee on the fatal raft ?

Abbess. By men of Epidamnum he and I 350

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 :
These two Antipholuses, these two so like,
And these two Dromios, one in semblance, —
Besides her urging of her wrack at sea, — 360

These are the parents to these children,
Which accidentally are met together. —
Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first ?

Antipholus of S. No, sir, not I ; I came from Syracuse.

Duke. Stay, stand apart ; I know not which is which.

Antipholus of E. I came from Corinth, my most
gracious lord, —

Dromio of E. And I with him.

Antipholus ofE. Brought to this town by that most
famous warrior,
Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.

Adriana. Which of you two did dine with me
to-day ? 370

Antipholus ofS. I, gentle mistress.

Adriana. And are not you my husband ?

Antipholus of E. No ; I say nay to that.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 105

Antipholus ofS. And so do I ; yet did she call me so,
And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
Did call me brother. — [7b Luciano] What I told you

then,
I hope I shall have leisure to make good,
If this be not a dream I see and hear.

Angelo. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.

Antipholus of S. I think it be, sir ; I deny it not.

Antipholus of E. And you, sir, for this chain arrested
me. 380

Angelo. I think I did, sir ; I deny it not.

Adriana. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
By Dromio ; but I think he brought it not.

Dromio of E. No, none by me.

Antipholus of 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,
And thereupon these errors all arose.

Antipholus of E. These ducats pawn I for my father
here. 390

Duke. It shall not need ; thy father hath his life.

Courtesan. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.

Antipholus of E. There, take it; and much thanks
for my good cheer.

Abbess. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains
To go with us into the abbey here
And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes ; —

106 The Comedy of Errors [Act v

And all that are assembled in this place,

That by this sympathized one day's error

Have suffered wrong, go keep us company,

And we shall make full satisfaction. — 400

Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail

Of you, my sons, and till this present hour

My heavy burthen ne'er delivered. —

The duke, my husband, and my children both,

And you the calendars of their nativity,

Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me ;

After so long grief, such nativity 1

Duke. With all my heart, I '11 gossip at this feast.
\Exeunt all but Antipholus of S., Antipholus of E.,
Drotnio of S., and Dromio of E.
Drotnio of S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from

shipboard ?
Antipholus of E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast
thou embark'd? 410

Dromio of S. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the

Centaur.
Antipholus of S. He speaks to me. — I am your
master, Dromio.
Come, go with us ; we '11 look to that anon.
Embrace thy brother there ; rejoice with him.

[Exeunt Antipholus of S. and Antipholus of E.
Dromio of S. There is a fat friend at your master's
house
That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner ;
She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 107

Dromio of E. Methinks you are my glass, and not
my brother ;
I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.
Will you walk in to see their gossiping ? 420

Dromio of S. Not I, sir ; you are my elder.
Dromio of E. That *s a question ; how shall we try

it?
Dromio of S. We '11 draw cuts for the senior; till

then lead thou first.
Dromio of E. Nay, then, thus :
We came into the world like brother and brother ;
And now let *s go hand in hand, not one before another.

[Exeunt.

NOTES

Medal of Ephesus

NOTES

Introduction

The Metre of the Play. — It should be understood at the
outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something alto-
gether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule,
the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity
of verse ; the metrical form is a necessity, being that which con-
stitutes the verse.

The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed pas-
sages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed
or blank verse ; and the normal form of this blank verse is illus-
trated by i. I. 34 of the present play : "Was wrought by nature,
not by vile offence."

This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even
syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th) accented, the odd syllables
(1st, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of
five yfc*/ of two syllables each, with the accent on the second sylla-
ble. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin
iambi), and the form of verse is called iambic.

This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain
modifications, the most important of which are as follows : —

I. After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two
such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a

ill

1 1 2 Notes

female line ; as in i. I. 51 : "And, which was strange, the one so
like the other." The rhythm is complete with the first syllable of
other i the second being an extra eleventh syllable. In v. 1. 196
("I see my son Antipholus and Dromio") we have two extra
syllables, the rhythm being complete with the first syllable of
Dromio.

2. The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an
even to an odd syllable; as in i. I. 3: "Merchant of Syracusa,
plead no more; " and 6: " Sprung from the rancorous outrage of
your duke." In both lines the accent is shifted from the second
to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth
syllable, and seldom in the fourth ; and it is not allowable in two
successive accented syllables.

3. An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the
line; as in i. 1. 6, 9, and 15. In 6 the second syllable of rancorous
is superfluous ; in 9 that of rigorous; and in 15 the word To,

4. Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immedi-
ately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is
reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse ; as, for instance,
in lines 3 and 32. In 3 the first syllable of Syracusa, and in 32
the last of utispeakable, are metrically equivalent to accented sylla-
bles ; and so with the last syllable of countrymen in 7, of Ephesus
in 16 and 30, of punishment in 46, and of delivered (quadrisyllable)
in 54.

5. In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened
in order to fill out the rhythm : —

(a) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by an-
other vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable ; as ocean 9 opin-
ion, soldier, patience (see on iii. 1. 93), partial, marriage, etc. For
instance, in this play, i. 1. 21 (" Unless a thousand marks be levied ")
appears to have only nine syllables, but levied is a trisyllable ; and
the same is true of passion in v. I. 47: " But till this afternoon his
passion. " This lengthening occurs most frequently at the end of
the line, and is common in this and other early plays. See, for in-

Notes 113

stance, on licentious (ii. 2. 136), contagion (ii. 2. 149), succession
and possession (iii. 2. 104, 105), illusions (iv. 3. 42), satisj action
(iv. 1. 5, v. 1. 400), digestions (v. 1. 74), etc.

(£) Many monosyllables ending in r, re, rs, res, preceded by a
long vowel or diphthong, are often made dissyllables ; as fare, fear,
dear, fire, hair, hour (see on iii. I. 121), hire (see on iv. 1. 95),
your, etc. In v. I. 45 ("This week he hath been heavy, sour,
sad ") sour is a dissyllable. If the word is repeated in a verse it is
often both monosyllable and dissyllable ; as in M. of V, iii. 2. 20 :
" And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so," where either yours
(preferably the first) is a dissyllable, the other being a monosylla-
ble. In/. C. iii. 1. 172: "As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity," the
first fire is a dissyllable.

(c) Words containing / or r, preceded by another consonant, are
often pronounced as if a vowel came between or after the con-
sonants ; as in this play, v. I. 359: "And these two Dromios, one
in semblance" [sembl(e)ance] and v. 1. 361: "These are the
parents of these children" (childeren, the original form of the
word). See also All's Well, iii. 5. 43: "If you will tarry, holy
pilgrim" [pilg(e)rim]; W. T, iv. 4. 76: "Grace and remem-
brance [rememb(e) ranee] be to you both ! " etc.

(*/) Monosyllabic exclamations {ay, O, yea, nay, hail, etc.) and
monosyllables otherwise emphasized are similarly lengthened ; also
certain longer words; as commandement in M, of V. iv. i. 451;
safety (trisyllable) in Ham, i. 3. 21; business (trisyllable, as origi-
nally pronounced) in /. C. iv. 1. 22: "To groan and sweat under
the business" (so in several other passages); and other words
mentioned in the notes to the plays in which they occur.

6. Words are also contracted for metrical reasons, like plurals
and possessives ending in a sibilant, as balance, horse (for horses
and horse's), princess, sense, marriage (plural and possessive),
image, etc. So with many adjectives in the superlative (like cold'st,
stern' st, kindest, secret' st, etc.), and certain other words. See, for
instance, note on whether, iv. 1. 60, and on towards, i. 1. 87.

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 8

ii4 Notes

7. The accent of words is also varied in many instances for met-
rical reasons. Thus we find both revenue and revenue in the first
scene of the M. N. D. (lines 6 and 158), cdnjure (see on iv. 3. 68)
and conjure, pursue and pursue, distinct and distinct, etc.

These instances of variable accent must not be confounded with
those in which words were uniformly accented differently in the
time of Shakespeare ; like aspect (see on ii. 2. 32), itnpdrtune (see
on i. 1. 126, iv. I. 2, 53), sepulchre (verb), per sever (see on ii. 2,
220) , perseverance, rheumatic, etc.

8. Alexandrines, or verses of twelve syllables, with six accents,
occur here and there in the plays. They must not be confounded
with female lines with two extra syllables (see on 1 above) or with
other lines in which two extra unaccented syllables may occur.
Examples in this play are ii. 2. 223, iii. 1. 1, iv. 1. 41, v. 1. 174, 208,
etc.

9. Incomplete verses, of one or more syllables, are scattered
through the plays. See i. I. 61, 156, i. 2. 16, etc.

10. Doggerel measure is used in the very earliest comedies
(Z. Z. Z. and the present play in particular) in the mouths of
comic characters, but never anywhere in plays written after 1598.
There are about a hundred lines of it in this play.

11. Rhyme occurs frequently in the early plays, but diminishes
with comparative regularity from that period until the latest. Thus,
in Z. Z. Z. there are about 1 100 rhyming verses (about one-third
of the whole number), in M. N. D. about 900, in Rich. II. and
R. and J. about 500 each, while in Cor. and A. and C. there are only
about 40 each, in Temp, only two, and in W. T. none at all, ex-
cept in the chorus introducing act iv. Songs, interludes, and other
matter not in ten-syllable measure are not included in this enu-
meration. In the present play, out of some 1400 ten-syllable
verses, nearly 300 are in rhyme.

Alternate rhymes are found only in the plays written before
1599 or 1600. In the present play there are 64 lines; but in M.
of V. there are only four lines at the end of iii. 2. In Much Ado

Notes 115

and A. Y. L. we also find a few lines, but none at all in subse-
quent plays.

Rhymed couplets, or " rhyme-tags " are often found at the end of
scenes ; as in 9 of the 1 1 scenes of the present play. In Ham.
14 out of 20 scenes, and in Macb. 21 out of 28, have such "tags ; "
but in the latest plays they are not so frequent. In Temp., for
instance, there is but one, and in W. T, none.

12. In this edition of Shakespeare, the final -ed of past tenses
and participles in verse is printed -d when the word is to be pro-
nounced in the ordinary way ; as in condemned, line 25, and imposed,
line 31, of the first scene. But when the metre requires that the
-ed be made a separate syllable, the e is retained ; as in wished
(dissyllable), line 90, and discovered (quadrisyllable), line 91. The
only variation from this rule is in verbs like cry, die, sue, etc., the
-ed of which is very rarely, if ever, made a separate syllable.

Shakespeare's Use of Verse and Prose in the Plays. —
This is a subject to which the critics have given very little attention,
but it is an interesting study. In the present play we find scenes
entirely in verse (none entirely in prose), and others in which the
two are mixed. In general, we may say that verse is used for what
is distinctly poetical, and prose for what is not poetical. The dis-
tinction, however, is not so clearly marked in the earlier as in the
later plays. The second scene of M. of V., for instance, is in prose,
because Portia and Nerissa are talking about the suitors in a famil-
iar and playful way ; but in T. G. of V., where Julia and Lucetta
are discussing the suitors of the former in much the same fashion,
the scene is in verse. Dowden, commenting on Rich. II., remarks :
" Had Shakespeare written the play a few years later, we may be
certain that the gardener and his servants (iii. 4) would not have
uttered stately speeches in verse, but would have spoken homely
prose, and that humour would have mingled with the pathos of the
scene. The same remark may be made with reference to the sub-
sequent scene (v. 5) in which his groom visits the dethroned king
in the Tower." Comic characters and those in low life generally

n6 Notes

speak in prose in the later plays, as Dowden intimates, but in the very
earliest ones doggerel is much used instead. See on 10 above.

The change from prose to verse is well illustrated in the third
scene of M. of V, It begins with plain prosaic talk about a busi-
ness matter ; but when Antonio enters, it rises at once to the
higher level of poetry. The sight of Antonio reminds Shylock of
his hatred of the Merchant, and the passion expresses itself in verse,
the vernacular tongue of poetry. We have a similar change in
the first scene of/. C. 9 where, after the quibbling " chaff " of the
mechanics about their trades, the mention of Pompey reminds
the Tribune of their plebeian fickleness, and his scorn and indig-
nation flame out in most eloquent verse.

The reasons for the choice of prose or verse are not always so
clear as in these instances. We are seldom puzzled to explain the
prose, but not unfrequently we meet with verse where we might
expect prose. As Professor Corson remarks (Introduction to Shake-
speare, 1889), " Shakespeare adopted verse as the general tenor of
his language, and therefore expressed much in verse that is within
the capabilities of prose ; in other words, his verse constantly en-
croaches upon the domain of prose, but his prose can never be said
to encroach upon the domain of verse." If in rare instances we
think we find exceptions to this latter statement, and prose actually
seems to usurp the place of verse, I believe that careful study
of the passage will prove the supposed exception to be apparent
rather than real.

Some Books for Teachers and Students. — A few out of
the many books that might be commended to the teacher and the
critical student are the following : Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of
the Life of Shakespeare (7th ed. 1887); Sidney Lee's Life of Shake-
speare (1898; for ordinary students the abridged ed. of 1899 is
preferable); Rolfe's Life of Shakespeare (1904); Schmidt's Shake-
speare Lexicon (3d ed. 1902) ; Littledale's ed. of Dyce's Glossary
(1902); Bartlett's Concordance to Shakespeare (1895); Abbott's
Shakespearian Grammar (1873); Furness's "New Variorum"

Notes 117

ed. of the plays (encyclopaedic and exhaustive) ; Dowden's Shak-
spere: His Mind and Art (American ed. 1881) ; Hudson's Life,
Art, and Characters of Shakespeare (revised ed. 1882) ; Mrs. Jame-
son's Characteristics of Women (several eds.; some with the title,
Shakespeare Heroines) ; Ten Brink's Five Lectures on Shakespeare
( J 895); Boas'* Shakespeare and His Predecessors (1895); Dyer's
Folk-lore of Shakespeare (American ed. 1884); Gervinus's Shake-
speare Commentaries (Bunnett's translation, 1875); Wordsworth's
Shakespeare } s Knowledge of the Bible (3d ed. 1880); Elson's Shake-
speare in Music (1901).

Some of the above books will be useful to all readers who are
interested in special subjects or in general criticism of Shakespeare.
Among those which are better suited to the needs of ordinary
readers and students, the following may be mentioned : Mabie's
William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man (1900); Dow-
den's Shakspere Primer (1877; small but invaluable); Rolfe's
Shakespeare the Boy (1896 ; not a mere juvenile book, but treating
of the home and school life, the games and sports, the manners,
customs, and folk-lore of the poet's time); Guerber's Myths of
Greece and Rome (for young students who may need information
on mythological allusions not explained in the notes).

Black's fudith Shakespeare (1884; a novel, but a careful study
of the scene and the time) is a book that I always commend to
young people, and their elders will also enjoy it. The Lambs'
Tales from Shakespeare is a classic for baginners in the study of the
dramatist ; and in Rolfe's ed. the plan of the authors is carried out
in the Notes by copious illustrative quotations from the plays.
Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines (Ameri-
can ed. 1904) will particularly interest girls ; and both girls and
boys will find Bennett's Master Skylark (1897) an ^ Imogen Clark's
Will Shakespeare's Little Lad (1897) equally entertaining and
instructive.

H. Snowden Ward's Shakespeare's Town and Times (2d ed.
1902) and John Leyland's Shakespeare Country (2d ed. 1903) are

n8 Notes [Act i

copiously illustrated books (yet inexpensive) which may be particu-
larly commended for school libraries.

Abbreviations in the Notes. — The abbreviations of the names
of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood ; as T, N. for
Twelfth Night, Cor. for Coriolanus, 3 Hen. VI. for The Third
Part of King Henry the Sixths etc. P. P. refers to The Passionate
Pilgrim ; V. and A. to Venus and Adonis ; L, C. to Lover's Com-
plaint; and Sonn. to the Sonnets.

Other abbreviations that hardly need explanation are Cf (confer,
compare), Fol. (following), Id. {idem, the same), and Prol. (pro-
logue). The numbers of the lines in the references (except for the
present play) are those of the " Globe " edition (the cheapest and
best edition of Shakespeare in one compact volume), which is now
generally accepted as the standard for line-numbers in works of ref-
erence (Schmidt's Lexicon, Abbott's Grammar, Dowden's Primer-
the publications of the New Shakspere Society, etc.).

ACT I

Scene I. — 1. Solinus. The spelling of the name in the 1st
folio ; altered in the second, probably by an accident, to " Salinus."
The name occurs nowhere else in the play. The folios have in-
differently Antipholus and. Antipholis ; but that the former is the
correct form is shown by the rhyme in iii. 2. 2, 4. It is, of course,
a corruption of the old Antiphilus. In the stage- directions of the
folios the brothers are called Antipholus Erotes and Antipholus
Sereptus. The surnames are doubtless errors for Errans (or
Erraticus) and Surreptus, the latter being evidently derived from
the Menachmus Surreptus of Plautus, a character well known in
the time of S. The Cambridge ed. quotes Brian Melbancke's
Philotimus, 1582: "Thou art like Menechmus Subreptus his
wife."

Scene I] Notes 1 19

2. Doom. Sentence ; as very often. Cf. Hen. V, iii. 6. 46, etc
4. / am not partial to infringe, etc. I have not the partiality,
or leaning to one side, that would lead me to infringe, etc.

8. Guilders. Dutch coin, here put for money in general. S.
uses the word only here and in iv. 1. 4 below.

9. Bloods. The plural used, as often, because more than one
person is referred to.

11. Mortal. Deadly; as often. Cf. W. T. iii. 2. 149: "This
news is mortal to the queen," etc. Intestine = "striking each
combatant home. There is no question here of conflicts be-
tween members of the same state " (Herford).

12. Seditious. Factious. S. uses the word only here and in
2 Hen. VI. v. I. 37 (if that be his).

13. Synods. In every other instance of the word in S. it is
applied to an assembly of the gods. See A. V. Z. iii. 2. 158, Cor.
v. 2. 74, Ham. ii. 2. 516, etc.

Knight remarks here: "The offence which ALgetrn had com-
mitted, and the penalty which he had incurred, are pointed out
with a minuteness by which the poet doubtless intended to convey
his sense of the gross injustice of such enactments. In The Taming
of the Shrew, written most probably about the same period as The
Comedy of Errors, the jealousies of commercial states, exhibiting
themselves in violent decrees and impracticable regulations, are
also depicted by the same powerful hand : —

M ' Tranio. What countryman, I pray?

Pedant. Of Mantua.

Tranio. Of Mantua, sir? — marry, God forbid !
And come to Padua, careless of your life?

Pedant. My life, sir? how, I pray? for that goes hard

Tranio. Tis death for any one in Mantua
To come to Padua ; know you not the cause ?
Your ships are staid at Venice ; and the duke
For private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him,
Hath publish' d and proclaim'd it openly.'

1 20 Notes [Act 1

At the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, the just principles
of foreign commerce were asserted in a very remarkable manner in
the preamble to a statute (1 Eliz. c. 13): 'Other foreign princes,
finding themselves aggrieved with the said several acts ' — (statutes
prohibiting the export or import of merchandise by English subjects
in any but English ships) — ' as thinking that the same were made
to the hurt and prejudice of their country and navy, have made
like penal laws against such as should ship out of their countries in
any other vessels than of their several countries and dominions;
by reason whereof there hath not only grown great displeasure
between the foreign princes and the kings of this realm, but also
the merchants have been sore grieved and endamaged/ The in-
evitable consequences of commercial jealousies between rival states
— the retaliations that invariably attend these ' narrow and malig-
nant politics,' as Hume forcibly expresses it — are here clearly set
forth. But in five or six years afterwards we had acts ( for setting
her Majesty's people on work,' forbidding the importation of foreign
wares ready wrought, ' to the intent that her Highness's subjects
might be employed in making thereof.' These laws were directed
against the productions of the Netherlands; and they were immedi-
ately followed by counter-proclamations, forbidding the .carrying
into England of any matter or thing out of which the same wares
might be made ; and prohibiting the importation in the Low
Countries of all English manufactures, under pain of confiscation.
Under these laws, the English merchants were driven from town to
town — from Antwerp to Embden, from Embden to Hamburg;
their ships seized, their goods confiscated. Retaliation, of course,
followed, with all the complicated injuries of violence begetting
violence. The instinctive wisdom of our poet must have seen the
folly and wickedness of such proceedings ; and we believe that
these passages are intended to mark his sense of them. The same
brute force which would confiscate the goods and burn the ships
of the merchant would put the merchant himself to death, under
another state of society. He has stigmatized the principle of com-

Scene i] Notes 121

mercial jealousy by carrying out its consequences under an uncon-
strained despotism.' 1

14. Syracusians. The folios all have " Siracusians " or " Syra-
cusians ; " and Boswell says the form " has the sanction of Bentley,
in his Dissertation on Phalaris" Burton also has it in his Anal, of
Melancholy : " Or as that Syracusian in a tempest," etc.

