THE COMEDY OF ERRORS DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

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SOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus.
ÆGEON, a Merchant of Syracuse.
ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, 1 Twin Brothers and Sons to
ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, Ægeon and Æmilia.
DROMIO of Ephesus, Twin Brothers and Attendants on
DROMO of Syracuse,

the two Antipholuses.
BALTHAZAR, a Merchant.
ANGELO, a Goldsmith.
First Merchant, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse.
Second Merchant, to whom Angelo is a debtor.
PINCH, a Schoolmaster.
Æmilia, Wife to Ægeon, an Abbess at Ephesus.
ADRIANA, Wife to Antipholus of Ephesus.
LUCIANA, her Sister.
LUCE, Servant to Adriana.
A Courtesan.

Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants,

Scene : EPHESUS.

2

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

ACT I

SCENE I.-A Hall in the Duke's Palace.

Enter DUKE, ÆGEON, Gaoler, Officers and other

Attendants.
Ægeon. 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

5
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,

Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives, A hall . . . palace) Malone; The Duke's palace Theobald; A publick Place Capell. Duke] the Duke of Ephesus Ff. Ægeon] Rowe; with the Merchant of Siracusa Ff. Officers] Capell; Officer Staunton; omitted in Ff. 1. Solinus] F 1; Salinus Ff 2, 3, 4.

1. Solinus] The Duke's name is VI. iv. ix. 12: "Expect your highnot mentioned elsewhere in the play. ness' doom of life or death.” Shake

2. doom]judgment, sentence. The speare uses it for the day of judgment exact phrase occurs also in Henry V. in the well-known passages in HamIII. vi. 46:

let, 11. iv. 50: * As against the “Exeter hath given the doom of doom"; and Macbeth, 11. iii. 83: death

“ The great doom's image"; and iv. For pax of little price ";

" What, will the line stretch and in situs Andronicus, iii. i. 24: out to the crack of doom?" “Unbind my sons, reverse the doom 8. guilders] The "guilder” was of death." We also find in 2 Henry (a) a gold coin formerly current in the

i. 117:

a

Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
Excludes all pity from our threatening looks. ΙΟ
For, since the mortal and intestine jars
'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 :

15
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. 14. Syracusians] F 4; Siracusians Ff 1, 2, 3; Syracusans Pope,

16, 17. Nay more, if ... Ephesus Be seene at any) Ff; Nay, more, If At any Malone; any omitted by Pope. 22. and to] Fr; and Ff 1, 2, 3. Netherlands and parts of Germany; Folios, which also occurs in v. i. 124: (6) a Dutch silver coin worth about a reverend Syracusian merchant." is. 8d. English (New Eng. Dict.). Marshall points out that the form Valued from one shilling and sixpence Syracusian is found in Burton's to two shillings, says Steevens. Used Anatomy of Melancholy (ed. 1676), here and in iv. i. 4 in a general sense

p. 345 : or as that Syracusian in a for money. So in Marlowe, Faustus, tempest,” etc. Similarly, Dryden in his sc. iv. line 34 (Bullen, i, 229): “Wag- MacFlecknoe, 83, has “ Pure clinches

Hold, take these guilders'; [i.e. puns] the suburbian muse affords." where the stage-direction following 15. adverse] Compare Twelfth is “gives him money."

Night, v. i. 87: “Into the danger of 11. intestine] Not quite in the sense this adverse town.' of “internal," as between people of 16, 17. Nay, more, . . . fairs] The the same state; as in 1 Henry IV.1. Globe and Cambridge editions print i. 12: " in the intestine shock And as three lines, thus:furious close of civil butchery

“Nay, more, only other passage in Shakespeare If any born at Ephesus be seen where the word seems to occur); but At any Syracusian marts and rather as amplifying and emphasising

fairs”; the previous word “mortal.'

but there can be little doubt that the 14: Syracusians] Pope's spelling “any” of the Folios in the last line has been adopted by some Editors, has been caught up by mistake from but there seems little reason for any the preceding line, and that Pope was deviation from the spelling of the right in omitting it.

seen

ner.