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CHAPTER ONE
THE EARLY COMEDIES (I)
The Comedy of Errors
and
The Taming of the Shrew
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- - - I - - -
The chronology of Shakespeare's early comedies remains uncertain, but The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew are the two most likely to have been his earliest in the genre. Strong arguments have been presented, mainly on stylistic grounds, for regarding The Taming of the Shrew as the earlier play; 1.1 however, I agree with Bullough's assessment of it as 'a drama with more social and intellectual substance than The Comedy of Errors', 1.2 and on this I base the order of my discussion. Bullough does not elaborate to any significant extent on his statement, but my discussion will tend to support his stand, rather than the diametrically opposed view of Morris, that accepting The Comedy of Errors as the earlier play implies the acceptance of 'a drastic simplification of Shakespeare's thinking on the question of a woman's role in marriage'. 1.3 The action of The Comedy of Errors contains a good deal of farce, a fact hardly surprising in view of the principal sources, Menaechmi and Amphitruo, both farces by Plautus. Perhaps this explains why many critics, as Williams notes, 'have preferred to consider the play as a farce which is spoilt by the injudicious introduction of serious material', 1.4 thus begging the question: is this play really to be considered a farce? I would answer emphatically that it is not. The closest Shakespeare ever came to pure farce was The Merry Wives of Windsor; yet here, and in all his other comedies, serious themes underlie and sometimes even dominate the action. Thus The Comedy of Errors represents a characteristic Shakespearean blending of serious and comic elements, and if producers do not allow the serious to be overshadowed by the farcical, which until just over twenty years ago was the accepted practice, 1.5 it will be seen that the blending was intentional and masterly. In his presentation of the serious side of The Comedy of Errors Shakespeare made considerable use of disorder, conflict and violence, and so it is a particularly relevant and interesting play with which to begin my study. 1.6
Egeon's opening couplet introduces the play's first threat of violence, his death as a result of the conflict between the Dukes of Ephesus and Syracuse:
Proceed Solinus to procure my fall,
And by the doome of death end woes and all.
(I.i.1-2) 1.7
The hopelessness and resignation expressed in these lines depict Egeon as a pathetic figure worthy of sympathy, with the harshness of the Duke's speech which follows ensuring that the threat of death is taken seriously:
... if any Siracusian borne
Come to the Bay of Ephesus, he dies:
His goods confiscate to the Dukes dispose,
Vnlesse a thousand markes be leuied.
...
Therefore by Law thou art condemn'd to die.
(I.i.18-25)
The Duke is a figure of authority, although not without feeling: 'we may pitty, though not pardon thee' (I.i.97); and so, moved by Egeon's story, he allows him the space of one day in which to find the thousand marks needed to redeem his life. Egeon closes the scene in the same way he opened it, with a despairing couplet:
Hopelesse and helpelesse doth Egean wend,
But to procrastinate his liuelesse end.
(I.i.157-158)
This is the last we see of Egeon until the play's final scene, but the threat of death has been established and looms unpleasantly in the background until Egeon's reappearance, when it becomes prominent again. To add to the tension at the outset of the main action, the audience is made aware that the threat of death applies equally to Antipholus of Syracuse, who is advised by the First Merchant,
Therefore giue out you are of Epidamium,
Lest that your goods too soone be confiscate:
This very day a Syracusian Marchant
Is apprehended for a riuall here,
And not being able to buy out his life,
According to the statute of the towne,
Dies ere the wearie sunne set in the West.
(I.ii.1-7) 1.8
To appreciate fully the significance of this violent threat which Shakespeare has imposed on the comic action, we need to consider one of the central issues of the play , introduced by Egeon when he recounts his history: family unity and the ordering of family relationships. Egeon recalls how happy he and his wife were:
With her I liu'd in ioy, our wealth increast
By prosperous voyages I often made
To Epidamium, till my factors death,
And [t]he great care of goods at randone left,
Drew me from kinde embracements of my spouse.
(I.i.39-43) 1.9
Now Epidamnum, the town Egeon refers to, is the setting for Menaechmi - a significant change from Athens, the usual setting for such comedies, as Plautus explains:
atque hoc poetae faciunt in comoediis:
omnis res gestas esse Athenis autumant,
quo illud uobis graecum uideatur magis;
...
haec urbs Epidamnus est dum haec agitur fabula.
(Menaechmi Prologus 7-9 and 72) 1.10
Bullough rather vaguely states that for 'the Romans the name Epidamnum suggested bad luck', 1.11 but does not pursue the matter. It is easily explained: damnum is Latin for 'damage', 'loss' or 'harm', while the Greek prefix έπι means 'at' or 'upon', and so Epidamnum would signify a place of damage, loss or harm, which may be why Plautus chose it for Menaechmi - he almost says as much:
propterea huic urbei nomen Epidamno inditumst,
quia nemo ferme huc sine damno deuortitur.
(Menaechmi II.i.38-39)
Shakespeare was probably aware of this when he chose Epidamnum as the place from which Egeon's troubles originated, troubles which resulted directly from the pursuit of his occupation as a merchant: the private order and harmony of family life in Epidamnum are disrupted by the public world of commerce. The same public, commercial world is found also in Ephesus, with the Duke as its head; and so the threat of death which he represents to Egeon (who, it should be remembered, is trying to reunite his family) is yet another clash between the public mercantile world and the private family world. This is emphasised by the fact that in this commercial world, Egeon's life could be saved by the payment of a sum of money; furthermore, when the First Merchant gives his advice to Antipholus of Syracuse ('Therefore giue out you are from Epidamium'), the unfortunate choice of town, associated with loss and harm, (surely deliberate on Shakespeare's part?) confirms for the audience the possibility that this Antipholus could suffer the same fate as his father.