17. At Syracusian, etc. The folios have "any" before Syracu-
sian; probably an accidental repetition of the word. The Cam-
bridge ed. follows Malone in retaining it, making Nay more a
separate line, and joining be seen to the next.

20. Confiscate. Confiscated. Cf. M. of V. iv. I. 332, Cymb. v.
5» 323, etc. See also i. 2. 2 below. S. accents the word on either
the first or the second syllable, as suits the measure.

For dispose = disposal, cf. K. John, i. I. 263: "Needs must you
lay your heart at his dispose." For another sense (disposition,
temper), see Oth. i. 3. 403 : " a smooth dispose."

21. Levied. A trisyllable here.

22. Quit. Remit, release from; as in M. of V. iv. 1. 381 : "To
quit the fine for one half of his goods," etc.

26. This. Perhaps a contraction for This is ; as when printed
" this ' " in the folio sometimes. Done — carried into effect ; refer-
ring to the sentence of death.

32. Speak my griefs unspeakable. Perhaps a reminiscence of
Virgil, ALneid y ii. 3 : " Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem."

34. By nature, etc. " Not by any criminal act, but by natural
affection, which prompted me to seek my son at Ephesus " (Malone).
Cf. Temp. v. I. 76 : " ExpelPd remorse and nature ; " Ham. i. 5. 81 :
" If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not," etc.

38. By me. The 2d folio adds the too (not in the 1st), for the
sake of the metre. Possibly our is a dissyllable, as Abbott makes it.

41. Epidamnum. The folios have " Epidamium." Epidamnum
is found in the English translation of the Menachmi, 1595. The
correct form is Epidamnus.

42. At random. Without proper supervision.

122 Notes [Act I

43. Embracements, Used by S. oftener than embraces.

44. My absence was not six months old, Cf. ii. 2. 153 below:
u In Ephesus I am but two hours old." See also If am, iv. 6. 15.

45. Herself, Reflexive personal pronouns are occasionally used
in this way ; as in T, G, of V, ii. 1. 174: " Herself hath taught her
love," etc. Cf. myself in 69 below.

52. As could not. That they could not. By names = by sur-
names, which were dropped when the brothers became separated.
Clarke suggests that the twins at first had different names, and that .
afterwards one of each pair, in remembrance of his brother, took
his name. Cf. 128 below.

54. Meaner, The 1st folio has " meane," the 2d " poor meane."
Some modern eds. read " poor mean," but the poor two lines
below is against the insertion of the adjective here. Meaner is
adopted by most editors.

56. For, For that, because ; as often.

59. Motions, Proposals. Cf. M, W, i. 1. 55, 121, iii. 4. 67, etc.

64. Instance, Sign, indication ; as in iv. 3. 88 below. Cf. R, of
L, 151 1 : "That blushing red no guilty instance gave ; " that is, no
sign of guilt. See also T, G. of V, ii. 7. 70.

72. Plainings, Complainings, wailing. Cf. R, of L, 559 : —

" but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining."

See also Rich, II. i. 3. 175, etc.

77. Sinking-ripe, Ripe for sinking, about to sink. Cf. " weep-
ing-ripe" in Z. L, L, v. 2. 274 and 3 Hen, VI, i. 4. 172; and
"reeling-ripe" in Temp, vi. I. 279.

78. The latter-born. Changed by Rowe to " the elder-born," on
account of 124 below. Clarke explains the text thus: "It seems,
though the mother, ' more careful for the latter-born, had fastened
him ' to the mast, yet that she had herself become fastened to the
other end where her elder twin-son was secured." The somewhat
confused description, it is suggested, may have been intended " to

Scene I] Notes 1 23

give the effect of the confusion of the wreck." I suspect, how-
ever, that the poet, like Little Buttercup, " got those babies mixed."
It has been suggested " that the children became exchanged in the
confusion during the breaking-up of the ship."

84. On whom, etc. In relative sentences the preposition is often
not repeated. Cf. W* T. iv. 4. 466 : " To die upon the bed my
father died," etc.

85. Either end the mast. Such omission of the preposition is
not unusual. Cf. A, Y. L, i. 3. 118: "suit me all points like a
man," etc.

87. Towards, Usually monosyllabic in S., but sometimes dis-
syllabic, as here. In the latter case, the accent is variable.

92. Amain, With main or force (as in "might and main"),
vigorously, swiftly. Cf. V, and A, 5 : " Venus makes amain unto
him ; " Temp, iv. 1. 74 : " her peacocks fly amain," etc.

93. Epidaurus, A town in Argolis on the Saronic Gulf. There
was another Epidaurus in Laconia. A ship bound to Cenchreae,
the port of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf, would take the same
course as one sailing to or from Epidaurus.

103. Splitted, Cf. 2 Hen. VI, Hi. 2. 411: "Even as a splitted
bark." See also A. and C, v. I. 24 and v. 1. 309 below. Elsewhere
(as in Temp, v. 1. 223) the participle is split. Helpful ship prob-
ably refers to the mast, as Mr. F. A. Marshall suggests.

114. Healthful. Salutary, advantageous. The later folios have
" helpful." For shipwrach*d, see on v. i. 49 below.

122. Dilate, Relate, narrate. Cf. Oth. i. 3. 153: "That I
would all my pilgrimage dilate."

123. Befallen, Not elsewhere followed by of in S. We find it
with to in M, for M, iii. 1. 227 and 2 Hen, VI. v. 3. 33.

124. My youngest boy, etc. See on 78 above.

126. Importuned. Accented on the second syllable, as regularly
in S. Cf. iv. 1. 2, 53 below.

128. Reft. Cf. 115 above. For the present reave, see V. and A.
766 : " reaves his son of life." The ellipsis of the nominative, as

124 Notes [Act I

in but retained, is not uncommon when it can be easily supplied.
Cf. W, T. iv. 4. 168 : "They call him Doricles; and boasts him-
self," etc.

129. In the quest. Cf. i. 2. 40 below.

1 30. Of. Out of, from. The meaning of the passage is : " Whom
(my lost son) while I was lovingly anxious to see, yet (in letting
my other son go to seek him) / hazarded the loss of whom I loved
(that other son himself) " (Marshall).

133. Clean. Quite, entirely. Cf. Sonn. 75. 10: "Clean
starved; " 2 Hen. IV, i. 2. no: "not clean past your youth," etc
See also Joshua, iii. 17, Psalms, lxxvii. 8, Isaiah, xxiv. 19, etc

138. Timely. Early, speedy. Cf. Macb. iii. 3. 7: "To gain
the timely inn." S. uses the adjective only twice.

144. Disannul. Annul; as in 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 81 : "Then
Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt." See also Job, xl. 8,
Galatians, iii. 15, 17, and Hebrews, vii. 18. The prefix is not
negative, but intensive, as in dissever,

146. The death. Death by judicial sentence ; as often. Cf. M,
N, D. i. 1. 65, Rich. II. iii. 1. 29, I Hen. IV. v. 5. 14, etc.

150. Therefore, merchant, etc. A lame line, unless we accent
merchant on the last syllable, which Abbott {Grammar, 453)
thinks doubtful. It does not help it much to accent therefore, as
he suggests. The trochee is always awkward as the second foot of a
line. Limit thee this day = allow thee this day, limit thee to this day.

151. To seek thy help by beneficial help. Pope changed the first
help to " life ; " but to seek a person's life meant then, as now, to
seek to destroy it. Cf. M. for M. i. 4. 72 : " Doth he so seek his
life ? " See also M. of V. iii. 3. 21, iv. 1. 351, Lear, iii. 4. 172, Per.
iv. 1. 90, etc The repetition is quite in Shakespeare's manner, and
the meaning is, " I '11 give you the extent of this day to seek for aid
by charitable assistance " (Clarke). Dr. Ingleby {Shakes. Herme-
neutics, p. 26) remarks that a better example than this cannot be
found of Shakespeare's " custom of using a word in different senses
twice in one line."

Scene nj Notes 125

154. If no. The reading of all the early eds., changed by Rowe
to "if not"; but the use of no is not unlike that in Temp, i. 2.
427 : " If you be maid or no," etc. Cf. v. I. 157 below.

158. Lifeless. Spelt "liveless"in the early eds., as elsewhere.
Schmidt suggests that lifeless end is " perhaps not the end brought
on by death, but the end of his lifeless state, the end of his death-
like life." Procrastinate occurs nowhere else in S.

Scene II. — 2. Lest that. This use of that as a "conjunctional
affix " is very common.

7. The weary sun. Cf. K. John, v. 4. 35 : " Of the old, feeble,
and day- wearied sun ;" and Rich. III. v. 3. 19: "The weary sun
hath made a golden set."
9. Host. Lodge ; as in A. W. iii. 5. 97 : —

" Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
Where you shall host"

S. uses the verb only twice.

13. Peruse the traders. "In other words, look into the shop-
windows" (Clarke). Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. 2. 94: —

" And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
March by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have cop'd withal."

See also Ham. iv. 7. 137: "peruse the foils ; " Cymb. i. 4. 7: "to
peruse him by items," etc.

18. Mean. For the singular, cf. W. T. iv. 4. 89 : —

" Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean ; "

S. also uses means in the same sense, both as singular and plural.
Cf. "these means" in R. of L. 1140, and " that means" in M. of V.
ii. 1. 19, etc.

19. Villain. Vassal, slave. JEgeon had bought the Dromios
(see i. 1. 57 above). Malone cites R. of L. 1338: "The homely
villain curtsies to her low ; " where a Roman slave is referred to.

126 Notes [Act I

26. Soon at Jive o'clock. Sometimes pointed " soon, at ; " but it
is now before " dinner-time " (see 11 above), which was at noon in
the time of S. Soon at five o'clock is explained by Malone as =
" nearly at five o'clock ; either a little before or soon after that
hour." Cf. Hi. 2. 175 below.

28. Consort you. Keep you company. Malone wanted to read
"consort with you " (cf. R, and J, Hi. 1. 48), but in the same scene
of R. and J. (135) we find " that didst consort him here." See also
Z. Z. Z. ii. 1. 178: "Sweet health and fair desires consort your
grace ! " and/. C.v. 1. 83 : " Who to Philippi here consorted us."

37. Find his fellow forth. That is, find him out, as we now say.
Cf. M, of V,\. 1. 143: "To find the other forth." So forth of
= out of (as in Temp, v. 1. 160), from forth = from out (as in
K, John, iv. 2. 148), etc.

38. Confounds himself. Is lost. Confound is often = destroy,
ruin, and some see that sense here. On the passage, cf. ii. 2. 130
fol. below.

40. Unhappy, The 1st foUo has " (vnhappie a)," and the Cam-
bridge editors conjecture " unhappier."

41. The almanac of my true date, " Because they were both
born in the same hour " (Malone).

42. How chance, Cf. M, N, D, i. 1. 129: "How chance the
roses there do fade so fast ? " 2 Hen, IV. iv. 4. 20 : " How chance
thou art not with the prince thy brother ? " etc.

45. Strucken, S. uses for the participle struck (or strook),
strucken (or stroken), and stricken,

49. Stomach. Appetite. Cf. the play upon the word in M,
of V, Hi. 5. 92.

50. Having broke, S. uses broke and broken interchangeably
for the participle.

52. Are penitent. That is, are doing penance. Cf. the noun in
A, W, Hi. 5. 97: "enjoin'd penitents."

63. In post. That is, post-haste. Cf. R. and /. v. 3. 273:
"And then in post he came from Mantua," etc. In Rich, II. ii

Scene n] Notes 127

1. 296, the 1st and 2d folios have "in post," the 3d and 4th "in
haste." We find "in all post" in Rich. III. ill. 5. 73, and "all in
post " in R. ofL. 1.

64. / shall be post indeed. That is, like a post in a shop, on
which accounts were scored, or marked with chalk or notches. Cf.
1 Hen. IV. v. 3. 31: "here 's no scoring but upon the pate."
Halliwell-Phillipps quotes The Letting of Humors Blood, etc.,

161 1 : —

" He scornes to walke in Paules without his bootes,
And scores his diet on the vitlers post ; "

and Lord Cromwell: " Would thou would'st pay me : a good four
pound is it ; I hav 't o' the post at home."

66. Clock. Halliwell-Phillipps cites Overbury, Characters:
" onely the clocke of his stomacke is set to goe an houre after his "
[that is, his master's] ; The Wandering few, etc. : " but, sir, the
clocke of my belly bids me tell you 't is noone ; " and The Passen-
ger of Benvenuto : " the clocke of my stomacke strikes inwardly,
and importunately craves his due."

72. Sir knave. Cf. 92 and iii. 1. 64 below ; also A. W. i. 3. 94.
Elsewhere we find " sir boy," " sir page," etc.

73. Disposed. Disposed of. Cf. T. A. iv. 2. 173: "There to
dispose this treasure," etc.

75. The Phoenix. Private houses, as well as inns, often had dis-
tinctive names.

76. Stays. This use of the singular verb with two singular nouns
as subject occurs not unfrequently. Cf. Cymb. ii. 4. 57 : " my hand
And ring is yours," etc. See also ii. 2. 210 below.

78. Bestow* d. Stowed, deposited ; as in Temp. v. I. 299 :
" Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it," etc.

79. Sconce. For the contemptuous use of the word (= head),
cf. ii. 2. 34, 35 below. See also Cor. iii. 2. 99 and Ham. v. I. no.

80. Undisposed. Used by S. only here ; and indisposed (in the
modern sense) only in Lear, ii. 4. 112.

82. Marks. The play upon the word is obvious.

128 Notes [Act ri

86. Will. For the use after should, cf. Hen. VIII. i. 2. 134 : —

" that if the king
Should without issue die, he '11 carry it so
To make the sceptre his."

89. Fast. There is an obvious play on " fasting and prayer."
92. Forbid? Used by S. oftener than forbidden. See on 50
above.

96. Cer-raught. Overreached, cheated. Ci.Ham. iii. 1. 17 : —

" Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way."

See also Spenser, F. Q. vi. 3. 50 : —

" Having by chaunce a close advantage vew'd.
He over raught him," etc.

97. This town is full of cozenage. This, as Warburton notes,
was the ancient reputation of Ephesus. See p. 185 below.

99. Dark-working. Working in the night. Cf. 2 Hen, VI. i.
4. 18: —

" wizards know their times :
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night," etc

It may mean working in secret, or by infernal agencies.

102. Liberties of sin. " Sinful liberties" (Malone); or "licensed
offenders " (Steevens). Marshall suggests that it may mean " lib-
erties for sin."

ACT II

Scene I. — 15. Lasttd. Scourged; with perhaps, as Clarke
thinks, a quibbling reference to the other sense (fastened, bound).
" A learned lady," according to Steevens, conjectured * leash'd,"
that is, " coupled like a headstrong hound."

10-15. Why should, etc. Here, as in 26-33 below (so in iii. I.
59 fol., iii. 2. 53 fol., etc.), we have an example of stichomythia
(oTtxo/Ai/lfa), or dialogue in alternate lines (sometimes pairs or

Scene i] Notes 129

groups of lines), common in Greek tragedy and often imitated by
the early English dramatists. S. uses it only in his earliest plays.
Cf. T. G. of V. i. 2. 24-32, Rich. III. iv. 4. 213-219, 345-369, etc.

16. Situate. Cf. confiscate in i. 1. 20 above.

17. His. Its; as very often before its came into general use.
Cf. no below.

26. To keep. In S. we often find to omitted or inserted where
now it would not be so.

30. Some other where ? That is, in some other direction, or after
some other woman. Cf. Hen. VIII. ii. 2. 60 : " The king has sent
me other where; " and R. and J. i. 1. 204: "he's some other
where." See also 104 below. Johnson conjectured " other hare,"
and compared A. Y. L. iv. 3. 18 : " Her love is not the hare that I
do hunt ; " but there is no reason for any change. Clarke remarks
that " other where gives the effect of ' other woman,' as in the next
line home gives the effect of * his own wife.' " Other where is gen-
erally printed as one word in the early eds.

32. Pause. To rest, to be quiet. Dodd paraphrases the passage
thus : " No wonder, says he, patience, unaffected by any calamity,
untouched by any grief, can pause for consideration, can have lei-
sure to recollect herself, and in imagination exert her virtues."

33. No other cause. No cause to be otherwise.

34. A wretched soul, etc. Cf. Much Ado, v. I. 20 : —

" for, brother, men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel ; . . .
... 't is all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow."

39. Helpless. Affording no help, unavailing ; the most common
meaning in S. Cf. V. and A. 604 : " As those poor birds that help-
less berries saw" (that is, painted berries); R. of L. 1027: "This
helpless smoke of words doth me no right;" Id. 1056: "Poor
helpless help ; " and Rich. III. i. 2. 13: " the helpless balm of my

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 9

130 Notes [Act n

poor eyes." The only other instances of the word in S. are i. 1.
157 above and R. ofJL 756.

41. Fool-beggd. Probably = foolishly begged or demanded.
Johnson says : " She seems to mean that patience which is so near
to idiotical simplicity that your next relation would take advantage
from it to represent you as afoot, and beg the guardianship of your
fortune/ 1 This seems far-fetched, but some endorse it as a possible
play upon the phrase to beg a fool. Cf. Z. L. L. v. 2. 490 : " You
cannot beg us ; " that is, cannot prove us to be idiots, and there-
fore liable to be put under guardianship. Garke paraphrases the
passage thus : " This patience, so foolishly begged that I will prac-
tise, will by you be left unpractised."

49. Beshrew. A mild form of imprecation.

Understand it. For the play upon the word (= stand under) ,
Steevens compares T. G. of V. ii. 5. 28 : " My staff understands
me" (cf. the context). He might have added T. N. iii. 1. 89:
" My legs better understand me, sir, than I understand what you
mean by bidding me taste my legs."

53. Doubtfully. Capell remarks : " Some readers may not be
aware that doubtfully squints at, — redoubtedly, manfully;" and
Clarke says: "Dromio uses this word punningly in reference to
two that it sounds something like — doughtily and redoubtably;
meaning valorously, formidably ; " but this seems rather doubtful.

57. Horn-mad. " Mad like a wicked bull ; mostly used with a
reference to cuckoldom" (Schmidt). Cf. M. W. i. 4. 51, iii. 5.
155, and Much Ado, i. I. 272.

82. So round with you. "He plays upon the word round,
which signified spherical applied to himself, and unrestrained, or
free in speech or action, spoken of his mistress" (Johnson). For
round = plain-spoken, cf. Ham. iii. 1. 191 : " let her be round with
him" (see Id. iii. 4. 5); Oth. L 3. 90: "a round, unvarnish'd
tale," etc.

85. Case me in leather. "Still alluding to a foot-ball"
(Steevens).

Scene I] Notes 131

87. Minions. Favourites ; here used with a touch of contempt.
Ct Temp. iv. 1. 98 : " Mars's hot minion." For the other sense
(without contempt), cf. Macb. i. 2. 19, K.John, ii. 1. 392, etc.

88. Starve for a merry look. Qi. Sonn. 47. 3: "When that
mine eye is famish'd for a look; " and Sonn. 75. 10: "And by
and by clean starved for a look."

89. Took. The participle in S. is took, taken, or ta'en. Cf. i. 1.
no above and Hi. 2. 168 below.

94. Bait. Entice, allure. For the literal use, cf. M. of V. iii.
1.5:" to bait fish withal."

98. Defeatures. Disfigurement. Cf. v. 1. 300 below. See also
V. and A. 736 : —

" To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature."

For fair = fairness, beauty, cf. V, and A, 1083 : u Having no
fair to lose ; " Id. 1086 : " to rob him of his fair," etc. See also
M. N. D.\.i. 182, A. Y. L. iii. 2. 99, etc.

100. Deer, There is a play on deer and dear; as in V. and A.
231, M. W. v. 5. 18, 123, L. L. L. iv. 1. 115, T. of S. v. 2. 56,
1 Hen. IV. v. 4. 107, Macb. iv. 3. 206, etc. Johnson quotes Waller's
poem On a Lady's Girdle : —

" This was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale that held my lovely deer."

101. Stale. This also is played upon, "as carrying out the
metaphor of the pursuit of game by a stale, or pretence, and as
referring to that which has become stale, flavourless, unpalatable "
(Clarke). For stale = decoy, bait, cf. Temp. iv. 1. 187 : " For stale
to catch these thieves." In the present passage, the reference may
be to the stalking-horse (see A. Y. L. v. 4. in), behind which the
sportsman approached his game. Stale is used in this sense by
Greene and Jonson. Schmidt makes the word here = dupe, laugh-
ing-stock ; for which cf. T. 0/ S. i J. 58, etc. It has that sense

132 Notes [Act n

in the old translation of the Menachmi : " He makes me a stale
and a laughing-stock."