Having retained Plautus' Epidamnum as an apt place for the origin of Egeon's troubles, Shakespeare seems to have decided that it would not do for the main action of the play, as the disruption associated with Epidamnum would be out of keeping with the eventual harmony established. His choice of Ephesus has long been recognised as deriving from the biblical book of Acts and the Epistle to the Ephesians. Bullough suggests that Shakespeare's choice was 'connected with his interest in family relationships .... The Epistle to the Ephesians includes earnest exhortations to domestic unity', 1.12 and Foakes also notes verses in Ephesians referring to the relationship between master and servant, 1.13 relevant to the various Antipholus - Dromio conflicts. Parker takes the biblical analogy even further, 1.14 seeing the opening of the play as being dominated by Law and the Old Testament, with specific recall of Jacob and Esau in the references to younger and elder twins. The division between the descendants of Jacob and Esau is finally removed by the Cross of Christ as described in Ephesians. 1.15 The comparison is a valid one as it parallels the theme of redemption found in the play: at the outset the Syracusians are under sentence of death (as under Old Testament Law), but the threat of violence and the associated conflict with authority are removed at the end when Syracusians and Ephesians are united.
Shakespeare's choice of the three towns, Ephesus, Syracuse and Epidamnum, all prosperous mercantile ports, 1.16 enabled him to use, for the fist time and in his first comedy, what was to become such an important symbol in later plays: the sea, and violent separation by means of tempests at sea. 1.17 Egeon is depicted as a man whom the gods have chosen to test; he is the
Haplesse Egeon whom the fates haue markt
To beare the extremitie of dire mishap.
(I.i.140-141)
Their means of testing is the sea-separation, after which Egeon regards himself as at odds with the gods, unjustly treated: he says,
... the world may witnesse that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
(I.i.33-34)
and when the Duke offers him pity, he bitterly replies,
Oh had the gods done so, I had not now
Worthily tearm'd them mercilesse to vs.
(I.i.98-99)
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Because of this, Egeon's prevailing mood in the opening scene is one of despair and final submission, brought out very effectively by the three couplets given to him, two of which I have already quoted, the third being
Yet this my comfort, when your words are done,
My woes end likewise with the euening Sonne.
(I.i.26-27)
Baldwin has suggested that Egeon's character is based on that of William Hartley, a priest executed for treason in 1588: 1.18 Hartley met his death with dignity and equanimity, and for Egeon this state of acceptance and submission is important, for it marks his fitness for redemption, impossible while his will conflicted with that of the gods.
At this stage a fundamental question needs to be raised: why should the gods test Egeon in the first place? The answer is hinted at in Egeon's sad tale: he had to prove himself worthy of Emilia. Until the disrupting separation, life had been blissful, too easy for Egeon, and he had never shown that he merited such a wife as Emilia. In fact, Egeon's parting from his wife in the sea tempest and his trial in Ephesus resemble primitive marriage rites, or rites of passage, described by Edward Berry as 'unfolding in three movements: an initial stage of separation, in which the individual is divorced from his familiar environment; a transitional stage, in which his old identity is destroyed and a new one created; and a final stage of incorporation, in which he is reintegrated into society in his new role'. 1.19 Egeon had undergone the first stage many years before the play's action, separation from Emilia in a manner characteristic of these rites, 'usually abrupt, and sometimes violent'. 1.20 During his trial and preparation for execution Egeon's identity is being destroyed: once he is in Ephesus he is no longer the prosperous and powerful merchant he was in Syracuse, but merely a prisoner of the Duke, with no rights and no friends. The destruction of identity is the second stage in Berry's rites of passage and it is brought out most forcibly in the final scene, where Egeon's identity is denied by Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus:
Father.
Why looke you strange on me? you know me well.
E.Ant.
I neuer saw you in my life till now.
Fa.
Oh! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last,
And carefull houres with times deformed hand,
Haue written strange defeatures in my face:
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But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
Ant.
Neither.
(V.i.296-302)
This disavowal brings to a climax the theme of mistaken identity which features so prominently in the action, underlying much of its disorder, conflict and violence.
The recognition of Egeon by Emilia signals the return of order at the close of the play: he is the central figure in the overarching action and I have already pointed out how the violent threat of death to him is neatly extended by Shakespeare to apply to Antipholus of Syracuse as well. 1.21 This is a source of dramatic tension, since the safety of the Syracusian depends on a flimsy disguise: should his real home be discovered he will meet the same fate as Egeon - certain death. This, however, is not the only connection between the outer and inner actions, for it must be remembered that the Antipholuses and Dromios were also separated in the tempest, and those of Syracuse are, like Egeon, seeking to be reunited. The use of sea imagery is an obvious link, although in this instance it is calmer, not tempestuous - but no less hostile. Antipholus of Syracuse introduces the image:
I to the world am like a drop of water,
That in the Ocean seekes another drop,
Who falling there to finde his fellow forth,
(Vnseene, inquisitiue) confounds himselfe.
So I, to finde a Mother and a Brother,
In quest of them (vnhappie a) loose my selfe.