103. Can with such wrongs dispense. That is, can excuse or
put up with them. Cf. JR. of L. 1070: "And with my trespass
never will dispense;" Id. 1279: "Yet with the fault I thus far
can dispense ; " Id. 1704: M May my pure mind with the foul act
dispense?" Sonn. 112. 12: "Mark how with my neglect I do dis-
pense ; " and M. for M. iii. 1. 135 : —

" What sin you do to save a brother's life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue."

104. Other where. See on 30 above.

105. Lets. Hinders ; as in Ham. i. 4. 85 : " By heaven, I '11
make a ghost of him that lets me ! " So the noun = hindrance ;
as in Hen. V. v. 2. 65, etc.

107. Alone, alone. For the repetition, cf. R. of L. 795 : " But
I alone, alone, must sit and pine; " K.John, iii. 1. 170: "Yet I
alone, alone, do me oppose," etc.

109. Jewel. "Any personal ornament of gold or precious
stones" (Schmidt); a piece of jewelry. Cf. T. N. iii. 4. 228:
" Here, wear this jewel for me, *t is my picture." In M. of V. v. I.
224, it is = a ring ; in Cymb. ii. 3. 146, a bracelet, etc. The word
was sometimes applied to mere curiosities, that would not be in-
cluded in any list of jewelry nowadays. Thus we read in Pure has
his Pilgrimes, 1625 (quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps) : "They found
a great dead fish, round like a porcpis, twelve feet long. ... It
was reserved as a Jewell by the Queenes commandement, in her
Wardrobe of Robes, and is still at Windsore to be seene."

110. His. Its; as in 17 above.

And though gold, etc. The passage is evidently corrupt in the
folio, where it reads thus : —

" yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and often touching will,

Scene II] Notes 133

Where gold and no man that hath a name
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame : "

And though (or " and tho'," as he printed it) is Hanmer's reading.
Theobald transposed yet to the next line, and changed " Where "
to Wear, and Heath suggested and so a man. This combination
of slight emendations, as adopted by Carke and others, makes the
passage intelligible, though I am by no means certain that it restores
it to its original form. Many other changes have been suggested.
Warburton paraphrases the passage thus: "Gold, indeed, will
long bear the handling ; however, often touching will wear even
gold : just so the greatest character, though as pure as gold itself,
may in time be injured by the repeated attacks of falsehood and
corruption. " For the allusion to the touchstone as a means of test-
ing the purity of gold, cf. K.John, iii. 1. 100: —

" You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit
Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,
Proves valueless; "

and Rich. III. iv. 2. 8 : —

" Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed 1 "

1 14. Since that. See on i. 2. 2 above.

116. Fond. Doting. When the word does not mean simply

foolish, it often blends that meaning with the other. Y ox fondly =
foolishly, see iv. 2. 57 below.

Scene II. — 3. Is wandered. Has wandered. The auxiliary
be is often thus used with verbs of motion. Cf. " is walked "
(2 Hen. IV. i. 1. 3), "is rode" {Hen. V. iv. 3. 1), "is ascended"
(/. C. iii. 2. 11), etc.

9. You know no Centaur? "Dromio of Ephesus did not say
that he knew no Centaur ; the question was not put to him by
Antipholus of Syracuse " (Collier),

134 Notes [Act n

15. Did not see you since. Cf. Hen. V. iv. 7. 58: "I was not
angry since I came to France/' etc.

24. Earnest. A play upon the word as applied to a partial
payment made to bind a bargain. We have the same quibble in
T. G. ofV. ii. I. 163: —

"Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive her earnest?
Valentine. She gave me none, except an angry word."

26. Because that. See on i. 2. 2 above.

28. Jest upon. Trifle with. The reading of the early eds.,
needlessly changed by some to "jet upon." For the latter, cf.
T. A. ii. I. 64 etc. For jest upon, cf. T. N. iii. 1. 69 : "He must
observe their moods on whom he jests; " and T. of S. iv. 5. 72 : —

" or is it else your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake? M

29. Make a common of my serious hours. " That is, intrude on
them when you please. The allusion is to those tracts of ground
destined to common use, which are called commons " (Steevens).
There is a play upon this sense of common in L. L. L. ii. 1. 223:
" My lips are no common, though several they be."

32. Know my aspect. "Study my countenance" (Steevens);
note whether I seem in the mood for it. Aspect is always accented
on the last syllable in S. Cf. 116 below.

34. In your sconce. Into your skull. In is often = into. We
still say "fall in love." In his reply, Dromio plays upon the origi-
nal meaning of sconce (a round fortification).

49. Neither rhyme nor reason. The expression was an old
one. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes, among other instances of it,
Elyot's Dictionaries 1559: u Absurdus, inconvenient, foolysshe,
agaynst all rime and reason."

65. Lest it make you choleric. Cf. T. of S. iv. 1. 173, where
Petruchio, after throwing away the meat, says: —

Scene n] Notes 135

" I tell thee, Kate, *t was burnt and dried away,
And I expressly am forbid to touch it,
For it engenders choler, planteth anger;
And better 't were that both of us did fast.
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh."

In the Glass of Humours, a choleric man is advised "to abstain
from all salt, scorched, dry meats, from mustard, and such like
things as will aggravate his malignant humours," etc.

66. Dry basting. This is said to mean " a beating with a stick,
or other weapon not designed to shed blood." Cf. Z. Z. Z. v. 2.
263 : M all dry-beaten with pure scoff ; " R. and J. iii. 1. 82 : " dry-
beat the rest of the eight ; " and Id. iv. 5. 126: "I will dry-beat
you with an iron wit." Schmidt defines dry-beat as " thrash, cudgel
soundly."

77. By fine and recovery. A quibbling reference to the old legal
process so called. Steevens remarks : " This attempt at pleasantry
must have originated from our author's clerkship to an attorney.
He has other jokes of the same school." Cf. M, W. iv. 2. 225.

82. Excrement, In its etymological sense of outgrowth, like
excrescence from the same Latin verb. Cf. M. of V. iii. 2. 87,
Z. L.L. v. 1. 109, W. T. iv. 4. 734, and Ham. iii. 4. 119. The
word is applied to the hair or beard in five out of the six instances
in which S. uses iti In T. of A. iv. 3. 445 it is used in the modern
sense. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, speaks of the hair as
" the last of our excrements that perish."

87. More hair than wit. This expression was proverbial. Ma-
lone quotes Parnassus Biceps, 1656: —

" To be like one who hath more haire than head;
More excrement than body."

Halliwell-Phillipps quotes the Banquet of Jests, 1657 : " One that was
a great practitioner of physiognomie, reading late at night, hap-
pened upon a place which said havrie men for the most part are

136

Notes [Act n

dull, and a thick long beard betokened a fool. He took down his
looking-glasse in one hand, and held the candle in the other, to
observe the growth and fashion of his own, holding it so long, till
at length by accident he fired it : whereupon he wrote on the mar-
gent, Probatum est" (that is, it is proved!).

88. Not a man of those, etc. " That is, those who have more
hair than wit are easily entrapped by loose women, and suffer the
consequences of lewdness, one of which, in the first appearance of
the disease in Europe, was the loss of hair " (Johnson).

93. Jollity. Changed by some editors to "policy." Marshall
asks "Where is the jollity ?" The allusion is to the loss of hair
from what is called the "French disease." See the preceding
note. Hence a bald head was called a French crown; as in
At. N. D. i. 2. 99, At. for At. i. 2. 52, and A. W. ii. 2. 23.

98. Falsing. Delusive. Cf. Cymb. ii. 3. 74 : " yea, and makes
Diana's rangers false themselves ; " where Schmidt thinks it may be
an adjective. See also Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 30 : " his falsed fancy ; "
Id. iii. 1. 47: "her falsed fancy," etc. In the Shep. Kal. May, we
find, falser = liar : " That of such falsers freendship bene fayne."

102. Trimming. The folios have "trying," which Pope took
to be a misprint of tyring or tiring, as perhaps it may be. Trim-
ming is Rowe's emendation, and is generally adopted.

106. No time. The reading of the 2d folio ; the 1st has " in no
time," which has been defended thus: "Antipholus had said,
1 There 's a time for all things.' This Dromio denies : * There 's no
time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.'
Antipholus asks him to prove this ; and Dromio does it ' by fine and
recovery.' The bald man ' pays a fine for a periwig,' and so ' re-
covers' his lost hair in no time. He quibbles on no time to do
a thing and the idiom ( in no time ' = in an instant." The read-
ing of the text is generally adopted.

114. Wafts. Beckons. Cf. At. of V. v. 1. 11 : —
"In such a night,
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Scene H] Notes 1 37

Upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage ; "

where waft = wafted. See also T. of A. i. 1. 70 : " Whom Fortune
with her ivory hand wafts to her." In Ham. i. 4. 78 the folio has
" wafts," the quarto " waves." In /. C. ii. 1. 246 we "find wafture
(" wafter " in the folio) = waving of the hand.

119. That never words were music, etc. M alone remarks that
this is imitated by Pope in his Epistle from Sappho to Phaon : —

•• My music then you could for ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear."

The "chiastic" arrangement in 11 9-1 23 is a favourite one with S.
Cf. Macb. i. 3. 60 :

" Speak thou to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate."

123. To thee. Omitted by Pope to avoid the Alexandrine. To
carve to (or for) a person was considered a mark of affection.
Halliwell-Phillipps cites Palsgrave, 1530: "Kerve this swanne,
whyle I kerve to these ladyes; " Hey wood, Workes, 1577: "Now
carved he to al but her; " and Powell, Art of Thriving, 1635:
"to be carved unto by Mistris Dorothy."

127. Incorporate. Cf. M. N. D. iii. 2. 208 : —

" As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate."

For the form, cf. consecrate, contaminate, and adulterate below.
See also on i. 1. 20 above.

130. Fall, Transitive; as often. Cf. Temp. v. 1. 64,/. Civ. 2.
26, etc.

136. Licentious. A quadrisyllable ; like contagion in 149 and
inspiration in 172 below.

137. Consecrate to thee. Cf. Sonn. 74. 6. "The very part was
consecrate to thee," etc. See also on i. 1. 20 above.

139. Spurn at. Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 6 : " Spurns enviously at straws."

138 Notes [Actn

We find spurn against in K, John, iii. I. 142, and spurn upon in
Rich. III. i. 2. 42.

141. The stain' d shin, etc. Cf. R.ofL.So6: —

" Make me not object to the telltale day I
* The light will show, character'd in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow."

There is an allusion to the old custom of branding criminals in the
forehead. Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 118: —

" brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother."

143. Deep-divorcing vow. The hyphen is not in the early eds.,
and Schmidt compares " deep vow " in R. of L. 1847 an d " deep
oaths" in Sonn. 152. 9, etc. ^But S. is fond of compounds with
deep, and this is probably one of them. Cf. deep-contemplative
{A. Y. L. ii. 7. 31), deep-premeditated (1 Hen. VI. iii. 1. 1), deep-
revolving {Rich. III. iv. 2. 42), deep-searched (Z. L. LA. I. 85),
deep-sweet ( V. and A. 432), deep-sworn {K.John, iii. 1. 231), etc.

149. Strumpeted. The word occurs again in Sonn. 66. 6 : " And
maiden virtue rudely strumpeted." Steevens quotes Heywood,
Iron Age, 1632 : " By this adultress basely strumpeted." Contagion
is a quadrisyllable here.

151. I live unstairid, etc. *The folio reads: "I Hue distain'd,
thou vndishonoured." Theobald printed " dis-stain'd," giving the
dis- "a privative force; " but elsewhere in S. (see R. of L. 786,
Rich. III. v. 3. 322, etc.) distain = stain. The real question is
whether the line is closely connected with the preceding or not
If it is, we want unstairid and undishonoured : Be true to your
marriage vows, and we shall both be free from stain. On the other
hand, if the line is not directly dependent on the preceding, we
should adopt the reading of Heath (" I live distained, thou dis-
honoured ") : Be true to your vows, for now that you are untrue

Scene II] Notes 139

we both are dishonoured. I have no doubt that the former is the
correct interpretation. The other makes the appeal in 150 a rather
weak parenthesis, and the following line an equally feeble repeti-
tion of what has gone before. Heath's reading will bear the mean-
ing " I live distained, thou being dishonoured," or, as he puts it,
" As long as thou continuest to dishonour thyself, I also live dis-
tained." The fact, however, that this arrangement of the clauses
is more forcible than that in his proposed text, is, to my think-
ing, proof positive that his text is not Shakespeare's. Halliwell-
Phillipps remarks that " very likely the n of unstained was only half
written with one stroke, this mistake often occurring with the n
and the u in manuscripts of the period."

153. Two hours old. Cf. i. 1. 44 above.

166. Compact. Accented on the last syllable, as regularly in S.
except in 1 Hen. VI. v. 4. 163, which may not be his.

172. Inspiration. Metrically five syllables. See on 136 above.

175 In my mood. In my anger ; as in T. G. of V. iv. 1. 51,
A. IV. v. 2. 5, Oth. ii. 3. 274, etc.

176. Exempt. "Separated, parted. The sense is, If I am
doomed to suffer the wrong of separation, yet injure not with con-
tempt me who am already injured " (Johnson). " Adriana means
to say, Add not another wrong to that which I suffer already ; do
not both desert and despise me" (Malone). In the old play of
King John, 1591, we find "Goe, cursed tooles, your office is ex-
empt " (that is, taken away) ; and Collier quotes Greene, Maiden's
Dream : —

" I saw a silent spring, rail'd in with jeat,
From sunnie shade or murmur quite exempt."

177. Wrong not that wrong. Cf. R. of L. 943 : " To wrong the
wronger till he render right." For the use of more, cf. V. and A.
78: "with a more delight;" K. fofin, ii. 1. 34: "a more requital
to your love," etc.

179. Thou art an elm, etc. Suggested by the ancient practice

140 Notes [Act n

of training the vine on the elm, so often alluded to by the classic
writers. Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, ii. 70: "Semiputata tibi frondosa
vitis in ulmo est ; " and see also Georgics, i. 2 and ii. 221. For the
figure, cf. Catullus, 62. 54 : " (vitis) conjuncta ulmo marito ; " Colu-
mella, 11. 2. 79: "ulmi vitibus maritantur," etc. Malone quotes
Milton, P. Z. v. 215 : —

" or they led the vine
To wed her elm ; she, spous'd, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves."

182. If aught possess thee from me. That is, so as to deprive me
of thee, or to dispossess me.

183. Idle. "That produces no fruit" (Steevens). Cf. Oth. i
3. 140: "deserts idle" (that is, barren). See also idleness in
Hen. V. v. 2. 51 and Oth. i. 3. 328.

185. Confusion. Ruin ; as often. Cf. M. N.D.\. I. 149: "So
quick bright things come to confusion," etc. Note also the use of
confound = ruin (see on i. 2. 38 above).

186. Moves. Addresses, appeals to. Cf. A. W. i. 2. 6 : —

" the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid."

See also Rich. III. iii. 7. 140, Hen. VIII. ii. 4. 209, 217, etc.

190. Know this sure uncertainty. That is, know this to be
surely a thing uncertain.

193. O, for my beads ! etc. " Dromio wishes for his rosary, to
tell his beads, or say his prayers by, while he makes the sign of
the cross against evil spirits" (Clarke).

195. We talk, etc. The line is incomplete, and something has
probably been lost. The 2d folio has " elves sprites ; " possibly a
corruption of " elvish sprites," which many editors adopt. Theo-
bald changed owls to "ouphs;" but owls have been associated
with goblins of the night from the old classical times. Steevens

Scene II] Notes 141

quotes Spenser, Shep. Kal June: "Nor elfish ghosts, nor gastly
owles doe flee ; " and Cornucopia, 1623 : —

" Dreading no dangers of the darksome night,
No oules, hobgoblins, ghosts, nor water-spright"

Malone adds from The London Prodigal, 1605 : "lam sure cross'd
or witch *d with an owl ; " and A Fig for Fortune, 1596: " No bug,
no bale, nor horrid owlerie," etc. The owl referred to is the
screech-owl, whose cry was considered ominous. Cf. Macb. ii.

" It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern'st good-night. M

199. Sot. Dolt, blockhead (the Fr. sot); as elsewhere in S.
Cf. Temp. iii. 2. 101, M. W. iii. I. 119, etc. So sottish = stupid,
in A. and C. iv. 15. 79.

204. 'Tis to an ass. As Dowden remarks in his Primer, this
" looks as if when S. wrote the passage he were already thinking
of his fairy world in M. N. D., of the pranks of Robin Goodfellow,
and of Bottom's transformation to an ass."

209. To put the finger in the eye and weep. That is, weep in a
childish way. Cf. T. of S.L 1.79: —

" A pretty peat ! it is best
Put finger in the eye, — an she knew why."

210. Laughs. For the number, see on i. 2. 76 above.

213. And shrive you, etc. "That is, I will call you to confes-
sion, and make you tell your tricks" (Johnson).

215. Dines forth. That is, away from home. Cf. M. of V. ii. 5.
37 : "I have no mind of feasting forth to-night," etc.

217. Ami, etc. Capell marks this speech as " Aside."

218. Well-advised. That is, in my right mind. Cf. v. 1. 214
below.

220. Per sever. The only form of the word in S. We find it
rhyming with ever in A. W. iv. 2. 36, 37 : —

142 Notes [Act in

" Say thou art mine, and ever
My love, as it begins, so shall persever."

So perseverance is accented on the second syllable ; as in Macb. iv.
3. 93 : " Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness," etc.

ACT III

Scene I. — 4. Carcanet. Necklace. The word occurs again
in Sonn. 52. 8 : "Or captain jewels in the carcanet." Steevens
quotes, among instances of the word, Histriomastix, 1610: —

" Nay, I '11 be matchless for a carkanet,
Whose pearls and diamonds plac'd with ruby rocks
Shall circle this fair neck to set it forth."

Cotgrave, in his Fr. Diet,, defines carcan as " a carkanet or collar
of gold, &c. worne about the neck ; " and Coles, in his Latin Diet.,
renders carkanet by tnonile. Elsewhere in the play, as in 114
below, it is called a " chain."

8. Chared him with. Gave him in charge.

15. Doth. Theobald thought it necessary to change this to
" don't." " It appears," he says, " Dromio is an ass by his making
no resistance ; because an ass, being kicked, kicks again." John-
son replies to this : " He first says that his wrongs and blows prove
him an ass; but immediately, with a correction of his former sen-
timent, he observes that, if he had been an ass, he should, when he
was kicked, have kicked again."

28. Cotes. Dainties. Cf. the play upon the word in T. of S.
ii. 1. 190: "For dainties are all Kates."

31. Ginn. The spelling of the folios. It is commonly explained
as a contraction of Jenny ; but, according to Halliwell-Phillipps, it
is = Joan. Gillian is given in Coles's Diet, as = Juliana.

32. Mome. Buffoon, fool ; from Momus. Cf. Florio : H Capar-
rone, a gull, a ninnie, a mome, a sot ; " Day, Blind Beggar of

Scene I] Notes 143

Bednal Green, 1659: "momes and hoydons, that know not chalk
from cheese ; " and Mad Pranks of Tom Tram : " Old foolish
doating moam." For malt-horse as a term of reproach, cf. T. of S.
tv. I. 132: " you whoreson malt-horse drudge!" See also I Hen.
IV. iii. 3. 10: "a brewer's horse." For capon, cf. Much Ado, v. I.
156. Patch = fool ; as in M. of V. ii. 5. 46, Temp. iii. 2. 71, Macb.
v. 3. 15, etc.

33. Hatch. A half-door ; that is, a door of which the upper
half can be opened while the lower half remains shut; still com-
mon in English cottages. See K.fohn, i. 1. 171, v. 2. 138, etc.

42. Owe. Own ; as very often.

45. Mickle. Much; as in Hen. V. ii. 1. 70, R. and J, ii. 3.
15, etc.

47. An ass. That is, the name of an ass. Cf. 15 above.

48. Coil. Ado, " fuss." Cf. R. and f. ii. 5. 67 : "Here 's such
a coil ! " Cf. Temp. i. 2. 207, Much Ado, iii. 3. 100, M. N. D. iii.
2. 339i &• andf. ii. 5. 67, etc.

52. When ? can you tell? " A proverbial inquiry indicating a
jeer at the improbability that the person addressed will get what
he asks" (Clarke). Cf. 2 Hen. IV. ii. I. 43: "Ay, when? canst
tell?"

53. If thy name be calVd Luce. As the word luce meant a pike
(cf. M. W. i. 1. 22: "The luce is the fresh fish," etc.), it has been
suggested that there is a play upon pike, a spear, implying that she
has given him a good thrust.