(I.ii.35-40) 1.22
This indicates that Antipholus of Syracuse, in losing himself, is also caught up in the rites of passage, and it will soon become obvious that all of the twins are to be involved in losing their identities to some extent, for confusion of identity is the main vehicle for the farce plot. 1.23
Mistaken identity is first encountered in the second scene when Antipholus of Syracuse thinks that Dromio of Ephesus, who has just entered, is his own servant, and Shakespeare takes the opportunity of introducing several germane issues at this point. Salgădo has drawn attention to the importance of time in this play and its frequent occurrence in the dialogue - 'there are more references to the passing of clock-time than in any other comedy. ... the main action takes place in a time gone crazy, twisted, looped, turning in on itself, not so much the medium of existence as a manifestation of its perplexities, even, at
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times, of its horror'. 1.24 Time does indeed play an important part in divorcing the personae from reality, removing their perception of identity, and inducing a sense of chaos and disorder, which usually results in some form of violent reaction. The whole action is set within the limits of time imposed by the Duke at the outset, where Egeon is given one day to find the money to be paid as a fine, or forfeit his life as required by the law. For Egeon this is 'But to procrastinate' - the futile delaying of an inevitable horror, the prolonging of his conflict with the Duke, which must terminate with his death. Similarly, for the characters in the main action, time has unpleasant associations, as shown in this dialogue:
[Syr.Ant.]
Here comes the almanacke of my true date:
What now? How chance thou art return'd so soone.
E.Dro.
Return'd so soone, rather approacht too late:
The Capon burnes, the Pig fals from the spit;
The clocke hath strucken twelue vpon the bell:
My Mistris made it one vpon my cheeke:
She is so hot because the meate is colde.
(I.ii.41-47
Antipholus has just been musing on his 'drop of water' image and also his sense of alienation, when he takes comfort in the sight of the approaching Dromio - but, as it is the wrong Dromio, little comfort is forthcoming. In fact, all that results is a contradiction of his sense of time, and indeed purpose, when 'return'd so soone' is answered with 'approacht too late'. Dromio's accusations which follow are seen by Antipholus as some sort of elaborate joke at an inappropriate moment, and the urgency implied in the comic references to time, with the associated conflict between Dromio and Adriana, is quite lost on him. He is far more concerned with the money he thinks is missing:
... I shall breake that merrie sconce of yours
That stands on tricks, when I am vndispos'd:
Where is the thousand Markes thou hadst of me?
(I.ii.79-81)
Naturally Dromio's answer is once again nonsensical, and threats of violence inevitably turn into actual violence as he is beaten off the stage. Dislocation of time has cost Dromio of Ephesus two beatings, the first by Adriana when her Antipholus is late for his meal, and the second by Antipholus of Syracuse whose sense of time is offended. While the beatings are undeniably comic, they alert the audience to the possible serious consequences which can result from such confusion; and, since
there is no resolution of the conflicts presented, nor clarification of confusions, further violence should be anticipated.
Antipholus' concern for his money in this scene is part of the conflict between the public world of commerce and the private domestic world, although here it is comically displaced: Dromio brings a message from home which, not being understood by Antipholus, is pushed aside in anxiety over his missing money. We may observe that the thousand marks is precisely the sum required by the Duke for Egeon's life, 1.25 and so the possibility of a happy outcome cannot be overlooked. This tends to relieve the tension created by the threat of violence to Egeon and its possible extension to the other Syracusians, but, after the comic confusions just witnessed, it is by no means certain that the money is safe with Dromio of Syracuse, particularly in view of Antipholus' soliloquy which brings the scene to a close. Here Ephesus is painted in hostile terms as the city of magic, sorcery and insanity found in Acts 19:
And the man in whome ye euil spirit was, ran on them, & ouercame them, & preuailed against them, so that they fled out of that house, naked, and wounded.
(Acts 19:16)
This is a city in which the alien Antipholus feels insecure and threatened, inducing in the audience a sense of impending danger, which further qualifies any thoughts of Egeon's being ransomed with the thousand marks.
The message which Dromio brings Antipholus of Syracuse in I.ii is related to a major concern of the play, the dinner which Adriana has prepared for her husband. Wilson Knight discusses various feast scenes in Shakespeare and concludes that 'eating and drinking are continually given dramatic emphasis, with various ethical implications'. 1.26 In The Comedy of Errors, as frequently in the comedies, the feast is associated with harmony, and in this case it applies specifically to family unity. The fact that Dromio has been sent to bring the dilatory Antipholus of Ephesus home to dinner is indicative of domestic disorder in this family, something corroborated by Dromio's account of the sorry state of the food itself:
The Capon burnes, the Pig fals from the spit;
...
My Mistris ...
... is so hot because the meate is colde:
The meate is colde, because you come not home.
(I.ii.44 and 46-48)
It is rewarding to look in this scene for other clues concerning the disorder and conflict in the Ephesian Antipholus household. Dromio's first speech is revealing:
You come not home, because you haue no stomacke:
You haue no stomacke, hauing broke your fast:
But we that know what 'tis to fast and pray,
Are penitent for your default to day.
(I.ii.49-52)
Here food imagery and feasting are related to conflict and disorder: 'stomacke' can mean 'inclination' or 'desire', 1.27 and at this stage we may guess that Antipholus does not wish to go home as he is not happy there. The next line has equally serious implications, for Antipholus has dined away from home, meaning, in terms of Shakespeare's imagery, that he has cordial, harmonious relations outside his home. This is confirmed for the audience later in the play, and in the following scene Adriana voices her own suspicions:
His company must do his minions grace,
Whil'st I at home starue for a merrie looke.