54. / hope. Malone suggests that a line rhyming with this has
been lost, and that the rhyming word was rope, with which he
threatens her. This conjecture is favoured by the fact that he
afterwards sends Dromio to buy a rope's-end to use upon his " wife
and her confederates." Halliwell-Phillipps remarks that "the
occurrence of a line without its corresponding rhyme, in comical
doggerel dialogues of this description, is not without precedent."

58. Ache is spelt " ake " in the folio, as it was pronounced when
a verb. The noun was pronounced aitch, and the plural was a

144 Notes [Act in

dissyllable ; as in Temp. i. 2. 370, T. of A. i. 1. 257 and v. i. 202.
This difference is not anomalous, as some critics have supposed.
Cf. speak and speech, break and breach, etc. Note that the verb
regularly has the £-sound.

67. Part. Depart ; as in T. N. v. 1. 394 : " We will not part
from hence," etc.

71. Your cake. Perhaps, as Garke suggests, there is here a
quibbling allusion to the proverb " Your cake is dough," for which
see T. of S. i. 1. no, v. 1. 145.

72. To be so bought and sold. " The meaning of this proverbial
sentence is, that the person to whom it is applied is deluded and
overreached by foul and secret practices " (Malone). Cf. IT. John,
v. 4. 10, Rich. III. v. 3. 305, T. and C. ii. 1. 51 ; also Bacon,
Hen. VII. : " All the newes ran upon the Duke of Yorke, that
he had been entertained in Ireland, bought and sold in France."

82. We HI pluck a crow together. Marshall notes that the same
kind of a pun is found in The Captives of Plautus, where Tyndarus,
referring to the custom of giving children birds of different kinds
for their amusement, says that he had " tantum upupam." Upupa
means both a hoopoe and a mattock.

86. Draw within the compass of suspect. That is, bring into
suspicion. S. uses suspect as a noun some dozen times.

88. Once this. "So much is certain" (Schmidt); "once for
all" (Steevens).

92. Made. Cf. A. Y. L. iv. I. 162: "Make the doors upon a
woman's wit, and it will out at the casement." Patience in the
next line is a trisyllable.

95. And about evening, etc. Marshall points the line thus:
"And, about evening, come yourself, alone," — to show that Bal-
thazar speaks " quietly and gravely, to impress upon Antipholus
counsels of moderation, and to dissuade him from hasty action ;"
but this ought to be evident to any intelligent actor or reader.

98. Passage. "Going to and fro of people" (Schmidt). Cf.
Oth. v. 1. 37: "What, ho! no watch? no passage?"

Scene II] Notes 145

99. Vulgar. Public, general.

100. Supposed. " Founded on supposition, made by conjec-
ture" (Johnson).

101. Ungalled. Cf. Ham. iii. 2. 283 : —

" Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play."

Ungalled estimation here = unblemished reputation.

104. Succession. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above.
The folios have housed in the next line, making possession also a
quadrisyllable, for the sake of the rhyme. Lives upon succession =
"holds its ground securely, like an heir who has come into his
property" (Herford).

107. Mirth. Warburton explains the passage thus : " I will be
merry even out of spite to mirth, which is now of all things the
most unpleasing to me." Heath says : " Though mirth hath with-
drawn herself from me, and seems determined to avoid me, yet, in
despite of her, and whether she will or not, I mean to be merry."
Schmidt's explanation is: "I will defy mirth itself to keep pace
with me ; I will outjest mirth itself." No one of these interpreta-
tions is quite satisfactory, but that of Warburton is perhaps the
nearest so. I doubt whether Antipholus really means anything
more than that he will be merry out of spite, though he does not
feel like it, or despises it ; and thus he is merry in despite of mirth.
Cf. Much Ado, i. 1. 237: "Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in
the despite of beauty ; " that is, in despising or hating beauty.

115. Porpentine. Porcupine; the only name for the animal in
S. Cf. Ham. i. 5. 20 : " Like quills upon the fretful porpentine."
There, as here, the editors generally substitute " porcupine." Cf.
Ascham, Toxophilus : " nature gave example of shootinge first by
the porpentine," etc.

121. Hour. A dissyllable ; as often in S.

Scene II. — 3. Love-springs. That is, the shoots or buds of
love ; the metaphor being that of a plant, not springs of water.

COMEDY OF ERRORS — IO

146 Notes [Act in

Cf. V. and A. 656 : " The canker that eats up love's tender spring ;"

and R. of L. 950 : " To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs."

4. Building . . . ruinous. For the figure, cf. T. G, of V* v.

4. 9: —

" O thou, that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall ; "

T. and C. iv. 2. 109: "the strong base and building of my love;"
and Sonn. 119. 12: —

" And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater."

II. Become disloyalty. "Render disloyalty becoming by some
show of loyalty" (Clarke).

15. What, Equivalent to why, as often with need.

16. Attaint. Disgrace. Cf. T. and C. i. 2. 26: "There is no
man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an
attaint but he carries some stain of it."

18. At board. At table. The omission of the article after
prepositions is not uncommon. Sometimes it may be " absorbed "
in the preposition.

19. Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed. Shame, if well
managed, gets a spurious reputation — a respectability not legiti-
mately its own.

22. Compact of credit. Made up of credulity. Cf. V. and A.
149: "Love is a spirit all compact of fire; " A. Y. Z. ii. 7. 5:
" If he, compact of jars, grow musical ; " M. N. D. v. 1.8: " of
imagination all compact," etc.

27. Vain. "Light of tongue, not veracious" (Johnson).

30. Hit of. Hit on, guess at. Cf. M. IV. iii. 2. 24: "I can
never hit on *s name."

34. Conceit. Conception, comprehension ; as often. Cf. R. of
L. 701: —

Scene It] Notes 1 47

" O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Can comprehend in still imagination ? "

See also iv. 2. 65 below.

36. Folded, Wrapped up, concealed. Cf. R. of L. 1073 : " Nor
fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses." See also Id. 675.

43. Nor , , , no. For the double negative, cf. iv. 2. 7 below ;
"First, he denied you had in him no right," etc.

44. Decline. Apparently = incline. Dyce aptly quotes Greene,
Penelope 1 s Web, 1 601 : "That the loue of a father, as it was royall,
so it ought to be impartially neither declining to the one nor to the
other, but as deeds doe merite." Malone explained it " fall off, or
decline from her to you ; " but he has just denied any tie or
attachment to Adriana. Marshall remarks that "decline is more
forcible than incline, as it implies the act of turning away from
his supposed wife to her sister."

45. Train, Draw, entice ; as in L, L, L, i. 1. 71 : —

" These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight"

Mermaid — siren (see 47 just below) ; the only sense in which
S. uses the word. Cf. V. and A. 429 : " Thy mermaid's voice hath
done me double wrong ; " Id. 777 : " Bewitching like the wanton
mermaid's song ; " R. of L, 141 1 : "As if some mermaid did then-
ears entice," etc. See also 165 below. Halliwell-Phillipps cites
Bartholomceus de Prop. Rerum, 1535: "The mermayden hyghte
sirena is a see beaste wonderly shape, and draweth shypmen to
peryll by swetenes of songe."

48. Hairs, For the plural, cf. M. of V. iii. 2. 120 : —

" here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider," etc

We find golden hairs again in V, and A. 51. Cf. L, L, L. iv. 3.
142 : " her hairs were gold," etc.

49. Bed. The reading of the 2d folio ; the 1st has " bud," which
Steevens thought possibly right ; but bed is generally adopted.

148 Notes [Act in

52. Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink! The line has
troubled some of the critics. Love (that is, Venus) is assumed to
be light; as in V, and A, 149 : —

" Love is a spirit, all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire ; "

and the line, as I understand it, is simply an emphatic, though
indirect, way of saying that she is in no danger of sinking : Let
her be drowned if she sink, but being light, she cannot sink. For
Love = Venus, or love personified, Malone compares the passage
just quoted from V, and A, and A. and C, i. 1. 44 : "Now, for the
love of Love, and her soft hours." See also R, and/, it 5. 7 :
" Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love " (cf. Temp, iv.
1. 94 and V, and A, 1 190) ; Z. L. L, iv. 3. 380 : "Forerun fair
Love, strewing her ways with flowers," etc. Possibly there is a
sportive play on light (= wanton), as in M, of V, v. 1. 129 : —

" Let me give light, but let me not be light,
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband."

See also Id, ii. 6. 42, iii. 2. 91, Z. L, L, v. 2. 26, etc.

54. Mated, Confused, bewildered ; with a play upon the idea
of being mated, or given as a mate to Adriana, though he does
not know how. Cf. v. 1. 282 below. See also Macb. v. 1. 86 :
" My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight."

58. Wink, Shut the eyes ; as often. Cf. Sonn, 43. I : —

" When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see :
For all the day they view things unrespected ;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed ; "

Temp, ii. 1. 216 : —

11 Thou let'st thy fortune sleep — die, rather ; wink'st
Whiles thou art waking," etc.

64. My sole earth's heaven, etc. " All the happiness that I wish
on earth, and all that I claim from heaven hereafter " (Malone).

Scene n] Notes 149

66. Aim. The folios have " am." Aim is Capell's emendation,
and is almost unanimously adopted by the editors, though no other
example of this transitive use (= aim at) occurs in S. Steevens
cites Orlando Furioso, 1594 : —

" like Cassius,
Sits sadly dumping, aiming Caesar's death ; "

and Drayton, Robert Duke of Normandy : " I make my changes
aim one certain end." Marshall retains " am," assuming that the
meaning may be " I am (inseparable from) thee." He compares
what Antipholus says in 61 .

78. Besides. For the prepositional use, cf. T, N, iv. 2. 92 :
* Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits ? "

92. Sir-reverence. A corruption of "save reverence" (safoa
reverentid), used as an apology for referring to any thing unseemly.
Giff ord quotes an old tract on the origin of tobacco : " The time
hath been, when, if we did speak of this loathsome stuff, tobacco,
we used to put a ' sir-reverence ' before ; but we forget our good
manners." Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Taylor, the Water-Poet,
Workes, 1630 : —

M There 's nothing vile that can be done or spoke,
But must be covered with Sir Reverence cloake."

101. Week. It is barely possible that there is a play on wick,
which was pronounced like week. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Cot-
grave, Wits Interpreter : —

" Here lies a tallow-chandler, I need not tell it,
If your nose be not stopt, you may easily smell it ,
Then, gentle reader, herein learn you may,
He that made many weeks, cann't make one day."

103. Swart. Swarthy, dark. Cf. JT./okn, Hi. 1. 46 and 2 Hen. VI.
i. 2. 84. We have " swart-complexion'd " in Sonn. 28. 11.

104. For why. The folio points " for why ? " but the combina-
tion is here, as in sundry other places, practically = because, or, as

1 50 Notes [Act in

Abbott puts it (Grammar, 75), "wherefore ? (because). " I have
no doubt that this usage grew directly out of the ordinary inter-
rogative one. Abbott compares the similar change in the Latin
quid enim f

107. In grain. Ingrained, fast-dyed. Cf. 7*. N. i. 5. 255 :
"T is in grain, sir; 't will endure wind and weather."

122. Reverted. Turned back. Schmidt thinks there may be a
play upon the sense of " fallen to another proprietor." S. uses the
word only here and in Ham. iv. 7. 23 : "my arrows • . . would
have reverted to my bow again."

In making war against her heir, there is a play on heir and hair,
with an allusion to the war against Henry of Navarre, the heir of
Henry III of France. " Mistress Nell's brazen forehead seemed to
push back her rough and rebellious hair, as France resisted the
claim of the Protestant heir to the throne " (Clarke). Cf. p. 9-
above. For the pun, cf. Davies, Scourge of Folly : —

" Yet talks he but of heads and heires apparant,
Though his owne head has not one haire apparant"

Heir was formerly pronounced like hair.

125. The chalky cliffs. Those on the southern coast of England.
Cf. 2 Hen. VI. Hi. 2. 101 : —

" As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
When from thy shore the tempest beat us back," etc.

130. Hot in her breath. Malone is doubtful whether this is an
allusion to " the fiery threats which Spain had recently used towards
England when she sent out her Invincible Armada," or merely to
the heat of her climate. The latter seems more probable, though
the former is possible.

132. America. Of course the anachronism is very palpable,
whatever may have been the intended epoch of the play ; but it
was enough for S. that his audience would understand the allusion.
The word America occurs nowhere else in S.

Scene n] Notes 151

136. Armadoes of caracks. Fleets of large ships. For armado,
cf. K. John, iii. 4. 2 : "A whole armado of convicted sail; " and
for carack, Oth. i. 2. 50 : " he to-night hath boarded a land carack."
See also Beaumont and Fletcher, Coxcomb: "They're made like
caracks, all for strength and stowage ; " Florio : " Caracca, a kinde
of great ship, in Spaine called a carricke ; " and Elyot, Diet. :
u Bucentaurus, a great shyppe or carrike."

Ballast. Ballasted, or loaded. It would appear to be a con-
tracted form, like heat (K.John, iv. I. 61), etc.; but Malone may
be right in deriving it from the obsolete balace or balass. So hoist
may be from hoise {Ham. iii. 4. 207), and graft is certainly from
graff (cf. A. Y. L. iii. 2. 124), though Abbott (Grammar, 342)
gives both among contracted participles. Halliwell-Phillipps cites
Greene, Orlando Furioso, 1594 : " and sent them home, ballast with
little wealth ; " and Taylor the Water-Poet, Workes : " well rigg'd
and ballac'd both with beere and wine." We find " disbalased "
(= unloaded) in Nash's Have with You., etc.; and " unballaced "
in Hall's Satires and Powell's Love y s Leprosie, 1598.

137. Belgia. Cf. 3 Hen. VI. iv. 8. I : "Edward from Belgia,"
etc.

139. Low. For the play on Low Countries, cf. Ar chefs jests
(quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps) : " Two Dutchmen, the one very
tall, and the other of exceeding low stature, walking together in
the street, a pleasant gentleman, seeing them, said to his friend, —
See, yonder goe together High Germany and the Low Countries."

140. Diviner. Sorcerer. " Dromio, like his master, thinks he
has got among witches; women capable of working spells, and
transforming him to a turnspit dog" (Clarke).

141. Assured. Affianced ; as in K. John, ii. 1. 535 : "when I
was first assur'd."

144. That. So that; as in v. 1. 140 below, and often.

146. Faith. " Alluding to the superstition of the common peo-
ple, that nothing could resist a witch's power of transforming men
into animals but a great share of faith : however, the Oxford editor

152 Notes [Actm

[Hanmer] thinks a breast of flint better security; and he there-
fore puts it in" (Warburton).

147. Curtal. Having a docked tail. Cf. Af. W. ii. I. 114:
" Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs " (such a dog being consid-
ered unfit for the chase).

Turn *' the wheel alludes of course to the use of dogs as turn-
spits. Halliwell-Phillipps devotes three pages of his folio ed. to
the illustration of this subject. Machines or jacks for turning the
spit, moved by weights like a clock, had been invented in the time
of S. We find them mentioned as early as 1585 in the Nomenclator
of Adrianus Junius : " automatarius faber, a maker of devises and
motions that goe and turne of themselves, as clocks, jacks to turne
spits," etc. In the preface to the folio of 1623, we read : "Cen-
sure will not driue a Trade, or make the Iacke go." In Brome's
Antipodes, 1640, mention is made of a project "for putting downe
the infinite use of jacks, whereby the education of young children,
in turning spits, is greatly hindered." Dogs were early used for
this purpose. Topsell, in his Hist, of Four-Footed Beasts, 1607,
says : " There is comprehended, under the curres of the coursest
kinde, a certaine dogge in kitchen service excellent ; for when any
meat is to be roasted, they go into a wheel, which they turning
round about with the waight of their bodies, so diligently looke to
their businesse, that no drudge nor scullion can do the feate more
cunningly."

148. Presently, Immediately ; as in iv. 1. 32 and v. I. 31 below.
Road-=. port, haven ; as in M. of V. i. I. 9, v. I. 288, etc.

164. To self-wrong. Cf. W. T. iv. 4. 549 : —

" But as the unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do ; "

Dekker, Guls Hornbooke : " by being guilty to their abbominable
shaving ; " and Birch, Reign of Elizabeth : " and am not guilty to
myself of any bad dealing in this information."

165. Mermaid's song. See on 45 above.

Scene I] Notes 153

171. What please. What may please.

181. Vain. Foolish, silly ; as in 2 Hen. IV. v. 5, 48, etc

182. So fair an offered chain. For the transposition of the arti-
cle, cf. K. John, iv. 2. 27 : "So new a fashion' d robe ; " Temp. iv.
I. 123 : "So rare a wonder'd father," etc.

ACT IV

Scene i. — 2. Importuned. See on I 1. 126 above, and cf. 53
below.

4. Guilders. See on i. 1. 8 above.

5. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables. See on ii. 2. 136 and
149 above.

6. Attach. Arrest; as in 73 and iv. 4. 6 below. It was a legal
term.

8. Growing. Accruing, becoming due. Cf. iv. 4. 119, 132
below.

12. Pleaseth you. If it please you. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. 1. 225,
iv. 2. 52, Hen. V. v. 2. 78, etc.

16. Bestow. Employ, use. Cf. T. and C.u.2. 159: "Whose
life were ill bestow'd," etc.

21. / buy a thousand pound a year! On the face of it, there
seems to be nothing in this but an exclamation of surprise at being
sent to buy so strange a thing ; but, as Clarke remarks, " there may
have been some point of allusion obvious at the time when the
play was first acted, though now lost.'* He adds that perhaps
Dromio " means to hint that in purchasing a rope's end he may be
providing for himself a heavy revenue of future thwacks ; " but this
is very doubtful. Possibly Halliwell-Phillipps is right in taking
it to mean "a rope worth a thousand a year for your purpose."
He compares 3 Hen. VI. ii. 2. 144 : —

" A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,
To make this shameless callet know herself."

1 54 Notes [Act IV

It has also been suggested that the connecting link in the slave's
mind between a rope's end and a thousand pound a year is in
"the ability of each for payment in its quibbling sense of pun-
ishment" Cf. iv. 4. 10 below. For pound as a plural (used only
with numbers), cf. Rich. II \ ii. 2. 91, etc. S. also uses pounds
with numbers; as in M. W. i. 1. 52, i. 3. 8, Hen. V. i. I. 19,
etc.

22. Holp. The form of the past tense regularly used by S. ex-
cept in Rich. III. v. 3. 167 and Oth. ii. 1. 138, where we find
helped. As the participle it occurs ten times, helped only four times.
We find holpen in Psalms, lxxxiii. 8, Daniel, xi. 34, Luke, i. 54, etc.
It is said that holp up is still provincial, especially in an ironical
sense, as here.

25. Belike. It is likely, probably ; as in iv. 3. 91 below.

28. Carat. Spelt " charect " in the 1st folio (misprinted " Rac-
cat" in the later folios), and "charract" in 2 Hen. IV. iv. 5. 162,
the only other instance of the word in S.

29. Chargeful. Expensive ; used by S. only here. The same
is true of debted (= indebted) in 31.

32. Discharg'd. Paid. For its application to the creditor, cf.
iv. 4. 117 below. See also M. of V. Hi. 2. 276: "The present
money to discharge the Jew," etc. In 13 above it is used in the
modern way.

39. I will, etc. " 1 will, instead of I shall, is a Scotticism, says
Douce (an Englishman); it is an Irishism, says Reed (a Scots-
man); and an ancient Anglicism, says Malone (an Irishman)"
(Knight).

46. Stays for. Cf. i. 2. 76 and iii. 2. 185 above.

53. Importunes. See on 2 above.

56. Send me by some token. The reading of the folios, retained
by most of the editors. The form appears to have been an idiom
of the time, used in cases like this as well as in those which some
of the editors confound with it ; as, for instance, the following
from Marston, Dutch Courtesan, iii. 1 : —

Scene I] Notes 155

" Mrs. Mulligrub. By what token are you sent ? — by no token ? Nay,

I have wit.
CockUtUmoy. He sent me by the same token that he was dry shaved

this morning."

57. You run this humour out of breath. A proverbial expres-
sion. John Day wrote a comedy under the title of Humour out of
Breath, which was printed in 1609.

60. Whether. Printed "wh'er" in the early eds., as in some
ten other instances; but it is often monosyllabic when printed
whether (M. N. D. iii. 1. 156, Hi. 2. 81, M. of V. v. 1. 302, Ham.
ii. 2. 17, etc.).

62. What should /, etc The later folios substitute "why" for
what. The latter is often equivalent to the former ; as in 2 Hen.
IV. i. 2. 129 : " What tell you me of it? " etc. See also on iii. 2.
15 above. In the present passage, however, what has its ordinary
sense.

68. Stands upon. Concerns ; as in Lear, v. 1. 69 : —

" for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate."

We often find such inversions as " it stands me now upon " (Ham.
v. 2. 63), "it stands your grace upon" (Rich. II. il 3, 138), "it
only stands our lives upon " (A. and C. ii. 1. 50), etc.

73. Attach. See on 6 above.

78. Apparently. Evidently. This is. the only instance of the
adverb in S., but apparent is often = evident, obvious.

81. Buy this sport as dear. Cf. M. N. D. iii. 2. 426: "Thou
shalt buy this dear," etc. The expression is not to be confounded
with that in M. N. D. iii. 2. 175 : " Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it
dear."

85. From the bay. This is the reading of the stage-direction
in the folio. Cf. 99 below.

87. Fraughtage. Freight, cargo ; used again in T. and C,
prol. 13: —

156 Notes [Act iv

M And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage."

For fraught in the same sense, see T. N. v. 1. 64 ; and for the
verb, Temp. i. 2. 13, M. of V. ii. 8. 30, etc. Freight does not
occur in S.

89. Balsa mum. Used by S. only here, as balsam only in T. of
A. iii. 5. 1 10.

90. In her trim. Cf. Temp. v. 1. 236 : —

" When we in all her trim freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant ship."

93. Peevish. Foolish, silly ; the only sense that Schmidt recog-
nizes in S. Cf. iv. 4. 115 below. For the play upon ship and
sheep, cf. T. G. of V. i. 1. 73 : —

11 Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him ; "

and Z. L. L. ii. 1. 219 : —

" Maria. Two hot sheeps, marry.
Boyet. And wherefore not ships ? "

The words are still pronounced alike in Warwickshire and some
other parts of England. Dyce quotes Dekker, Satiromastix, 1602:
"this shipskin cap shall be put off." Dryden rhymes ship and
deep in jEneid, i. 64: —

" With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship,
And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep."

95. Waflage. Passage ; as in T. and C. iii. 2. 1 1 : —

" Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks,
Staying for waftage."

Hire is here a dissyllable ; as in Hen. VIII. ii. 3. 36, A. and C.
v. 1. 21, etc. Cf. hour in iii. 1. 121 above.

101. List me. Elsewhere " list to me ; " as in T. of S. ii. 1. 365,

Scene II] Notes 1 57

W. T. iv. 4. 552, etc. List is often transitive, however, with the
thing heard as object ; as in Hen. V. i. 1. 43 : " List his discourse."

no. Dowsabel. Her name, as we have learned, is Nell (iii. 2.
no above), and the poetic Dowsabel (the Fr. douce et belli), a
favourite name in pastoral poetry, is applied to her ironically.
Malone quotes The London Prodigal : " as pretty a Dowsabell as
we should chance to see in a summer's day." Clarke sees " a fleer
at the assault she made upon him; to dowse, in old English parlance,
signifying to give a blow on the face, to strike; " but this is too
far-fetched.

Scene II. — 2. Mightst thou perceive austerely, etc. Could you
see by the serious expression of his eye that he was in earnest?

6. His heart's meteors, etc. " Alluding to those meteors in the sky
[the aurora borealis~\ which have the appearance of lines of armies
meeting in the shock" (Warburton). Cf. 1 Hen. IV. i. 1. 10: —

" Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery."

Steevens quotes Milton, P. L. ii. 533 : —

" As when, to warn proud cities, war appears
Wag'd in the troubled sky, and armies rush
To battle in the clouds, before each van
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears,
Till thickest legions close ; with feats of arms
From either end of heaven the welkin burns."

7. Denied. Followed by a negative ; as in Rich. III. i. 3. 90 :
" You may deny that you were not the cause," etc. In like man-
ner, it is followed by but; as in Much Ado, i. 3. 33, A. W. v. 3.
166, Cor. iv. 5. 243, etc.

8. Spite. Vexation, mortification. Cf. ii. 2. 194 above.

16. Speak him fair ? That is, say anything to encourage his
suit. Cf. M. N. D. ii. 1. 199 : —

158 Notes [Act IV

" Do I entice you ? do I speak you fair ?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you? "

See also iv. 4. 155 below.

17. Nor I will not. Cf. the " double negative " in 7 and iii. 2.
43 above, and in the passage just quoted from M. N. D.

18. His. Its. See on ii. 1. 17 above.

19. Sere, "That is, dry, withered" (Johnson). Steevens and
Malone take the trouble to add examples of the word, which would
seem to have been less familiar in their day than now. Shake-
speare's "the sere [or sear], the yellow leaf" (Macb. v. 5. 23),
which has become one of the most familiar of quotations, may pos-
sibly account for this. That, by the way, is the only other instance
of the adjective in S. Schmidt strangely makes it a noun, but the
dictionaries do not recognize it as ever so used. The sere in Ham.
ii. 2. 337 (" tickle o* the sere ") is a wholly different word.

20. Shapeless, Unshapely, misshapen. So sightless = unsightly
(JC.John, iii. 1. 45), and featureless = ugly (Sonn. II. 10).

22. Stigmatical in making, " That is, marked or stigmatized by
nature with deformity, as a token of his vicious disposition " (John-
son). S. uses the word only here; but cf. the noun stigmatic in
3 Hen. VI. ii. 2. 136: —

" like a foul, misshapen stigmatic,
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided."

See also 2 Hen. VI. v. 1. 215.

25. Ah, but I think him better than I say. There is a good deal
of human nature — or woman nature — in this.

27. Far from her nest the lapwing cries away. This trick of the
bird to divert attention from its nest had become proverbial.
Steevens and other editors give many examples of it from contem-
poraneous writers ; as from Greene, Second Part of Coney-catching,
1592 : " But again to our priggers, who, as before I said — cry with

Scene II] Notes 1 59

the lapwing farthest from her nest, and from their place of residence
where their most abode is," etc. See also M.for M. i. 4. 32 : —

" though 't is my familiar sin
With maids to play the lapwing and to jest,
Tongue far from heart," etc.

29. Sweet now. This, like good now (cf. iv. 4. 22 below), was a
common phrase of appeal or supplication, not necessarily implying
any special familiarity. Cf. Temp. iv. 1. 124: "Sweet now, si-
lence ! " Sweet did much conventional service in the Elizabethan
age, as dear does now.

32. Tartar. Tartarus ; as in T.N. ii. 5. 225 : "To the gates of
Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit?" and Hen. V. ii. 2. 123:
"vasty Tartar." On Limbo (still used as a cant term for a
prison), cf. Hen. VIII. v. 4. 67. For its original sense (= hell, or
a place on the borders of hell), see A. W. v. 3. 261.

33. An everlasting garment. A play upon the durability of the
sergeant's buff (leather made from buffalo skin). Cf. iv. 3. 25 be-
low: "gives them suits of durance; " and 1 Hen. IV. i. 2. 49:
" Is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? "

35. Fairy. The folios all have " Fairie." Theobald took this
to be a misprint for "Fury," which most editors since have
adopted. But as White notes, " all fairies were not supposed to be
like Oberon and Titania or their attendants ; there were fairies
pitiless and rough? He might have added that we have distinct
reference to these malignant fairies in more than one passage in
S. Cf. Ham. i. 1. 163: "No fairy takes" (that is, bewitches
or blasts); and Cymb. ii. 2. 9: —

" To your protection I commend me, gods 1
From fairies and the tempters of the night
Guard me, beseech ye."

Perhaps we should add ii. 2. 194 above.
37. Back-friend. So called here " because he comes from be-

160 Notes [Act iv

hind to arrest one" (Schmidt), as shoulder-clapper also implies.
Cf. A. Y.L. iv. f. 48: "Cupid hath clapp'd him o' the shoulder;"

and Cymb. v. 3. 78 : —

" fight will I no more,
But yield me to the veriest hind that shall
Once touch my shoulder."

Back-friend, aside from the quibble, is = secret enemy. Halliwell-
Phillipps cites Florio, 1598: " fnimico, an enimie, a foe, an ad-
versarie, a back-friend." Hall, in his Henry VII^ speaks of
"adversaries and backe friends."

Countermands = stops one in going through ; used by S. only
here and in R. of L. 276, where it is = contradict, oppose.

39. Runs counter. That is, follows the scent backward instead
of forward. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. i. 2. 102: "you hunt counter ; " and
Ham. iv. 5. no: "O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!"
There is a play on counter, there being two prisons in London
called the Counter.

Draws dry-foot = traces the scent of the game. For draw as a
hunting term (= trace, track), cf. 1 Hen. IV. Hi. 3. 129; "a drawn
fox." Nares quotes Gent. Recr. : " When we beat the bushes, etc.
after the fox, we call it drawing." The origin of dry-foot is doubt-
ful. J6hnson thought that to draw dry-foot meant to trace the
marks of the dry foot without scent ; but others are doubtless cor-
rect in making it refer to hunting by scent Schmidt suggests that
it was " perhaps so called because, according to sportsmen, in water
the scent is lost." Dry-foot hunting is often mentioned in the old
writers ; as in The Dumb Knight, 1633 (quoted by Steevens) : "I
care not for dry-foot hunting ; " and The Miser, 1672: "Thou art
like a dry-foot-dog, that (out of a whole heard of deer) singles out
one, whose scent he only followes, and tires himself to catch that."

40. Before the judgment, etc. There is a play on arresting a
man before judgment, " that is, on what is called mesne process "
(Malone) ; and also on hell, which, as Steevens tells us, was " the
cant term for an obscure dungeon" in a prison. He cites The

Scene HI] Notes 161

Counter-Rat, 1658: "In Wood-street's hole, or Poultry's hell."
There was likewise a place so called under the Exchequer Cham-
ber, where the king's debtors were confined. Halliwell-Phillipps
quotes The Merry Discourse of Meum and Tuum, 1639: "a little
darke roome . . . hard by Hell, neare to the upper end of West-
minster Hall." Cf. the use of Limbo above.

42. On the case. "An action upon the case is a general action
for the redress of a wrong done any man without force, and not
especially provided for by law " (Grey). Perhaps we should omit
the apostrophe in 'rested. Palsgrave has "I reste, as a sergente
dothe a prisoner, or his goodes,y> arreste"

46. Mistress, redemption. There is no comma after mistress in
the early eds., and the 4th folio prints "Mistris Redemption,"
which Rowe follows, apparently supposing that Dromio means to
call Luciana " Mistress Redemption." The Cambridge editors re-
mark that the comma is often omitted after vocatives in the old
editions ; as in iv. 3. 76 and iv. 4. 42 below.

49. Band. Bond; as in Rich. U.K. I. 2 : "according to thy
oath and band." The play on the word in Dromio's reply is
repeated in a different form in iv. 3. 29 below.

57. Fondly. Foolishly. See on ii. I. 116 above.

58. Season. Opportunity. Schmidt paraphrases the sentence
thus : " Time is seldom so convenient and opportune as one would
wish."

65. Conceit. Conception, imagination. See on iii. 2. 34 above.

SCENE III. — 5. Some other. Qi. V. and A. 1 102 : —

"That some would sing, some other in their bills
Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries."

So all other (Sonn. 62. 8), etc.

7. In. Into ; as in ii. 2. 34 above.

II. Lapland sorcerers. Lapland was supposed to abound in

COMEDY OF ERRORS — II

1 62 Notes [Act iv

sorcerers and witches. This is Shakespeare's only allusion to the
region. Cf. Milton's one reference to it in P. L. ii. 665 : —

" Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
Eclipses at their charms."

13. Have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled ? The
picture of old Adam is the sergeant, there being a play upon his
buff and the slang use of the word as applied to the bare skin.
What is meant by getting him new-apparelled is not so clear ; but,
perhaps, as Singer suggests, the idea is " got him a new suit, in
other words, got rid of him."

18. He that came behind you. See on iv. 2. 37 above.

24. Bob. That is, a rap, or a clap on the shoulder. Cf. A. Y. JL
ii. 7.55: —

" He that a fool doth very wisely hit
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
But to seem senseless of the bob ; "

that is, seem insensible of the stroke. The folio has " sob " (with
long s) and some editors read " fob, 1 ' which is not readily explicable
here.

25. Suits of durance. See on iv. 2. 33 above. That durance
(cf. the modern lasting) was the name of a very durable fabric is
evident from various passages cited by Nares and Steevens ; as, for
instance, Three Ladies of London : " the taylor that out of seven
yards stole one and a half of durance."

26. Sets up his rest Makes up his mind, is fully resolved ; a
phrase taken from gaming. See M. ofV. ii. 2. no, R. and J. iv. 5.
6, etc.

Mace. The club carried by a bailiff or sergeant as a badge of
authority. Cf. /. C. iv. 3. 268 : " O murderous slumber, layest
thou thy leaden mace upon my boy ? " The morris-pike was a

Scene m]

Notes

163

formidable weapon, supposed to be of Moorish origin, whence its
name (Douce) ; mentioned by S. only here.

39. Hoy. A small vessel, usually sloop-rigged ; a word more
familiar in England than in this country. S. uses it only here.

Angels. The angel was an English gold coin, worth about ten
shillings. It had on one side a figure of Michael piercing the
dragon, whence its name. The device is said to have originated in
Pope Gregory's pun on Angli and Angeli, and it gave rise to a good
many puns. See M. W. i. 3. 60, Much Ado, ii. 3. 35, M. of V. ii.
7. 56, and 2 Hen. IV. i. 2. 187.

Golden Angel op Queen Elizabeth

41. Distract. Distracted. Cf. /. C. iv. 3. 155 : "she fell dis-
tract," etc.

42. Illusions. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above.

47. Avoid! Avaunt! Away! Cf. Temp, iv 1. 142: "Well
done ! avoid ! no more ! " See also 66 below.

50. The devil's dam. This mythical personage is mentioned
several times in S. See M. W. i. 1. 151, iv. 5. 108, T. of S. i. 1. 106,
iii. 2. 158, K.John, ii. I. 128, etc.

51. Light. Wanton; a word much played upon by S. See on
iii. 2. 52 above.

53. As much as to say. The early eds. omit the second as, which
was supplied by Pope. We find the expression in Much Ado. ii, 3.

164 Notes [Act IV

270 and 2 Hen. IV. ii. 2. 142 ; and as much to say as in T. N. i.
5. 62. The old reading may possibly be an idiom of the time, but
no other example of it has been pointed out.

59. We'll mend our dinner here. "That is, by purchasing
something additional in the adjoining market" (Malone); or,
better, "a proposal that the dinner, which had been marred by
Angelo's failing in his appointment with Antipholus at the Por-
cupine, shall now be mended by a supper" (Clarke). Cf. 66 just
below.

62. And bespeak a long spoon. Alluding to the familiar proverb
about the need of a long spoon in feeding with the devil. Cf.
Temp. ii. 2. 103 : " This is a devil, and no monster. I will leave
him ; I have no long spoon."

68. Conjure. Accented by S. on either syllable, without refer-
ence to the meaning.

73. A drop of blood. Steevens compares Middleton's Witch,
where a spirit descends and Hecate exclaims : —

" There 's one come downe to fetch his dues,
A kisse, a coll, a sip of blood," etc.

According to the old superstition, some little token of affiance was
always required in compacts made with the devil.

81. Fly pride, says the peacock. "A proverbial phrase, by which
Dromio rebukes the woman, whom he thinks a cheat, for accusing
his master of cheating" (Clarke).

83. Demean. Conduct, behave ; the original and correct sense
of the word (cf. demeanour) and the only one in S. Cf. v. I. 88
below.

86. Both one and other. For the omission of the article, cf.
T. and C. prol. 21 : " On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,"
etc.

88. Instance. Indication. See on i. 1. 64 above.

91. Belike. It is likely. See on iv. 1. 25 above.

95. Perforce. By force ; as in v. 1. 117 below.

Scene IV] Notes 165

Scene IV. — 6. Attached. Arrested ; as in iv. 1. 6 above.

22. Good now. Good, with or without the now, is sometimes
used vocatively in S. (= good friend, good fellow, etc.), as here.
Hudson says : " S. has good now repeatedly with the exact mean-
ing of well now" That explanation will not fit some instances of
the expression ; as W. T. v. 1. 19 : —

" Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.

Cleomenes. Not at all, good lady," etc.

Here the good now seems as clearly a vocative as the good lady
that follows. Cf. Temp. i. 3. 16, 20, T. and C. Hi. 1. 122, A. and
C. i. 2. 25, etc.

28. Sensible. For the sense played upon, cf. Cor. i. 3. 95 : "I
would your cambric were sensible as your finger," etc.

31. My long ears. "He means that his master had lengthened
his ears by frequently pulling them " (Steevens).

39. Wont. Is wont to bear. Cf. P. P. 273 : " My curtal dog,
that wont to have play'd." See also 1 Hen. VI. i. 2. 14 and i. 4.
10. In all these passages it is the past tense of the obsolete won
or wone (= dwell). The participle wont (not yet wholly gone out
of use) is more common in S. Cf. ii. 2. 158 above. We find the
present of won in Milton, P. L. vii. 457 : —

" As from his lair the wild beast, where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den."

Cf. Spenser, VirgiVs Gnat : —

" Of Poets Prince, whether he woon beside
Faire Xanthus sprincled with Chimaeras blood,
Or in the woods of Astery abide."

The same writer has the past tense in its old literal sense in Colin
Clouts Come Home Againe, 774 : —

14 1 weened sure he was our God alone,
And only woon'd in fields and forests here."

1 66 Notes [Act iv

42. Enter . . . Pinch. The 1st folio reads " a schooUmaster,
calPd Pinch" Steevens remarks that in many country villages in
his day the pedagogue was still a reputed conjurer. Cf. Jonson,
Staple of News : " I would have ne'er a cunning school-master
in England, I mean a cunning man as a school-master ; that is, a
conjurer/' etc. Learning and witchcraft were naturally associated
in the popular mind. Latin was the language of exorcisms. Cf.
Ham. i. 1. 42: "Thou art a scholar ; speak to it, Horatio " (that
is, to the ghost), and Much Ado, ii. 1. 264: "I would to God some
scholar would conjure her ! " See also Beaumont and Fletcher,
Night Walker, ii. 1 : —

" Let 's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
And that will daunt the devil.'*

In like manner the honest butler in Addison's Drummer recom-
mends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost.

Respicefinem. There seems to be here, as Warburton notes, an
allusion to a pamphlet by Buchanan against the lord of Lidding-
ton, which ends with the words Respicefinem, respice funem.

43. Like the parrot. Warburton remarks : " This alludes to
people's teaching that bird unlucky words ; with which, when any
passenger was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise
owner to say, Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies. To this Butler
[in Hudibras] hints, where, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury,
he says : —

1 Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,
That speak, and think contrary clean ;
What member 't is of whom they talk,
When they cry rope, and walk, knave, walk* "

These particular phrases must have been commonly taught to
parrots, for Halliwell-Phillipps cites many references to them.
In Lyly's Midas, for instance, one of the characters says of the
bird, " for every houre she will cry, walke, knave, walke ; " and
another replies, " Then will I mutter, a rope for parrat, a rope."
Cf. Taylor the Water-Poet, Workes: —

Scene IV] Notes 167

" Why doth the parrat cry, a rope, a rope ?
Because he 's caged in prison out of hope.
• *•***

Since I so idly heard the parrat talke,
In his owne language I say, Walke, knave, walke."

The Cambridge editors conjecture that we should read : —

M or, rather, 'prospice finem,' beware the rope's end.
Antipholus ofE. Wilt thou still talk like the parrot ? "

50. Please you, " Give you as a gratuity " (Clarke). Cf. the
use of gratify in M. of V. iv. 1. 406 and T. of S. i. 2. 273.

52. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy ! Those who were be-
witched or possessed by an evil spirit were supposed to show it by
trembling. Cf. Temp, ii. 2. %y. "Thou dost me yet but little
hurt ; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling ; now Prosper
works upon thee." For ecstasy = madness, cf. Ham. iii. 1. 168:
"Blasted with ecstasy." See also Id, ii. 1. 102, iii. 4. 74, 138, etc.

61. Customers ? " Contemptuously = visitors, guests "(Schmidt).
For its use = harlot, see A, IV. v. 3. 287 and Oth, iv. 1. 123.
Malone says : " Here it seems to signify one who visits such
women."

62. Companion, Used contemptuously, as we now use fellow.
Cf. M. W. iii. 1. 23, 2 Hen, IV, ii. 4. 102, 132,/. C, iv. 3. 138, etc.

72. Perdy. A corruption of par Dieu. Cf. Hen, V, ii. 1. 52, etc.

74. Sans. Much used in the time of S., and apparently viewed
as an English word, being used in French and Italian dictionaries
to define sans and senza,

76. Certes, Certainly ; nearly obsolete in the time of S., who
uses it only five times. It is a pet archaism with Spenser. Kitchen-
vestal; " her charge being," says good Dr. Johnson, " like that of
the vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning."