...
... vnruly Deere, he breakes the pale,
And feedes from home; poore I am but his stale.
(II.i.87-88 and 100-101)
Here, as before, we see the converse of the feasting imagery, since the neglected Adriana must 'starue for a merrie looke', while her husband, likened to a sexually rampant 'vnruly Deere', 1.28 'feedes from home': inability or refusal to eat in the presence of food implies conflict and disorder. When Dromio uses the word 'penitent' to describe the company waiting to dine at home, he includes Adriana, something which should not be overlooked as it gives an important clue to her character. A shrew is never penitent unless she has, like Shakespeare's greatest Shrew, been tamed, and those who choose to see only this side of Adriana do her less than justice. If the hint given by Dromio is missed, it will become obvious when Adriana first appears that she ought to be pitied, for, as Weiss has noted, 'Shakespeare could not resist sympathy for her pain, could not resist at least the full expression of it'. 1.29 The shrewishness of Adriana has its origin in Plautus, where the Wife is the typical comic shrew of farce, and Menaechmus blames her for their conflicts:
Ni mala, ni stulta sies, ni indomita inposque animi,
quod uiro esse odio uideas, tute tibi odio habeas.
(Menaechmi I.ii.1-2)
It seems he has good cause:
Ma.
quid ego nunc cum illoc agam?
Pe.
idem quod semper: male habeas; sic censeo.
(Menaechmi IV.i.10-11)
Such is not the character of Shakespeare's Adriana, and her shrewishness is not the sole cause of marital conflict.
A factor at least equally important is revealed at Adriana's first appearance, in her dialogue with Luciana: Adriana rebels against divinely instituted order. In Ephesians the instruction is
Wiues, submit your selues vnto your housbands, as vnto the Lord. For the housband is the wiues head, euen as Christ is the head of the Church, and the same is the sauiour of (his) bodie. Therefore as the Churche is in subiection to Christ, euen so (let) the wiues (be) to their housbands in euerie thing ....
(Ephesians 5:22-24)
Adriana openly flouts this injunction, despite Luciana's mild pleading:
Luc.
Oh, know he is the bridle of your will.
Adr.
There's none but asses will be bridled so.
Luc.
Why, headstrong liberty is lasht with woe:
There's nothing situate vnder heauens eye,
But hath his bound in earth, in sea, in skie.
(II.i.13-17)
Luciana here launches on a speech concerning an Elizabethan commonplace, the Platonic concept of degree, or, to use Tillyard's apt phrase, 1.30 the chain of being. The Pauline philosophy of feminine subjugation fits neatly into Platonic order, a tenet of which was that any disturbance of natural order would result in dissension, violence and ultimate chaos. This is precisely what we observe in The Comedy of Errors. The fault is not all Adriana's, however, for in Ephesians we also find:
Housband, loue your wiues, euen as Christ loued the Churche .... So ought men to loue their wiues, as their owne bodies: he that loueth his wife, loueth him self.
(Ephesians 5:25 and 28)
In disobeying this injunction Antipholus also contradicts natural order, and Adriana uses this to turn the argument of masculine domination against him:
Hath homelie age th' alluring beauty tooke
From my poore cheeke? then he hath wasted it.
...
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Doe their gay vestments his affections baite?
That's not my fault, hee's master of my state.
What ruines are in me that can be found,
By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair,
A sunnie looke of his, would soone repaire.
(II.i.89-90 and 94-99)
Thus there are arguments on both sides, but it seems that it is Adriana who is wronged in this conflict more than her husband, since she is provoked into her stance by her husband's unfaithfulness. Nevertheless, Shakespeare is careful to present a balanced picture of this domestic turmoil, the blame for which must be apportioned between the man and his wife rather than being assigned singly to either.
The Dromios provide much of the comic relief to the serious background, and this usually involves comic violence such as that encountered between Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus in the first scene of the inner action already discussed. This has its corollary later, when Antipholus of Syracuse meets his own Dromio, tasking him with a conversation the slave never had, the summons home to dinner. This results in an amusing conflict comprising confusions and denials, and predictably enough there is another display of physical violence when Dromio is beaten. Such violent clashes between masters and servants were common in Elizabethan drama, and usually a source of great mirth, resulting not only from the display of violence itself, but also from the witty repartee which accompanied it. In Greene's The Scottish Hystorie of Iames the Fovrth, Slaine at Flodden there is a good example of wit turning to violence in just two lines, when Ateukin beats his servant Andrew:
And.
Alasse, sir, can I loose that you neuer had?
Ateu.
Say you so? then hold, feel you that you neuer felt.
(James IV III.ii.1260-1261) 1.31
Similarly, in The Comedy of Errors Dromio expects another 'drie basting' (II.ii.62), meaning a severe beating, with a play on the culinary meaning of 'basting', 1.32 characteristic of the witty exchanges found in the early comedies. It should be noted that light-hearted though this may be, the serious themes of time disruption, feasting and the conflict between commercial and domestic worlds are never far below the surface. Furthermore, these themes are interwoven and inextricably linked in such a way as to enhance the general air of disorder, conflict and violence. Here is a typical example of Shakespeare's art in this scene:
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Ant.
... But say sire, is it dinner time?
S.Dro.
No sire, I thinke the meat wants that I haue.
Ant.
In good time sir: what's that?
S.Dro.
Basting
Ant.
Well sir, then 'twill be drie.