80. Soothe, Humour ; as the answer shows. Cf. Lear, iii. 4. 182 :
u Good my lord, soothe him ; let him take the fellow," etc.

1 68 Notes [Act IV

93. Is. The singular verb is common with two singular sub-
jects.

94. Deadly. Deathly, deathlike. Cf. V. and A. 1044 : " a deadly
groan ;" T. N. i. 5. 284 : "such a deadly life," etc.

95. Bound and laid in some dark room. Cf. v. I. 248 below.
This was the common treatment of the insane in the time of S.
Cf. A. Y. L. iii. 2. 421 : " Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you,
deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do."

96. Lock me forth. Cf. the use of forth in ii. 2. 215 above.

109. Ay me. The folio reading, for which some editors sub-
stitute "Ah me!" The latter occurs only in R. and J. v. I. 10
(perhaps by accident), while the former is found some thirty times
in the early eds. Cf. Milton, Lycidas, 56, 154, Comus, 511, P. L. iv.
86, x. 813, etc. See also v. 1. 186 below.

115. Peevish. Foolish. See on iv. 1. 93 above.

117. Do . . . displeasure. Cf. v. I. 142 below.

120. Discharge. Pay. See on iv. 1. 32 above.

122. The debt grows. See on iv. 1.8 above, and cf. 136 below.

125. Unhappy. " Here used in one of the senses of unlucky,
that is, mischievous" (Steevens). Cf. the Latin infelix, the Fr.
malheureux, and the German unselig.

126. Bond. There is an obvious play upon the word.

139. Whenas. When; as in V. and A. 999, Sonn. 49. 3,
3 Hen. VI. i. 2. 75, ii. 1. 46, v. 7. 34, etc. It is printed as two
words in the folio.

146. God, for thy mercy ! Cf. Rich. II. ii. 2. 98 : " God, for his
mercy I " etc.

152. Stuff. "An old word for baggage or luggage. It was
formerly used with the same widely comprehensive meaning for
goods and chattels generally, as women nowadays use the word
things, or as the Italians use their word roba " (Clarke). The word
is still current in New England in this sense. Cf. Genesis, xxxi. 37,
xlv. 20, 1 Samuel, x. 22, xxv. 13, etc.

153. Long. Not often used with a subordinate clause; but

Scene I] Notes 169

cf. 3 Hen. VI. iii. 3. 254 : " I long till Edward fall by war's mis-
chance."

155* Speak us fair. See on iv. 2. 16 above, and cf. iii. 2. 11.

ACT V

Scene I. — 8. His word might bear my wealth. I would risk
all that I am worth on his word, or honesty. For bear (= carry
off, win), cf. T. of A. i. 1. 131 : —

" His honesty rewards him in itself ;
It must not bear my daughter."

10. That self chain. Cf. M. of V. i. I. 148 : " that self way ; "
Hen. V. i. I. 1 : "that self bill," etc.

11. Forswore . . . to have. That is, swore that he did not have.
16. Circumstance. Detail. Cf. K.fohn, ii. 1. 77 : —

" The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance."

25. Heard me to deny. For the to after heard, cf. 2 Hen. VI. ii.
I. 94: "Myself have heard a voice to call him so." Cf. 283 and
394 below, and see on ii. 1. 26 above.

26. These ears, etc. To fill out the measure, Pope gave
"knowest ; " but hear is probably a dissyllable. Cf. hire in iv. 1.
95 above, and sour in 45 below.

30. / 7/ prove mine honour, etc. The duello was regarded as
an appeal to Providence, and its issue as determining the side of
honour.

31. Presently. At once, immediately ; as very often. So present
is often = instant, immediate.

34. Get within him. Gose with him, grapple with him.

36. Take a house. That is, take refuge in a house.

37. This is some priory. This has been criticised as an anach-
ronism; but see p. 187 below.

170 Notes [Actv

45. Sour. Spelt " sower " in the folios to indicate the dissyllabic
pronunciation. See on 26 above.

46. Much different. The 2d folio repeats much for the sake of
the measure ; but the rhythm may be satisfied by what is called
the " hovering accent " on different. It is not absolutely necessary
to accent the second syllable, as some have suggested.

49. Wrack of sea. Destruction wrought at sea. Wrack is uni-
formly so spelt in the early eds., and the pronunciation is shown by
the rhymes, alack in Per. iv. prol. 1 2, and back in V. and A. 558,
R.of Z. 841, 965, Sonn. 126. 5, and Macb. v. 5. 51. Cf. shipwrack'd
in i. 1. 114 above.

51. Stray* d. Caused to stray; the only instance of the transi-
tive use in S.

62. Copy. Probably = " theme," as Steevens explains it Clarke
(who, as former quotations will show, is fond of tracing double
meanings in a word or phrase) suggests that it is = " copious sub-
ject," combining the sense of the Latin copia, abundance, with that
of theme, or subject. Schmidt thinks it may be = " a law to be
followed, a rule to be observed." Conference = conversation ; the
usual meaning in S.

66. Glanced it. Hinted it ; not elsewhere used transitively by S.

69. Venom. For the adjective use, cf. Rich. III. i. 3. 291:
" venom tooth."

70. Poisons. Changed by Pope to " poison ; " but the construc-
tion, however we may explain it, is very common in the folio. It
is sometimes necessary to the rhyme; as in V. and A. 11 28, Sonn.
41. 3, Macb. ii. 1. 61, Ham. Hi. 2. 214, etc.

71. Sleeps. For the plural, cf. Ham. iv. 7. 30 : " Break not your
sleeps for that," etc. Malone quotes Sidney, Arcadia: "My
sleeps were inquired after, and my wakings never unsaluted."

74. Digestions. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above.

79. But moody, etc. An incomplete line, which editors have
filled out in sundry ways.

80. Kinsman. Simply = " akin," which Hanmer substituted.

Scene I] Notes 171

Capell changed it to " kins-woman/' putting the "kins-" at the end
of 79; but, as Steevens remarks, this is inadmissible in English
verse, unless it be of the comic kind. He compares the Homer

Travesty: —

M On this Agam-
memnon began to curse and damn."

For the change of gender in her heels, Ritson compares M. of V.
iii. 2. 169 : —

" but now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o'er myself

82. Dis temperatures. Distempers. Cf. 1 Hen, IV. iii. I. 34 :
" Our grandam earth, having this distemperature," etc.

84. Would mad. Cf. iv. 4. 128 above. S. does not use madden.

86. Have. The reading of the 2d folio. The 1st has " Hath,"
which may be what S. wrote. Cf. Doth (often changed to Do) in
R. and J. prol. 8 and in Cor. iii. 3. 99, etc.

92. In. Into. See on ii. 2. 34 above, and cf. 143 below.

94. Neither. Cf. 302 below. See also T. G. of V. iii. 1. 196, v.
2. 33, etc.

100. Attorney. Agent, substitute. Cf. A. K Z. iv. 1.94: "die
by attorney," etc.

105. Formal. Normal ; here = rational. Cf. A. and C. ii. 5.
41: —

" Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,
Not like a formal man ; "

where it means an ordinary man as opposed to a supernatural
being. See also 7*. N. ii. 5. 128, where " any formal capacity" =
any ordinary intellect. Similarly, informal, in the only instance of
the word in S. (M.for M.v. I. 236) = out of one's senses.

106. Parcel. Part; as in Cor. iv. 5. 231 : "a parcel of their
feast," etc.

117. Perforce. See on iv. 3. 95 above.

121. Sorry. Sorrowful ; as often. Cf. Macb. ii. 2. 21 : " This is

172 Notes [Actv

a sorry sight." As Steevens remarks, sorry had a stronger mean-
ing in Shakespeare's time than at present. Cf. Chaucer, C. T.
1 1 743 (Tyrwhitt, 7283) : "the tormentz of this sory place" (that
is, hell), etc.

124. Reverend. Here the 1st and 2d folios have "reverent,"
but " reverend "in 134 below. The two forms are used indiscrimi-
nately in the early eds.

137. Who. The reading of 1st folio, for which the 2d (followed
by most modern editors) has "whom." Cf. Macb. iii. 1. 123:
" Who I myself struck down ; " Cor. ii. 1. 8 : " Who does the wolf
love?" etc. We find who sometimes even after prepositions; as
"To who ?" (Olh. i. 2. 52, Cymb. iv. 2. 75) ; " With who ?" (0M.
iv. 2. 99) ; " for who " {Macb. iv. 3. 171), etc.

138. Important. Importunate; as in Much Ado, ii. 1. 174 : "If
the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every
thing." See also A. W. iii. 7. 21. In Lear, iv. 4, 26, the quartos
have " important," the folios " importun'd." So importance =
importunity, in T. N. v. I. 371 and K.John, ii. I. 7.

140. That. So that ; as often. Cf. iii. 2. 144 above.

142. Doing displeasure. Cf. iv. 4. 117 above.

143. In. Into ; as in 92 above.

144. Jewels. See on ii. I. 109 above.

146. Take order. Take measures ; as very often. Cf. Rich. II.
v. 1. 53, Oth. v. 2. 72, etc.

148. Wot. Know; used only in the present tense and parti-
ciple. For the latter, see W. T. iii. 2. 77 : " wotting no more than
I." Strong escape = escape effected by strength, or violence.

153. Raising of. Cf. A. Y. Z. ii. 4. 44 : "searching of thy
wound ; " Id. iv. 3. 10 : "as she was writing of it," etc.

169. Are both broke loose, etc. Malone notes that though, accord-
ing to the usage of the time, are broke loose was correct enough, are
beaten the maids would not be admissible. He was right, how-
ever, in considering it one of the " confusions of construction " so
common in S.

Scene I] Notes 173

170. A-row. In a row, one after another. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. v.
12. 29: "all her teeth arew." Steevens quotes Chaucer, C. T.
1 1 296 (Tyrwhitt, 6836): "A thousand tyme arewe he gan hire
kisse ; " and Turbervile, Penelope to Ulysses : " The Trojan tentes
arowe." Douce adds from Hormanni Vulgaria: "I shall tell
thee arowe all that I sawe : Ordine tibi visa omnia exponam."

171. Whose beard they have sing'd, etc. It has been conjectured
that S. may have got the hint of this from North's Plutarch, where,
in the Life of Dion, it is stated that " Dionysius was so fearful and
mistrustful of everybody that he would suffer no man with a pair
of barber's scissors to poll the hair of his head, but caused an
image-maker of earth to come unto him, and with a hot burning
coal to burn his goodly bush of hair round about."

174. To him. Omitted by Capell ; but the line is one of the
occasional Alexandrines in the play. Cf. 208 below.

175. Nicks him like a fool. Malone notes that professional fools
-were shaved and had their hair nicked or notched in a particular
manner. He cites The Choice of Change, 1598, in which it is said
of monks that "they are shaven and notched on the head, like
fooles."

183. Scorch. Changed by Warburton to "scotch" (=hack or
cut), which seems to have been another form of the word. It
occurs again in Macb. iii. 2. 13 (in the folio). But here scorch
may be used in its familiar sense. Singeing the doctor's beard
may have suggested scorching his wife's face. The word does not
necessarily imply anything more than burning the skin.

192. Bestrid thee. That is, to defend thee when fallen. Cf.
I Hen. IV. v. I. 122 : "Hal, if thou see me down in the battle,
and bestride me, so ; 't is a point of friendship." The past tense
and participle are both bestrid in S.

199. Abused. Deceived, been false to ; as often.

203. Discover. Disclose, explain. Cf. R. and J. ii. 2. 106, iii.
I. 147, etc.

205. Harlots. Base or lewd fellows. The word was applied to

174 Notes [Actv

men as well as women. Cf. W. T. ii. 3. 4 ; " the harlot king,"
etc.

208. So befall my soul, etc. The expression is peculiar, but the
meaning is clear enough.

210. On night. That is, "o* nights" (7\ N. i. 3. 5), or
"a-night" (A. Y. L. ii. 4. 48). The interchange of on, of, and
the prefix a- is common in S.

214. I am advised, etc. "That is, I am not going to speak
precipitately or rashly, but on reflection and consideration"
(Steevens). Cf. M. of V. i. i. 142: "with more advised watch ; "
Rich. III. ii. 1. 107 : —

" who, in my wrath,
Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd," etc.

217. Albeit. Several times interchanged with although in the
early eds. In M. of V. i. 3. 62, the folios have albeit, the 1st quarto
although; in 1 Hen. IV. i. 3. 128 the folios have although, the
quartos albeit; and in Rich. III. iv. 3. 6 the folios have albeit, the
quartos although.

219. Packed. Leagued, in conspiracy; as in Much Ado, v. 1. 308 :
" Who, I believe, was pack'd in all this wrong." Cf. the nowa pack
in M. W. iv. 2. 123 : "there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy
against me," etc. Schmidt gives pack that sense in iv. 4. .103 above.

229. God he knows. Cf. Rich. III. iii. 1. 10: "On what occa-
sion, God he knows, not I," etc.

231. My peasant. Cf. ii. 1. 81 above.

233. Fairly I bespoke. Cf. T. N. v. 1. 192 : M But I bespake you
fair, and hurt you not." See also iv. 2. 16 and iv. 4. 155 above.

239. Anatomy. Skeleton. In K. fohn, iii. 4. 40, Death is
called " that fell anatomy." For its use = body, cf. T. N, iii 2.
67 and R. and f. iii. 3. 106.

242. Living dead man. Usually printed " living-dead man ; "
but it is as well without the hyphen, which is not in the folios.

243. Took on him as a conjurer. Pretended to be a conjurer.
Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. 1. 60: "I take not on me here as a physician."

Scene I] Notes 175

According to Minsheu, " the difference betweene conjuration and
witchcraft is that the conjurer seemeth by praiers and invocations
of God's powerfull names, to compell the devill to say or doe what
he commandeth ; the witch dealeth rather by a friendlie and vol-
untarie conference or agreement betweene him or her and the
devill or familiar, to have his or her turne served in lieu or stead
of bloud, or other gift offered unto him, especially of his or her
soule."

245. With no face, etc. Cf. the play upon half-faced in K.
John, i. I. 94.

248. Dankish. Damp; used by S. only here. Dank he has
five times. Cf. M. N. D. ii. 2. 75, R. and J. ii. 3. 6, etc.

250. In sunder. The reading of the 1st folio. The phrase was
apparently going out of use, as the 2d folio substitutes asunder. In
Rich. III. iv. 1. 34, the quartos have in sunder, the folios asunder.
The only other instance of in sunder in S. is in R. of L. 388.

253. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables ; as in 400 below
and iv. i. 5 above.

269. And this is false, etc. Nearly a repetition (and doubtless
unintentional) of 209 above.

270. Impeach. Impeachment, accusation. The noun occurs
again in 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 60 : " no impeach of valour."

271. Have drunk of Circe's cup. Have become as irrational as
beasts. The only other allusion to Circe in S. (perhaps not his) is
in I Hen. VI. v. 3. 35.

273. Coldly. Coolly, calmly. Cf. R. and J. iil 1. 55 : —

" Either withdraw into some private place,
Or reason coldly of your grievances."

276. With her there. With that woman there (explained by a
gesture) ; referring to the Courtesan.

282. Mated. See on iii. 2. 54 above.

283. Vouchsafe me speak. We find the to inserted in 394 below.
Cf. 25 above.

176 Notes [Actv

291. Unbound. Dromio plays on the word, as on bound 'in 306
below.

299. Careful. Full of care, anxious. Cf. Rich. II. ii. 2. 75:
" O, full of careful business are his looks ! "

Deformed = deforming. This active use of passive participles is
common in S. Cf. disdained = disdainful in 1 Hen. IV. i. 3. 183,
grim-look* d in M. N. D. v. 1. 171, etc. We still use well-behaved.

300. Defeatures. See on ii. I. 98 above. Cf. also the use of
defeat = disfigure, in Oth. i. 3. 346. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes
Florio : " Disfare, to undoe, to spoile, to waste, to marre, to un-
make, to defeate."

302. Neither. See on 94 above.
309. Splitted. See on i. 1. 103 above.

311. My feeble key of unturid cares. " The weak and discordant
tone of my voice, that is changed by grief" (Douce).

312. Grained. "That is, furrowed, like the grain of wood"
(Steevens). Cf. Cor. iv. 5. 114: "My grained ash," etc.

317. A little use to hear. Still some hearing left, some use of
my ears.

321. Syracusa, boy. There is no comma in the folios, which led
Rowe to read "Syracusa bay" and Hanmer "Syracusa's bay."

323. Sham 1 st. For the intransitive use, cf. A. Y. L. iv. 3. 136:
" I do not shame to tell you what I was," etc.

333. Genius. Attendant spirit. Cf. A. and C. ii. 3. 19: —

" Thy demon, that 's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
Where Caesar's is not ; but near him thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being overpower'd; "

and Macb. iii. 1. 56 : —

" There is none but he
Whose being I do fear ; and under him
My Genius is rebuk'd as it is saia
Mark Antony's was by Caesar."

Scene i] Notes 177

335. Deciphers, Distinguishes. Cf. M. W. v. 2. 10: "the
white will decipher her well enough."

357-362. fVhy, here begins . . . met together. In the folio these
lines follow 346. The re-arrangement is due to Capell and is
adopted by all the editors. His morning story refers to that which
he has told the Duke in i. I.

358. Antipholuses. The folio has " Antipholus," which was,
however, intended as a plural. For similar contractions of plurals
and possessives ending in a sibilant, see p. 113 above.

359. Semblance. A trisyllable, like children in 361. See
p. 113 above.

360. Her urging of her wrack. Some change her in both places
to " his ; " but the Duke may refer to what ^Emilia has just said.

362. Which. Who ; as often.

379. I think it be. Cf. Ham. i. 1. 108: "I think it be no other
but even so," etc. The subjunctive be is often used after verbs of
thinking, etc., and sometimes expresses more doubt than is.

389. Errors all arose. The folios have " are arose," which the
Cambridge ed. retains. If it be what S. wrote it is = have arose,
or arisen ; but it is more likely a misprint, to be corrected as in the
text. " Are " is an easy misprint for all. " Moreover," as Clarke
remarks, " all here is quite in Shakespeare's style, and is his way
of drawing attention to the many errors that have occurred and
given the play its name."

391. // shall not need. Cf. 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 125: "It needs
not ; " and Milton, P. L. iii. 340 : " For regal sceptre then no
more shall need."

398. Sympathized. Mutually shared or suffered. For other
peculiar uses of the word, see R. of L. 11 13, Sonn. 82. 11, and
R.ofL. iii. I. 52.

400. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables. See on 253 above.

401. Thirty -three years. The folio reading, changed by Theo-
bald to " twenty-five " and by Capell to " twenty-three." The mod-
ern editors generally follow Theobald, who got his " twenty-five "

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 12

178 Notes [Act v

by putting together what JEgean has said of his son's leaving him at
the age of "eighteen" (i. 1. 125) and of the "seven short years"
(310 above) since he saw him. Capell's " twenty-three " is derived
from i. 1. 125 and i. 1. 132. But, as the Cambridge editors (who
retain the folio reading) remark, the Duke says (327 above) that he
has been patron to Antipholus for " twenty years," and either three
or five seems too early an age to assign for the beginning of the
patronage. Moreover, Antipholus saved the Duke's life in the wars
"long since" (161, 191 above) ; and his "long experience" of his
wife's "wisdom" and her "years" are mentioned in iii. 1. 88, 89.
I am inclined to think it is only one of several instances of the
poet's carelessness in these little arithmetical matters.

405. The calendars. That is, the two Dromios. Cf. i. 2. 41
above.

406. A gossips* feast. That is, a sponsors' feast. Gossip in this
sense is both masculine and feminine. Cf. W. T. ii. 3. 41 and
Hen. VIII. v. 5. 13.

Go with me. Various changes have been made here on account
of the repetition of go ; but, as Clarke remarks, "go with me is the
burden of the Abbess's speech throughout." The Cambridge edi-
tors conjecture, " So to a gossips' feast all go with me."

407. Such nativity / Some editors change nativity to " felicity,"
and others to "festivity;" but Clarke well says: "There is some-
thing in the repetition of nativity which harmonizes with ^Emilia's
dwelling on the fact that this present hour is the birth-hour
of her sons. Such reiterations in speeches at the close of a play
are not unfrequent with S., who often, as it appears to us, gives
this kind of confusedly repeated construction, partly to indicate
the tumult of feeling in the speaker, partly to impress upon the
audience any special point towards which he desires to draw their
attention."

408. Gossip. Make merry. Cf. K. John, v. 2. 59 : —

" at feasts,
Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping."