S.Dro.
If it be sire, I pray you eat none of it.
Ant.
Your reason?
S.Dro.
Lest it make you chollericke, and purchase me another drie basting.
Ant.
Well sir, learne to iest in good time, there's a time for all things.
(II.ii.54-64)
Antipholus' first question combines time and feasting, and bearing in mind the feasting imagery I have discussed, this could be reworded as 'Is this the time for us to forget our differences and become friends?'. Dromio's negative answer does not take cognisance of the imagery, but even so, it has a double meaning: he could be saying that the food he has his wanting, or not good enough for a reconciliation to take place. The more obvious meaning refers to the beating, or basting, he has just received, and so during the rapid twists and turns of the repartee we are told that if Antipholus eats dry meat, he will become more angry and the state of conflict and disorder will only be made worse. Antipholus then abruptly returns to the time theme, now ironic: 'there's a time for all things'. The irony is that with time disordered as it is in the play, it is impossible to find the right time for anything. The catechism which ensues arrives at precisely the same conclusion:
S.Dro.
The one to saue the money that he spends in [tiring]; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porrage.
An.
You would all this time haue prou'd, here is no time for all things.
(II.ii.96-100) 1.33
Foakes regards Dromio's reasoning here as 'quite trivial' 1.34 which it is; but it does serve the dramatic function of keeping the central conflict to the fore, since money, dinner and time are all mentioned in quick succession. Furthermore, the lack of logic in the argument nicely complements the steadily increasing state of disorder in this scene, and the concluding line above reinforces the idea of dislocated time.
Shortly after this point has been reached Adriana enters with Luciana. We have already had a taste of Adriana's biting sarcasm earlier, when she said of her Antipholus, 'It seemes he hath great care to please his wife' (II.i.56); now we see this side of her nature again, when she meets Antipholus of Syracuse and mistakes him for her own:
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I, I Antipholus, looke strange and frowne,
Some other Mistresse hath thy sweet aspects:
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
(II.ii.110-112)
This sarcastic denial of her own identity is ironic, as the second part of the denial really is true: she is not his wife. However, the negation signals an increasingly serious concern for identity, and Antipholus must find Adriana's speech, addressed to him as if her were her husband, particularly unnerving:
How comes it now, my Husband, oh how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thy selfe?
(II.ii.119-120)
After much possessive pleading on Adriana's part, Antipholus decides to 'entertaine the ... fallacie' (II.ii.186), 'say as they say, and perseuer so: | And in this mist at all aduentures go' (II.ii.215-216) - to dinner as Adriana's husband, marking a further loss of identity for him and his Dromio:
S.Dro.
I am transformed Master, am I not?
Ant.
I thinke thou art in minde, and so am I.
(II.ii.195-196)
After this scene, in which Adriana's domestic life is on the verge of complete breakdown, with Antipholus of Syracuse going home to dinner with her, we are returned to the commercial world: Antipholus of Ephesus makes his first appearance, accompanied by a goldsmith, Angelo, and a merchant. Balthasar. Shakespeare immediately makes us aware that Antipholus knows of his wife's discontent - he says 'My wife is shrewish when I keepe not howres' (III.i.2) - and also that he intends to make amends, as he has commissioned a necklace for her from the goldsmith. Furthermore, he is now heading home for a reconciliation between Adriana and her husband. This does not follow, however, as strict instructions had been given to Dromio of Syracuse in the previous scene that nobody was to be allowed into the house to disturb the feast. The result is that the audience is kept in suspense as the conflict between husband and wife intensifies through multiple misunderstandings: Antipholus of Ephesus is shut out of his own house and is barred from the reconciliation feast he should be attending. This climactic moment is loaded with irony, and, comic though it may be, is distressing for the audience, since Adriana has said that she, too, is
ready to forgive and be reconciled:
Husband Ile dine aboue with you to day,
And shriue you of a thousand idle prankes.
(II.ii.207-208)
Ralph Berry notes a further cause for anxiety in 'a profoundly disturbing sexual threat', 1.35 traceable to the Plautine source, Amphitruo, in which Jupiter, disguised as Amphitryon, makes love to Alcmena while the real Amphitryon is shut out, with Sosia his slave trying to gain entry, exactly as Dromio of Ephesus does. The audience knows that Adriana is inside the house unwittingly entertaining her bother-in-law to a meal which signifies (at least to Adriana) a renewal of their sexual relationship, giving rise to the possibility of incest between the two. This disordered state, and the conflict and violence which must be expected to follow it, are reflected in the chaotic slanging match at the door, an episode in which the many sexual innuendoes reinforcing the idea of incest have been noted by Berry. 1.36 We have
E.Dro.
Let my Master in Luce.
Luce
Faith no, hee comes too late, and so tell your Master.
E.Dro.
O Lord I must laugh, haue at you with a Prouerbe,
Shall I set in my staff,
(III.i.49-51)
in which 'let in' may stand for sexual entry, 'comes' for orgasm, and 'staffe' for the male organ. 1.37 Then again,
Your cake here is warme within: you stand here in the cold.
It would make a man mad as a Bucke to be so bought and sold,
(III.i.71-72)
in which 'cake' refers to Adriana, 1.38 while the male deer is proverbially related to anger and frequently cuckoldry, 1.39 as in The Merry Wives of Windsor:
Fal.
Send me a coole rut-time (Ioue) or who can blame me to pisse my Tallow? Who comes heere? my Doe?
M.Ford.
Sir Iohn? Art thou there (my Deere?) My male-Deer?
Fal.
My Doe, with the blacke Scut?
(Merry Wives V.v.13-18) 1.40
The disconcerting effect of the presence of sexual disorder is enhanced in this scene by the many references to violence:
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Anti.
Thou baggage let me in.
Luce.
Can you tell for whose sake?
E.Drom.
Master, knocke the doore hard.
Luce.
Let him knocke till it ake.
Ant.
You'll crie for this minion, if I beat the doore downe.
Luce.
What needs al that, and a paire of stocks in the towne?
(III.i.57-60)
The episode is essentially comic, however, and vulgar humour intrudes on the violence to lighten its effect:
Ant.
Go fetch me something, Ile break ope the gate.
S.Dro.
Breake any breaking here, and Ile breake your knaues pate.
E.Dro.
A man may breake a word with you sir, and words are but winde:
I and breake it in your face, so he break it not behinde.
S.Dro.
It seemes thou want'st breaking, out vpon thee hinde.
(III.i.73-77)
This culminates in the threat of Antipholus of Ephesus to break down the door with 'an iron Crow' (III.i.84). He is restrained with difficulty by Balthasar:
Haue patience sir, oh let it not be so,
Heerin you warre against your reputation,
And draw within the compasse of suspect
Th' vnuiolated honor or your wife.
(III.i.85-88)
Although he is denying its possibility, Balthasar has, in the last line above, at last brought the idea of sexual misconduct plainly before the audience. Antipholus of Ephesus plans the appropriate revenge:
I know a wench of excellent discourse,
...
To her will we to dinner ....
...
... That chaine will I bestowe
(Be it for nothing but to spight my wife)
Vpon mine hostesse there, good sir make haste:
since mine owne doores refuse to entertaine me,
Ile knocke else-where, to see if they'll disdaine me.
(III.i.109, 114 and 117-121)
The next scene brings respite from the turmoil as Antipholus of Syracuse declares his love for Luciana. This gentle interlude is immediately echoed by the Syracusian Dromio's description of 'a wondrous fat marriage', 'the Kitchin wench' (III.ii.91 and 93), a parody which serves to highlight the underlying disorders in the relationships of the main action: Luciana thinks Antipholus of Syracuse is Adriana's husband
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and so she spurns his advances, just as Dromio of Syracuse flees from 'the Kitchin wench' who mistakes him for his Ephesian counterpart. Finally chaos spreads to the commercial world as well, when Angelo presents the startled Antipholus of Syracuse with the chain the Ephesian Antipholus had ordered for Adriana: we see Angelo arrested for default of payment and Antipholus of Ephesus arrested for supposedly stealing the chain. The Courtesan becomes a link between the domestic and commercial worlds, for when Antipholus of Ephesus dines with her, he promises her the chain and accepts a ring in exchange. Confusions follow fast upon each other, and disorder and violence reach their peak when Adriana comes to regard Antipholus of Ephesus as mad, pays his bail, and hands him over to Pinch for treatment. The domestic dispute, increased in intensity through the various misunderstandings, is now poised to break into serious violence as Antipholus of Ephesus threatens,
... with these nailes, Ile plucke out these false eyes,
That would behold in me this shameful sport.
(IV.iv.102-103)
Serious though such threats of violence are, they do have a comic function, for they serve only to strengthen Adriana's conviction that her husband is mad, which the audience, of course, knows he is not. As Bonazza has remarked, 'The more vigorously the pair contest the diagnosis, the more accurate it seems', 1.41 and Antipholus of Ephesus faces the very real horror of treatment for insanity while he is actually sane. The first part of The Honest Whore by Dekker owes much to The Comedy of Errors, 1.42 and in it we find a fuller exposition of the contemporary cure for madness than in Shakespeare's play: the Sweeper at the asylum tells us,
I sweepe the mad-mens roomes, and fetch straw for 'em, and buy chaines to tie em, and rods to whip em, I was a mad wag my selfe here once, but I thank father Anselm, he lasht me into my right minde agen.
(1 Honest Whore V.ii)
Anselm himself later confirms this attitude to insanity:
They must be usde like children, pleased with toyes,
And anon whipt for their unrulinesse.
(1 Honest Whore V.ii)
When this is borne in mind it becomes clear why Antipholus of Ephesus so violently resists the attempts to cure him. Pinch, the schoolmaster-
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doctor entrusted with the care of the supposedly mad master and slave, is a comic figure, described by Antipholus of Ephesus as
... a hungry leane-fac'd Villaine;
A meere Anatomie, a Mountebanke,
A thread-beare Iugler, and a Fortune-teller,
A needy-hollow-ey'd-sharpe-looking-wretch;
A liuing dead man.
(V.i.238-242)
Comic he may be, but he is also an innocent victim of the anger of Antipholus of Ephesus, and his treatment at the hands of his violent charges is shameful: 1.43 the messenger reports their actions, saying they have
Beaten the Maids a-row, and bound the Doctor,
Whose beard they haue sindg'd off with brands of fire,
And euer as it blaz'd, they threw on him
Great pailes of puddled myre to quench the haire;
My Mr preaches patience to him, and the while
His man with Cizers nickes him like a foole.
(V.i.170-175)
It is significant that a few moments after the messenger's report, Antipholus of Ephesus specifically omits any mention of violence in his account of these events:
... gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
I gain'd my freedome; and immediately
Ran hether to your Grace ....