Scene I] Notes 179

411. Lay at host in. That is, were put up at. Cf. i. 2. 9 above.
416. Kitchcrid me. Entertained me in the kitchen ; the only
instance of the verb in S.

418. My glass. My reflection in a mirror. In T. N. v. 1. 272
(" If this be so, as yet the glass seems true ") the metaphor simi-
larly refers to a case of mistaken identity.

419. Sweet-fac'd. Cf. M. N. D. i. 2. 88 : " Pyramus is a sweet-
fac'd man."

423. Draw cuts. Draw lots ; the only instance of the phrase
in S. "Draw lots" occurs only in A. and C. ii. 3. 35 and ii. 6. 62
{Per. i. 4. 46 is not Shakespeare's).

APPENDIX

Meres's Mention of the Play

The passages in Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598) referring to
Shakespeare read as follows : —

" As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer,
Hesiod, Euripedes, Aeschilus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides and
Aristophanes; and the Latine tongue by Virgill, Ouid, Horace,
Silius Jtalicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius and Claudianus : so
the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie inuested
in rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments by sir Philip Sidney,
Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and
Chapman,

" As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to Hue in Pythagoras :
so the sweete wittie soule of Ouid Hues in mellifluous & hony-
tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece,
his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c.

" As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and
Tragedy among the Latines : so Shakespeare among y 6 English is
the most excellent in both kinds for the stage ; for Comedy, wit-
nes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost,
his Loue labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his
Merchant of Venice : for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the
3. Henry the 4. King John, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and
Juliet.

"As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus
tongue, if they would speak Latin : so I say that the Muses would
speak with Shake spear es fine filed phrase, if they would speake
English.

181

1 82 Appendix

" And as Horace saith of his : Exegi monumentum are peren-
nius; Regaliq; situ pyramidum altius; Quod non imber edax;
Non Aquilo impotens possit diruere; aut innumerabilis anno-
rum series & fuga temporum : so say I seuerally of sir Philip
Sidneys, Spencers, Daniels, Dray tons, Shakespeares, and Warners
Workes; . . .

" As Pindarus, Anacreon and Callimachus among the Greekes;
and Horace and Catullus among the Latines are the best Lyrick
Poets ; so in this faculty the best among our Poets are Spencer
(who excelleth in all kinds), Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare,
Bretton. . . .

"As these Tragicke Poets flourished in Greece, Aeschylus,
Euripedes, Sophocles, Alexander Aetolus, Ac ha us Erithriaus, Asty-
damas Atheniensis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus Phrygius,
Thespis Allicus, and Timon Apolloniates ; and these among the
Latines, Accius, M. Attilius, Pomponius Secundus and Seneca:
so these are our best for Tragedie, the Lorde Buckhurst, Doctor
Leg of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of Oxforde, maister Edward Fer-
ris, the Authour of the Mirrour for Magistrates, Marlow, Peele,
Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker, and
Beniamin Johnson."

Plautus and Shakespeare

The original argument of the Menachmi is thus translated by
Warner (see p. 18 above): —

" Two twinborn sons, a Sicill merchant had,
Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other :
The first his father lost a little lad,
The grandsire named the latter like his brother.
This (grown a man) long travel took to seek
His brother, and to Epidamnum came,
Where th' other dwelt enrich'd, and him so like,
That citizens there take him for the same :

Appendix 1 83

Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking either,
Much pleasant error, ere they meet together."

Knight, after quoting it, remarks: "This argument is almost suffi-
cient to point out the difference* between the plots of Plautus and
of Shakspere. It stands in the place of the beautiful narrative of
^Egeon, in the first scene of the Comedy of Errors, In Plautus we
have no broken-hearted father bereft of both his sons; he is dead,
and the grandfather changes the name of the one child who re-
mains to him. Shakspere does not stop to tell us how the twin-
brothers bear the same name ; nor does he explain the matter any
more in the case of the Dromios, whose introduction upon the
scene is his own creation. In Plautus, the brother, Mensechmus
Sosicles, who remained with the grandsire, comes to Epidamnum,
in search of his twin-brother who was stolen, and he is accom-
panied by his servant Messenio ; but all the perplexities that are
so naturally occasioned by the confusion of the two twin-servants
are entirely wanting. The mistakes are carried on by the ' mere-
trix, uxor, et socer ' (softened by Warner into ' father, wife, neigh-
bours'). We have 'Medicus,' the prototype of Doctor Pinch;
but the mother of the twins is not found in Plautus. We scarcely
need say that the Parasite and the Father-in-law have no place in
Shakspere's comedy. The scene in the Comedy of Errors is
changed from Epidamnum to Ephesus ; but we have mention of
Epidamnum once or twice in the play.

"The Menachmi opens with the favourite character of the
Roman comedy — the Parasite ; the scene is at Epidamnum. The
Parasite is going to dine with Mensechmus, who comes out from
his house, upbraiding his jealous wife. But his wife is not jealous
without provocation. . . . The Antipholus of Shakspere does not .
propose to dine with one 'pretty and wild,' and to bestow 'the
chain ' upon his hostess, till he has been provoked by having his
own doors shut upon him. Our poet has thus preserved some
sympathy for his Antipholus, which the Mensechmus of Plautus
forfeits upon his first entrance. Mensechmus and the Parasite go

1 84 Appendix

to dine with Erotium (meretrix). Those who talk of Shakspere's
anachronisms have never pointed out to us what formidable liber-
ties the translators of Shakspere's time did not scruple to take with
their originals. Menaechmus gives* very precise directions for his
dinner, after the most approved Roman fashion : —

• Jube igitur nobis tribus apud te prandium accurarier,
Atque aliquid scitamentorum de foro obsonarier,
Glandionidem suillam, laridum pern on idem, aut
Sinciput, aut polimenta porcina, aut aliquid ad eum modum.'
This passage Warner thus interprets : ' Let a good dinner be made
for us three. Hark ye, some oysters, a mary-bone pie or two, some
artichokes, and potato roots ; let our other dishes be as you please.'
In reading this bald attempt to transfuse the Roman luxuries into
words accommodated to English ideas, we are forcibly reminded
how ' rare Ben ' dealt with the spirit of antiquity in such matters
(Alchemist^ ii. 1) : —

' The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels,
Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl,
Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy :
And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber
Headed with diamond and carbuncle.
My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons,
Knots, godwits, lampreys : I myself will have
The beards of barbels serv'd, instead of sallads ;
Oil'd mushrooms,' etc

" The second act in Plautus opens with the landing of Menaech-
mus Sosicles and Messenio at Epidamnum. The following is
Warner's translation of the scene : —

4 Menachmus. Surely, Messenio, I think seafarers never take so com-
fortable a joy in any thing as, when they have been long tost and tur-
moiled in the wide seas, they hap at last to ken land.

Messenio. I '11 be sworn, I should not be gladder to see a whole coun-
try of mine own, than I have been at such a sight. But I pray, where-
fore are we now come to Epidamnum ? must we needs go to see every
town that we hear of?

Appendix 185

Menachmus. Till I find my brother, all towns are alike to me: I
must try in all places.

Messenio. Why then, let 's even as long as we live seek your brother :
six years now have we roamed about thus, I stria, Hispania, Massilia,
Illyria, all the upper sea, all high Greece, all haven towns in Italy. I
think if we had sought a needle all this time we must needs have found
it, had it been above ground. It cannot be that he is alive ; and to seek
a dead man thus among the living, what folly is it ?

Mencechmus. Yea, could I but once find any man that could certainly
inform me of his death, I were satisfied ; otherwise I can never desist
seeking : little knowest thou, Messenio, how near my heart it goes.

Messenio. This is washing of a blackamoor. Faith, let 's go home,
unless ye mean we should write a story of our travail.

Mencechmus, Sirrah, no more of these saucy speeches. I perceive I
must teach you how to serve me, not to rule me.

Messenio. Ay, so, now it appears what it is to be a servant. Well, I
must speak my conscience. Do ye hear, sir ? Faith, I must tell you
one thing, when I look into the lean estate of your purse, and consider
advisedly of your decaying stock, I hold it very needful to be drawing
homeward, lest in looking your brother, we quite lose ourselves. For
this assure yourself, this town, Epidamnum, is a place of outrageous
expenses, exceeding in all riot and lasciviousness : and (I hear) as full
of ribalds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, coney-catchers, and syco-
phants, as it can hold. Then for courtesans, why here *s the currentest
stamp of them in the world. You must not think here to scape with as
light cost as in other places. The very name shows the nature, no man
comes hither sine damno.

Mencechmus. You say very well indeed : give me my purse into mine
own keeping, because I will so be the safer, sine damno*

"Steevens considered that the description of Ephesus in the
Comedy of Errors ('They say, this town is full of cozenage,' etc.)
was derived from Warner's translation, where 'ribalds, parasites,
drunkards, catchpoles, coney-catchers, sycophants, and courtesans,'
are found ; the voluptarii, potatores, sycophanta, patpa/ores, and
meretrices of Plautus. But surely the 'jugglers,' 'sorcerers,!
' witches,' of Shakspere are not these. With his exquisite judgt

1 86 Appendix

ment, he gave Ephesus more characteristic ' liberties of sin.' The
cook of the courtesan, in Plautus, first mistakes the wandering
brother for the profligate of Epidamnum. Erotium next encounters
him, and with her he dines ; and, leaving her, takes charge of a
cloak which the Menaechmus of Epidamnum had given her. In
the Comedy of Errors the stranger brother dines with the wife of
him of Ephesus. The Parasite next meets with the wanderer, and
being enraged that the dinner is finished in his absence, resolves to
disclose the infidelities of Menaechmus to his jealous wife. The
'errors' proceed, in the maid of Erotium bringing him a chain
which she says he had stolen from his wife: he is to cause it
to be made heavier and of a newer fashion. The traveller goes "his
way with the cloak and the chain. The jealous wife and the Para-
site lie in wait for the faithless husband, who the Parasite reports is
carrying the cloak to the dyer's ; and they fall with their reproaches
upon the Menaechmus of Epidamnum, who left the courtesan to
attend to his business. A scene of violence ensues ; and the
bewildered man repairs to Erotium for his dinner. He meets with
reproaches only ; for he knows nothing of the cloak and the chain.
The stranger Menaechmus, who has the cloak and chain, encounters
the wife of his brother, and of course he utterly denies any know-
ledge of her. Her father comes to her assistance, upon her hastily
sending for him. He first reproaches his daughter for her sus-
picions of her husband, and her shrewish temper : Luciana reasons
in a somewhat similar way with Adriana, in the Comedy of Errors,
and the Abbess is more earnest in her condemnation of the com-
} plaining wife. The scene in Plautus wants all the elevation that
' we find in Shakspere ; and the old man seems to think that the
wife has little to grieve for, as long as she has food, clothes, and
servants. Menaechmus, the traveller, of course cannot comprehend
all this ; the father and daughter agree that he is mad and send
for a doctor. He escapes from the discipline which is preparing
for him ; and the doctor's assistants lay hold of Menaechmus, the
citizen. He is rescued by Messenio, the servant of the traveller,

Appendix 187

who mistakes him for his master, and begs his freedom. The ser-
vant going to his inn meets with his real master ; and, while dis-
puting with him, the Mensechmus of Epidamnum joins them. Of
course, the edaircissement is the natural consequence of the
presence of both upon the same scene. The brothers resolve to
leave Epidamnum together ; the citizen making proclamation that
he will sell all his goods, and adding, with his accustomed loose
notions of conjugal duty, 'Venibit uxor quoque etiam, si quis emp-
tor venerit.'

" Hazlitt has said, * This comedy is taken very much from the
Menachmi of Plautus, and is not an improvement on it' We think
he is wrong in both assertions."

The Period of the Action

I believe that Hazlitt, Garke, and others are wrong in assum-
ing that the action of the play is laid in the old classical times.
Knight's remarks on this subject also are so good that I cannot
forbear quoting them : —

" We have noticed some of the anachronisms which the trans-
lator of Plautus, in Shakspere's time, did not hesitate to introduce
into his performance. Warner did not do this ignorantly ; for he
was a learned person, and, we are told in an address of 'The
Printer to his Readers,' had divers of this poet's comedies Eng-
lished, for the use and delight of his private friends, who in Plautus'
own words ' are not able to understand them.' There was, no doubt,
a complete agreement as to the principle of such anachronisms in
the writers of Shakspere's day. They employed the conventional
ideas of their own time instead of those which properly belonged to
the date of their story ; they translated images as well as words ;
they were addressing uncritical readers and spectators, and they
thought it necessary to make themselves intelligible by speaking

1 88 Appendix

of familiar instead of recondite things. Thus Warner not only
gives us marybone pies and potatoes, instead of the complicated
messes of the Roman sensualist, but he talks of constables and toll-
gatherers, Bedlam fools, and claret. In Douce's Essay 'On the
Anachronisms and some other Incongruities of Shakspere,' the
offences of our poet in the Comedy of Errors are thus summed up:
* In the ancient city of Ephesus we have ducats, marks, and guilders,
and the Abbess of a Nunnery. Mention is also made of several
modern European kingdoms, and of America ; of Henry the Fourth
of France [iii. 2. 121], of Turkish tapestry, a rapier, and a striking-
clock ; of Lapland sorcerers, Satan, and even of Adam and Noah.
In one place Antipholus calls himself a Christian. As we are
unacquainted with the immediate source whence this play was
derived, it is impossible to ascertain whether Shakspere is responsi-
ble for these anachronisms.' The ducats, marks, guilders, tapestry,
rapier, striking-clock, and Lapland sorcerers, belong precisely to
the same class of anachronisms as those we have already exhibited
from the pen of the translator of Plautus. Had Shakspere used
the names of Grecian or Roman coins, his audience would not have
understood him. Such matters have nothing whatever to do with
the period of a dramatic action. But we think Douce was some-
what hasty in proclaiming that the Abbess of a Nunnery, Satan,
Adam and Noah, and Christian, were anachronisms, in connection
with the ' ancient city of Ephesus.'

" Douce, seeing that the Comedy of Errors was suggested by the
Menachmi of Plautus, considers, no doubt, that Shakspere intended
to place his action at the same period as the Roman play. It is
manifest to us that he intended precisely the contrary. The Me-
nachmi contains invocations in great number to the ancient divin-
ities; — Jupiter and Apollo are here familiar words. From the
first line of the Comedy of Errors to the last we have not the slight-
est allusion to the classical mythology. Was there not a time, then,
even in the ancient city of Ephesus, when there might be an Abbess,
— men might call themselves Christians, — and Satan, Adam, and

Appendix 189

Noah might be names of common use ? We do not mean to affirm
that Shakspere intended to select the Ephesus of Christianity — the
great city of churches and councils — for the dwelling-place of
Antipholus, any more than we think that Duke Solinus was a real
personage — that ' Duke Menaphon, his most renowned uncle,' ever
had any existence — or that even his name could be found in any
story more trustworthy than that of Greene's Arcadia. The truth
is, that in the same way that Ardennes was a sort of terra incognita
of chivalry, the poets of Shakspere's time had no hesitation in
placing the fables of the romantic ages in classical localities, leav-
ing the periods and the names perfectly undefined and unap-
preciable. . . .

" Warton has prettily said, speaking of Spenser, « exactness in his
poem would have been like the cornice which a painter introduced
in the grotto of Calypso.' Those who would define every thing in
poetry are the makers of corniced grottos. As we are not desirous
of belonging to this somewhat obsolete fraternity, to which even
Warton himself affected to belong when he wrote what is truly an
apology for the Faerie Queene, we will leave our readers to de-
cide whether Duke Solinus reigned at Ephesus before • the great
temple, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven
repeated misfortunes, was finally burnt by the Goths in their third
naval invasion ; ' l or whether he presided over the decaying city,
somewhat nearer to the period when Justinian 'filled Constantinople
with its statues, and raised his church of St. Sophia on its columns ; '
or, lastly, whether he approached the period of its final desolation,
when the ' candlestick was removed out of its place,' and the Chris-
tian Ephesus became the Mohammedan Aiasaluck. . . .

" The exceeding beauty and accuracy of scenery and dress in our
days are destructive, in some degree, to the poetical truth of Shak-
spere's dramas. It takes them out of the region of the broad and
universal, to impair their freedom and narrow their range by a typo-

1 Gibbon, chap. x.

190 Appendix

graphical and chronological minuteness. When the word * Thebes* l
was exhibited upon a painted board to Shakspere's audience, their
thoughts of that city were in subjection to the descriptions of the
poet ; but if a pencil as magical as that of Stanfield had shown
them a Thebes that the child might believe to be a reality, the
words to which they listened would have been comparatively unin-
teresting, in the easier gratification of the senses instead of the
intellect. Poetry must always have something of the vague and
indistinct in its character. The exact has its own province. Let
Science explore the wilds of Africa, and map out for us where there
are mighty rivers and verdant plains in the places where the old
geographers gave us pictures of lions and elephants to designate
undiscovered desolation. But let Poetry still have its undefined
countries ; let Arcadia remain un surveyed ; let us not be too curi-
ous to inquire whether Dromio was an ancient heathen or a Chris-
tian, nor whether Bottom the weaver lived precisely at the time
when Theseus did battle with the Centaurs."

The Characters of the Twins

The critics have given little attention to Shakespeare's skill in
characterization as illustrated in this play, and least of all as shown
in the two pairs of twins. Hazlitt remarks that, " in reading the
play it is difficult, without a painful effort of attention, to keep these
characters distinct in the minds ; " but, as with all his personages,
Shakespeare has given them individual characteristics by which we
can distinguish them. Some one has said that if his dramas were

1 See Sidney's Defence of Poesy : " What child is there that, coming to
a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters upon an old door, doth
believe that it is Thebes ? " This rude device was probably employed
in the representation of the Thebais of Seneca translated by Newton,
1581.

Appendix 191

printed without the names of the persons represented being attached
to the speeches, we should know who is speaking by " his wonder-
ful discrimination in assigning to every character appropriate modes
of thought and expression." Knight, who, so far as I am aware, is
the only editor or critic, who has illustrated this at any length in
the case of the twin brothers in the present play, remarks : —
" The Dromio of Syracuse is described by his master as

,/ 'A trusty villain, sir; that very oft,

When I am dull with care and melancholy,
Lightens my humour with his merry jests.'

But the wandering Antipholus herein describes himself; he is a
prey to * care and melancholy.' He has a holy purpose to execute,
which he has for years pursued without success : /

' He that commends me to mine own content

Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
• I to the world am like a drop of water

That in the ocean seeks another drop.'

Sedate, gentle, loving, the Antipholus of Syracuse is one of Shak-
spere'3 amiable creations. He beats his slave according to the
custom of slave-beating ; but he laughs with him and is kind to him
almost at the same moment. He is an enthusiast, for he falls in
love with Luciana in the midst of his perplexities, and his lips utter
some of the most exquisite poetry :

' O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,

To drown me in thy sister's 'flood of tears. ' )

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote ;
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs/

But he is accustomed to habits of self-command, and he resolves to
tear himself away even from the siren :

' But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
I '11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.*

192 Appendix

As his perplexities increase, he ceases to be angry with his slave:

' The fellow is distract and so am I,
And here we wander in illusions :
Some blessed power deliver us from hence I '

Unlike the Menaechmus Sosicles of Plautus, he refuses to dine with
the courtesan. He is firm yet courageous when assaulted by the
Merchant. When the errors are clearing up, he modestly adverts
to his love for Luciana ; and we feel that he will be happy.

" Antipholus of Ephesus is decidedly inferior to his brother, in the
quality of his intellect and the tone of his morals. He is scarcely
justified in calling his wife ' shrewish.' Her fault is a too sensitive
affection for him. Her feelings are most beautifully described in
that address to her supposed husband :

• Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine ;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss.'

The classical image of the elm and the vine would have been suffi-
cient to express the feelings of a fond and confiding woman ; the
exquisite addition of the ' Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss/ con-
veys the prevailing uneasiness of a loving and doubting wife.
Antipholus of Ephesus has somewhat hard measure dealt to him
throughout the progress of the errors ; but he deserves it. His
doors are shut against him, it is true ; in his impatience he would
force his way into his house, against the remonstrances of the good

Balthazar :

1 Your long experience of her wisdom,
Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown.'

He departs, but not ' in patience ; ' he is content to dine from home,
but not at « the Ti&er.' His resolve —

Appendix 193

* That chain will I bestow —
Be it for nothing but to spite my wife —
Upon mine hostess ' —

would not have been made by his brother, in a similar situation.
He has spited his wife ; he has dined with the courtesan. But he <

is not satisfied :

* Go thou
And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates.'