(V.i.250-252)
This indicates that, while the episode is merely a part of the prevailing chaotic violence, Antipholus of Ephesus may feel some sense of shame for his actions, or at least he is unwilling to mention them to the Duke. This, an indication of some remorse, is the first sign that this Antipholus may be able to curb his violent temper and live more harmoniously with his wife.
While the brutal treatment of Pinch is only recounted, swords are actually drawn on stage by Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse when they are mistaken for their brothers, thought to have escaped from Pinch's custody; swords are also drawn by the merchants in their confrontation with Antipholus of Syracuse who is openly wearing the chain. In both cases the presence of weapons at the ready intensifies the audience's sense of violence and disorder, while the latter instance also initiates the denouement by forcing the Syracusian pair to take refuge in the
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priory. Emilia is thus brought into the action, serving as the deus ex machina who sorts out the impossibly complex confusions which have developed during the play. She denies Adriana access to the Antipholus in her custody, bringing her to realise in some measure what part of the problem in her marriage is - her shrewishness. The Duke, as a mere human agent of authority, can do no more than listen in confusion to the various conflicting appeals for justice. Egeon seems doomed to die, since the Ephesian Antipholus and Dromio do not recognise him, but at this point Emilia produces their Syracusian counterpart, and the personae happily unravel their various experiences for themselves. Order is restored to the commercial world as all debts are paid; the Duke dispenses mercy (the possibility of which he had earlier denied) in pardoning Egeon without ransom; but most important, domestic order and harmony are restored. Leggatt says that 'Shakespeare is silent about the marriage of Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus .... Even at the end, the characters' disparate lives and experiences are not brought into a total harmony ...'. 1.44 This is an unnecessarily gloomy view of the play's conclusion. Admittedly the story ends with separation in the source, where Menaechmus sells his wife along with his other goods and returns to Syracuse with his brother: 'uenibit - uxor quoque etiam, si quis emptor uenerit' (Menaechmi V.ix.99), but this is far from the ending of The Comedy of Errors, where the final sense of reunion and a new beginning is overwhelming. The concluding feast, likened in the play to a Christian baptismal feast, reflects both aspects, reunion and new beginning:
Thirtie three yeares haue I but gone in trauaile
Of you my sonnes, and till this present houre
My heauie burthen are deliuered:
The Duke my husband, and my children both,
And you the Kalenders of their Natiuity,
Go to a Gossips feast, and go with mee,
After so long greefe such Natiuitie.
(V.i.400-406)
The reunion of Egeon and Emilia points to a similar restoration of marital harmony in the main plot: with all confusions explained there should be no further impediment to the happiness of Adriana and her husband. Shakespeare does not elaborate on this, and nor does he give us any clue as to the outcome of the affair between Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse - except, perhaps, that a marriage is indicated between 'the Kitchin wench' and Dromio of Ephesus, and the sub-plot often reflects the
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main plot. Although marital conflict has been a major theme in the play, the playwright directs our attention to the reunion of the central family at the end, leaving us to extend the state of harmony to include the other marriages as well, if we see fit to do so.
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- - - NOTES: CHAPTER ONE - - -
1.1 William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Brian Morris (London: Methuen, 1981), pp.59 - 61. return
1.2 Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, VIII vols (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957 - 1975), I, 58. return
1.4 Gwyn Williams, 'The Comedy of Errors Rescued from Tragedy', Review of English Literature, 5 (1964), 63. return
1.5 See William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, ed. R.A. Foakes (London: Methuen, 1984), pp.li - lv and Williams, p.64. 'The later history of the play on the stage is largely a tale of adaption, for The Comedy of Errors has too often been regarded as a short apprentice work in need of improvement, or as a mere farce, "shamelessly trivial" as one reviewer in The Times put it, and not worth serious treatment' (Foakes, p.lii). return
1.6 In an interesting and largely convincing study Bronson Feldman relates much of the conflict and violence in this play to suggested biographical details: 'The core of the whole play is an apology for Shakespeare's errors in matrimony' (A. Bronson (1955), 116). He sees The Comedy of Errors as 'precipitated out of the poet's unconscious by marital troubles and disaster' (ibid., p.121). Bronson Feldman also suggests (less convincingly, I think) that the episode borrowed from Amphitruo, in which the husband is barred from his house while a stranger makes love to his wife indoors, was a representation of a childhood incident in which Shakespeare was separated from his mother by a locked bedroom door, the resulting latent hostility finding expression in Antipholus' violent threats involving the rope and crow-bar (ibid., pp.127 - 128). All of this, however, is of only peripheral relevance to my investigation, which must concentrate on the dramatic effects of disruption within the play, not its sources within the poet's unconscious. return
1.7 The line numbers are taken from the edition by Foakes, cited above. return
1.8 The Folio consistently has 'Epidamium'; Foakes records that Pope emended this to 'Epidamnum', and suggests a 'confusion of minim letters' to explain the error (Foakes, p.5, col. and n.). As will be seen later in my discussion (p.4), the change is highly significant. return
1.9 Folio has 'he' in line 42; the emendation is Theobald's. See Foakes p.5 col. return
1.10 The edition cited is that of W.M. Lindsay, ed., T. Macci Plavti: Comoediae: Recognovit Breviqve Adnotatione Critica Instrvxit, II vols, 1904 and 1905; rpt (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). return
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1.12 Loc. cit.; the relevant passage is Ephesians 5:22-23, quoted in the text, p.11. return
1.13 Foakes, p.114; the verses are
Seruants, be obedient vnto them that are (your) masters ....