We pity him. not when he is arrested, nor when he receives the
rope's end instead of his ducats. His furious passion with his wife,
and the foul names he bestows on her, are quite in character;
and when he has * Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor/
we cannot have a suspicion that the doctor was practising on the
right patient. In a word, we cannot doubt that, although the
Antipholus of Ephesus may be a brave soldier, who took ' deep
scars ' to save his prince's life, and that he really has a right to con-
sider himself much injured, he is strikingly opposed to the Antiph-
olus of Syracuse ; that he is neither sedate, nor gentle, nor truly
loving ; that he has no habits of self-command ; that his tempera-
ment is sensual ; arid that, although the riddle of his perplexity is
solved, he will still find causes of unhappiness, and entertain

* a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures.'

" The characters of the two Dromios are not so distinctly marked
, in their points of difference, at the first aspect. They each have
their ' merry jests ; ' they each bear a beating with wonderful good
temper ; they each cling faithfully to their master's interests. But
there is certainly a marked difference in the quality of their mirth.
The Dromio of Ephesus is precise and antithetical, striving to utter
his jests with infinite gravity and discretion, and approaching a pun
with a sly solemnity that is prodigiously diverting :

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 1 3

1 94 Appendix

Again :

' The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit,
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell ;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek.
She is so hot because the meat is cold.'

' I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.'

He is a formal humourist, and, we have no doubt, spoke with a
drawling and monotonous accent, fit for his part in such a dialogue
as this :

1 Antipkolus of E. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out ?
Dromio of E. Perdy, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.
Antipkolus ofE. And did not she herself revile me there ?
Dromio of E. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.
Antipkolus of E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me ?
Dromio of E. Certes, she did ; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.'

On the contrary, the * merry jests ' of Dromio of Syracuse all come
from the outpouring of his gladsome heart. He is a creature of
prodigious animal spirits, running over with fun and queer simili-
tudes. He makes not the slightest attempt at arranging a joke,
but utters what comes uppermost with irrepressible volubility. He
is an untutored wit, and, we have no doubt, gave his tongue as
active exercise by hurried pronunciation and variable emphasis as
could alone make his long descriptions endurable by his sensitive
master. Look at the dialogue in the second scene of act ii., where
Antipholus, after having repressed his jests, is drawn into a tilting-
match of words with him, in which the merry slave has clearly the
victory. Look, again, at his description of the « kitchen-wench ' —
coarse, indeed, in parts, but altogether irresistibly droll. The twin-
brother was quite incapable of such a flood of fun. Again, what a
prodigality of wit is displayed in his description of the bailiff ! His
epithets are inexhaustible. Each of the Dromios is admirable in
his way ; but we think that he of Syracuse is as superior to the

Appendix 195

twin-slave of Ephesus as our old friend Launce is to Speed, in
the Two Gentlemen of Verona. These distinctions between the
Antipholuses and Dromios have not, as far as we know, been before
pointed out ; but they certainly do exist, and appear to us to be
defined by the great master of character with singular force as well
as delicacy. Of course the characters of the twins could not be
violently contrasted, for that would have destroyed the illusion.
They must still ' Go hand in hand, not one before another.' "

The Duration of the Action

The action of the drama is all included in a single day, beginning
with the " morning story " of ^Egeon and ending in the afternoon
soon after "the dial points at five" (v. I. 118). Its progress is
marked by many little references to the time of day which it is
unnecessary to point out here. This play and The Tempest are the
only plays of Shakespeare in which the " unities " of time and place
are observed.

List of Characters in the Play

The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines the characters
have in each scene.

Duke: i. 1(48) ; v. 1(43). Whole no. 91.

jEgeon: i. 1(110); v. 1(33). Whole no. 143.

Antipholus of Ephesus : iii. 1(47); iv. 1(48), 4 (44); v. 1(73).
Whole no. 212.

Antipholus of Syracuse : i. 2(55) ; ii. 2(84) ; iii. 2(86) ; iv. 3
(27), 4(5); v. 1(22). Whole no. 279.

Dromio of Ephesus: i. 2(33); ii. 1(32); iii. 1(30); iv. 1(1),
4(44); v. 1(21). Whole no. 161.

Dromio of Syracuse : i. 2(2); ii. 2(67); iii. i(l4) f 2(62); iv.
1(16), 2(25), 3(44), 4(7); ▼• !(«)• ™°te no. 248.

196 Appendix

Balthazar : Hi. 1(26). Whole no. 26.

Angelo: iii. 1(2), 2(10); iv. 1(34); v. 1(31). Whole no. 77.

\st Merchant: i. 2(15). Whole no. 15.

2d Merchant : iv. 1 (1 1) ; v. 1 (23) . Whole no. 34.

Officer: iv. I (3), 4(10). Whole no. 13.

Gaoler: i. 1(1). Whole no. 1.

Servant: v. 1(15). Whole no. 15.

Pinch: iv. 4(12). Whole no. 12.

Mmilia: iv. 1(73). Whole no. 73.

Adriana: ii. 1(55), 2(63); iii. 1(2); iv. 2(34), 4(31); v. 1(75).
Whole no. 260.

Luciana: ii. 1(30), 2(8); iii. 2(36); iv. 2(10), 4(5); v. 1(7).
Whole no. 96.

Luce: iii. 1(8). Whole no. 8.

Courtesan : iv. 3(26), 4(6); v. 1(3). Whole no. 35.

In the above enumeration parts of lines are counted as whole
lines, making the total in the play greater than it is. The actual
number of lines in each scene (Globe edition numbering) is as fol-
lows: i. 1(159)1 2(105); "• i(»6), 2(221); iii. 1(123), 2(190);
iv. 1(113), 2(66), 3(97), 4(162); v. 1(426). Whole no. in the
play, 1778.

The play is the shortest of Shakespeare's dramas, being less
than half the length of Hamlet (the longest), which has 3930
lines. The next shortest is The Tempest (2065 lines), and the
next Macbeth (2109).

INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES
EXPLAINED

absence six months old,

12a
abused (= deceived), 173
ache (spelling), 143
advised, I am, 174
aim (transitive), 149
albeit, 174
almanac of my true date,

126
alone, alone, 133
amain, 123
America, 150
anatomy, 174
angel (coin), 163
Antipholus, 177, 188
apparently, 155
armadoes, 151
a-row, 173
as (=that), Z22
aspect (accent), 134
assured (= affianced), 151
at board, 147
at random, 121
attach (= arrest), 153, 155,

x6 .5
attaint, 146
attorney, 171
avoid ! 162
ay me ! 168

back-friend, 159
bait (= entice), 131
ballast, 151
balsamum, 156
band (=bond), 161
bastard fame, 146
bear (= win) , 169
become disloyalty, 146
befallen of, 123
before judgment, 160
Belgia, 151
belike, 154, 164
beshrew, 130

besides (preposition), 119
bespeak a long spoon, 104

bestow (= employ), 153
bestowed, 127
bestrid, 173
bloods, 118
bob (=rap), x6a
bond (play upon) , 168
both one and other, 164
bought and sold, 144
bound (play upon), 176
broke (= broken), 126
buff, 159

building (figurative), 146
buy sport dear, 155

calendars (figurative), 178

capon, 143

caracks, 151

carat, 154

carcanet, 142' #

careful (= anxious), 176

carve to, 137

cates, 142

certes, 167

chalky cliffs, 150

changeful, 154

charged him with, 142

choleric (from burnt

meat), 134
Circe s cup, 175
circumstance, 169
clean (= quite), 124
clock (figurative), 227
coil (=ado), 143
coldly (= calmly) , 175
common (noun), 134
compact (accent), 130
compact of credit, 140
companion, 167
compass of suspect, 144
conceit (= conception),

146, 161
conference, 170
confiscate, 121
confounds himself, 126
confusion (= ruin) , 140

197

conjure (accent), 164
consecrate, 137
consort (= keep com-
pany), 126
copy (= theme), 170
counter (play upon), 160
countermands, 160
curtal, 152
customers, 167

dankish, 175
dark-working, 128
deadly (= deathly), 168
death, the, 124
debted, 154
deciphers, 176
decline (= incline), 14b
deep-divorcing, 138
deer (play upon), 131
defeatures, 131, 176
deformed (= deforming),

176
demean, 164
denied (with negative),

X S7
despite of mirth, 145
devil's dam, the. 163
different (metre), 170
digestions (metre), 170
dilate (= relate), 123
disannul, 124
discharge (= pay) , 168
discharged (=paid). 154
discover (= disclose) , 173
dispense with, 132
dispose (noun), 121
disposed (= disposed of),

127
distain, 138
distemperatures, 171
distract (= distracted),

163
diviner, 151

do displeasure, x68, 172
doom, 118

198 Index of Words and Phrases

doubtfully (play upon ?),

130
Dowsabel, 157
draw cuts, 179
draws dry-foot, 160
dry basting, 135
durance, z6a

earnest (play upon) , 131
ecstasy (= madness), 167
elm (figurative), 139
embracements, 122
Epidamnum, 121
Epidaurus, 123
everlasting garment, 159
excrement, 135
exempt (= separated), 139

fair (= fairness), 131
fairly I bespoke, 174
fairy (malignant), 159
faith, 151

fall (transitive), 137
falsing, 136

far from her nest the lap-
wine cries, 158
fast (play upon), 128

wine cries, 158
ast (play upon) ,
feeble key of untuned

cares, 176
fine and recovery, 135
fly pride, says the pea-
cock, 164
folded (= concealed), 147
fond (= doting), 153
fondly (—foolishly), 133,

161
fool-begged, 130
for (= because), 122
for why, 149

forbid (= forbidden), 128
formal (= ordinary), 171
forswore to have, 169
forth (=away from home),

14 x
forth (=out), 126, 168
fraughtage, 155

genius, 176

S:t within him, 169
illian, 142
Ginn, 142
glanced it, 170
glass (metaphor), 179
God, for thy mercy \ 168
God he knows, 174
good now, 165

gossip (=make merry ),i78
gossips' feast, 178
grained, 176
growing (—accruing), 153,

x68
guilders, 1x9, 153
guilty to, 152

hairs, 147

harlots (masculine), 173

hatch (noun), 143

healthful, 123

hear (dissyllable), 169

heart's meteors, 157

heir (play upon), 150

hell (play upon), 160

help (repeated), 124

helpless, 120

hire (dissyllable), 156

his (= its) , 129, 132, 158

hit of, 146

holp, 154

horn-mad, 130

host (verb), 125

hot in her breath. 150

hour (dissyllable), 145

how chance, 126

hoy, 163

I buy a thousand pound a

year! 153
I think it be, 177
idle (= barren) , 140
illusions (metre), 163
impeach (noun), 175
important (= importu-
nate), 172
importune (accent), 123,

in (= into), 161, 171, 172
in post. 126
in sunder, 175
in trim, 156
incorporate, 137
inspiration (metre), X39
instance (=sign), 122
intestine, 1x9
is wandered, 133
it shall not need, 177

jest upon, 134
jewel, 132, 172
jollity, 136

kinsman (.= aVuC) , \«jo
kitchened me, m

kitchen-vestal, 167
know my aspect, 134

Lapland sorcerers, 161

lashed, 128

latter-born, 12a

lay at host in, 179

lets (■* hinders). 13s

levied (trisyllable), 121

liberties of sin, 128

licentious (metre), 137

lifeless end, 125

light (= wanton), 148, 163

light (play upon r), 148

Limbo, 159

list me, 156

liveless, 125

lives upon succession, 145

living dead man, 174

lock me forth, 168

long (with subordinate

clause), 168
long spoon, bespeak a,

X64
Love (■ ; Venus), 148
love-springs, 145
Low Countries (play

upon). x 5 x
Luce (play upon), 143

mace, 162
mad (verb), 171
make the doors, to, 144
malt-horse, 143
marks (play upon), 137
mated (*=mad), 175
mated (play upon), 148
mean (= means). 195
merchant (metre), 124
mermaid (= siren), 147,

153
mickle, X43 m

minions (= favourites),

X3X
mome, 142
mood (« anger), 139
more hair than wit, 135
morris-pike. 162
mortal («■ deadly), xxo
motions (= proposals),

X22

moves (= appeals to), 140

v"

Index of Words and Phrases

199

need (impersonal), 177
neither, X71 . 176
new-apparelled, 162
nicks him like a fool,

X73
no face, 175
no (=not), 125, 172
nor . . . no, 147
nor . . . not, 158

o'er-raught, 128
of (omitted) , 123
of (« out of), 124
on night, 174
on the case, 161
once this, 144
other where, 129. 132
our (dissyllable r), 121
owe (=own), 143
owls, 140

packed, 174
parcel (= part), 171
parrot, like the, 166
part (= depart), 144
partial to infringe, etc.,

"9

passage, 144

patch (= fool), 143

patience (metre), 144

pause (= rest), 129

peasant, 174

peevish (= silly); 156, 168

penitent (= doing pen-
ance), 126

perceive austerely, 157

perdy, 167

perforce (=» by force) , 164,
171

persever, 141

peruse the traders, 125

Phoenix, the, 127

picture of old Adam, 162

Pinch, 166

plainings, 122

please (= give a gratuity) ,
167

pleaseth you, 153

pluck a crow together,

porpentme, 145
possess from, 140
possession (metre), 145

post (play upon), 127
pound (plural), 15
presently, 15a, 169

procrastinate, 125

put finger in the eye, 141

quit (= remit) , 121

raising of, 172
reave, 123
respice finetn, 166
reverend, 172
reverted, X50
rhyme nor reason, 134
road (= haven) , 152
round (play upon), 130
run humour out of breath,

155
runs counter, 100

sans, 167

satisfaction (metre), 153,

i75» 177
sconce, 127, 134
scorch, 173
season (= opportunity;,

161
seditious, 1x9
self (adjective), 160
semblance (trisyllable),

X77
send me by some token,

154
sensible (play upon), 165
sere, 158

sets up his rest, 162
shamest (intransitive),

176
shapeless (= misshapen),

158
sheep (play upon) , 15
ship (play upon), 156
shrive you, 141
sinking-ripe, 122
sir knave, 127
sir-reverence, 149
situate, 129
sleeps (noun), 170
so (omitted), 151, 172
so fair an offered chain,

153
Sohnus (spelling), 118
some other, 161 »

soon at five o'clock, 126
soothe (= humour), 167
sorry, 171
sot (—dolt). 141
sour (dissyttabW) , \-yo
speak him fair, 157 > i&

spite (= vexation), 157
splitted, 123, 176
spurn at, 137
stale (play upon), 131
stands upon, 155
starve (for a look), 131
stay for, 154
stigmatical in making,

158
stomach (<= appetite), 126
strayed (transitive), 170
strong escape, 172
strucken, 126
strumpeted, 138
stuff (= luggage), 168
succession (metre), 145
suits of durance, 162
supposed, 145
sure uncertainty, 140
suspect (noun), 144
swart, 149
sweet-faced, 179
sweet now, 159
sympathized, 177
synod, 119
Syracusians, 12X

take a house, 169
take order, 172
Tartar (= Tartarus) , X59
that (affix), 125, X33, X34
thirty-three years, 177
this (= this is), X2i
timely (= early), 124
to (infinitive), 129, 169
took (= taken) , 131 >
took on him as a conjurer,

17 t , . .

touching (= testing), 133

towards (accent), 123

train (= entice), 147

tremble in his ecstasy,

167

turn i' the wheel, 152

two hours old, 139

unbound (play upon), 176
understand (play upon),

130
undisposed, 127
uncalled, 145
unhappy, 168

vain (= foolish) .153

\ \$

200 Index of Words and Phrases

venom (adjective), 170
villain (*■ vassal), 125
vulgar, 145

waftage, 157
wafts (= beckons), 136
weary (sun), 135
week (play upon?), 149
well-advised, 141

what (-* why), 146
what please, 153
whenas, 168
when? can you tell?

whether (monosyllable),

which (=who), 177
who (» whom), 17a

will r= shall), 154
will (—would), 128
wink (—shut the eyes),

148
won (= dwell), 165
wont (=» is wont), 165
wot, 172
wrack, 170
wrong not that wrong, 139

ROLFE'S ENGLISH CLASSICS

Designed for Use in High Schools and
Other Secondary Schools

Edited by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Lftt D.

Formerly Head Master, High School, Cambridge, Mass.
Uniform Flexible Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Each, 56 Cents

Browning's Select Poems

Twenty Poems (including "Pip pa Passes"), with Introduction, Life
of Browning, Chronological Table of His Works, List of Books useful
in studying them, Critical Comments, and Notes.

Browning's Select Dramas

Containing "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," "Colombe's Birthday,"
and "A Soul's Tragedy 1 ' — with Introduction, Critical Comments, and
Notes.

Goldsmith's Select Poems

•• The Traveller," " The Deserted Village," and •• Retaliation,"
with Life of Goldsmith, Recollections and Criticisms by Thackeray,
Coleman the Younger, Campbell, Forster, and Irving, and Notes.

Gray's Select Poems

The •• Elegy," 4 * The Bard," •• The Progress of Poesy t " and other
Poems, with Life of Gray, William Howitt's Description of Stoke-
Pogis, and historical, critical, and explanatory Notes.

Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome

With the Author's Preface and Introductions, Criticisms by John
Stuart Mill, Henry Morley, u Christopher North*" and others,
historical and explanatory Notes, and copious Illustrations.

Milton's Minor Poems

Containing all of Milton's Minor Poems except the Translations,
with biographical and critical Introductions, and historical and ex-
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Wordsworth's Select Poems

Seventy-one Poems, with Life, Criticisms from Matthew Arnold,
R. H. Hutton, Principal Shairp, J. R. Lowell, and Papers of the
Wordsworth Society, and very full Notes. Illustrated by Abbey,
Parsons, and other eminent artists.

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AMERICAN BOOK CLOCKS *0^

NEW YORK ONCTNNKTl CSQC^^ft

An Introduction to the

Study of American Literature

By BRANDER MATTHEWS
Professor of literature in Columbia University

Cloth, 12mo, 256 pages .... Price $1.00

A text-book of literature on an original plan, and conform-
ing with the best methods of teaching.

Admirably designed to guide, to supplement, and to stimu-
late the student's reading of American authors.

Illustrated with a fine collection of facsimile manuscripts,
portraits of authors, and views of their homes and birthplaces.

Bright, clear, and fascinating, it is itself a literary work of
high rank.

The book consists mostly of delightfully readable and yet
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Each of the fifteen biographical sketches is illustrated by
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NEW YORK • C\UC\HHkT\ % tNWOafc

(S. ox>

A HISTORY OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY

REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale)
Price, $1.25

HALLECK'S History of English Literature
is a concise and interesting text-book of
the history and development of English
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While the work is sufficiently simple to be readily
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The book is a history of literature and not a
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At the end of each chapter a carefully pre-
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Important Text-Books in Rhetoric

BY ADAMS SHERMAN HILL

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BEGINNINGS OF RHETORIC AND COM-
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PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC . . . $1.20

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AMERICAN BOOK COW* MS*

<s.tr>

ENGLISH COMPOSITION

BUEHLER'S Practical Exercises in English 50 cents

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AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

[S.86]

HISTORIES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

ESSENTIALS IN ANCIENT
HISTORY

Half Leather, 528 Pages. Price, $1.50
By ARTHUR MAYER WOLFSON, PhJX

Attistant in History < Dt Witt Clinton High ScAooi, Ntw York City

In Consultation with

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. LUX

Proftssor o/Hi*tory % Harvard University

THIS convenient manual presents the essentials in ancient
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AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY, Publishers

(S. t 3 7>

OUTLINES OF BOTANY

For the High School Laboratory and Classroom
By ROBERT GREEN LEAF LEAVITT, A.M.

Of the Ames BoUnical Laboratory
Prtparsd at tkt rtqueit ef tkt B$tanital DtAt$rtm*nt of Hartwrd

LEAVITT'S OUTLINES OF BOTANY, Cloth, 8vo, 272 pigcs, $1,00
The same, with Gray's Field, Forest, and Garden Flora. 731

pates . ■ » « * LSO

The same, with Gray T s Manual, 1,087 pages , . . 2.25

This book has been prepared to meet a specific demand.
Many schools, having outgrown the method of teaching botany
hitherto prevalent, find the more recent text-books too difficult
and comprehensive for practical use in an elementary course*
In order , therefore, to adapt this text-book to present require-
ments, the author has combined with great simplicity and
definiteness in presentation, a careful selection and a judicious
arrangement of matter. It offers

t. A series of laboratory exercises in the morphology and
physiology of phanerogams.

2. Directions for a practical study of typical cryptogams,
representing the chief groups from the lowest to the
highest.

% A substantial body of information regarding the forms,
activities, and relationships of plants, and supple-
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The laboratory work is adapted to any equipment, and the
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Special attention is paid to the ecological aspects of plant life,
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treated.

There are 384 carefully drawn illustrations, many of them
entirely new. The appendix contains full descriptions of the
necessary laboratory materials, with directions for their use.
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A Descriptive Catalogue
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