And ye masters, do the same things vnto thẽ, putting away threatening ....
(Ephesians 6:5 and 9) return
1.14 Patricia Parker, 'Elder and Younger: The Opening Scene of The Comedy of Errors', Shakespeare Quarterly, 34 (1983), 325-327. return
1.15 But not in Christ IESVS, ye which once were farre of, are made nere by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, which hathe made of bothe one, and hathe broken the stoppe of thei particion wall ....
(Ephesians 2:13-14)
Marginal note i reads 'That is, the cause of the diuision that was betwene the Iewes & the Gentiles'. return
1.16 Professor Ferguson has pointed out to me that Shakespeare is careless when it comes to geographical detail, and so his choice of three sea ports here is possibly fortuitous. return
1.17 I refer specifically to the use of the sea-separation image as an underlying motif in the play; what was probably an earlier use of hostile sea imagery involving a sea voyage may be found in King Richard III in Clarence's 'scourge for Periurie' (I.iv.50) (line references are to William Shakespeare, King Richard III, ed. Anthony Hammond (London: Methuen, 1981)), the relevant passage being I.iv.9-63. [return to note 2.11] return
1.18 Thomas Whitfield Baldwin, William Shakespeare Adapts a Hanging (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1931), pp.63-96. return
1.19 Edward Berry, Shakespeare's Comic Rites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p.2 (hereafter cited as E. Berry, Rites). return
1.22 The complete dissolution suggested by the 'drop of water' image, an absolute loss of identity, is what Faustus desired in his final despair, before being carried away by devils:
O soule, be changde into little water drops,
And fal into the Ocean, nere be found:
My God, my God, looke not so fierce on me.
(Doctor Faustus 1472-1474)
(The edition cited is C.F. Tucker Brooke, ed., The Works of Christopher Marlowe, rpt (London: Oxford University Press, 1953).) The pathos of loss of identity, here strengthened by Faustus' tragically, actively, seeking to lose himself, is not entirely absent from The Comedy of Errors. Foakes, p.14 n., lists several other water dissolution images found in Shakespeare. return
1.23 The drop of water image is appropriate to not only loss of identity, but also to the ensuing rebirth which results when the characters are reintegrated into society at the end of the play. As Freud notes, 'Birth is regularly expressed in dreams by some connection with water' (Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, found in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. and ed. James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, XXIV vols (London: Hogarth Press, 1968), XV, 160), and so the association of birth with water is a deep-seated, unconscious one; and, of course, related to this is the Christian symbolism
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of being born again in baptism by water: 'except a man be borne againe, he can not se the kingdome of God' and 'except that a man be borne of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdome of God' (John 3:3 and 5). The linking of water with regeneration is one facet of Shakespeare's complex sea symbolism which will emerge again in my studies of later plays, for which see pp.221, 290, 292-293, 333, 342 and 384-385. return
1.24 Gămini Salgădo, '"Time's deformed hand": Sequence, Consequence, and Inconsequence in The Comedy of Errors', Shakespeare Survey, 25 (1972), 83. return
1.26 George Richard Wilson Knight, The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare's Final Plays (London: Methuen, 1961), pp.215-216 (hereafter cited as Wilson Knight, Crown). return
1.27 John Andrew Simpson and Edmund S.C. Weiner, eds, The Oxford English Dictionary, XX vols, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), XVI, 751-752: 'stomach ... 5.b. fig. Relish, inclination, desire (for something immaterial). 1513 ... 7.a. Temper, disposition; state of feeling with regard to a person ... 1476' (hereafter cited as O.E.D.). return
1.28 See my discussion on the sexual connotations of deer imagery, p.15; also pp.113-114, 126 and 158-159 [note 3.58]. return
1.29 Theodore Weiss, The Breath of Clowns and Kings: Shakespeare's Early Comedies and Histories (London: Chatto and Windus, 1971), p.15. Weiss, incidentally, found this sympathy at odds with the nature of farce, and suggested that this might have been Shakespeare's 'almost involuntary criticism of farce, its inadequacies for the human condition and for human expression' (loc. cit.), but the play should not be regarded as pure farce in the first place. return
1.30 Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, 1943; rpt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p.37 et seq. Professor Ferguson has advised me (privately) that 'Tillyard's view has been modified by recent historians', much of the Elizabethan literature on order being regarded as political propaganda to promote the monarchy and upper classes. Whether the idea of divinely instituted order was a widely held belief or not (and I am still of the opinion that it was), it is generally treated by Elizabethan writers, regardless of their political views, as an accepted fact. return
1.31 The edition cited is J. Churton Collins, ed., The Plays & Poems of Robert Greene: Edited with Introductions and Notes, II vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905). return
1.32 O.E.D., IV, 1088: 'dry ... A. adj. ... 12. Of a blow, or a beating: properly, That does not draw blood (as a blow given with a stick or the fist ...); by some app. used vaguely, = Hard, stiff, severe ... 1530'. When Eyre in Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday threatens to beat the maid, Cicely Bumtrinket, Firk cannot resist a play on drinking, similar to Dromio's on meat:
[Eyre.]
... Ile swinge her in a stirrop.
Firke.
Yet that's but a drie beating, heere's still a signe of drought.
(The Shoemaker's Holiday II.iii)
(The edition cited is The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker now First Collected with Illustrative Notes and a Memoir of the Author in Four Volumes, ed. anon., IV vols (London: John Pearson, 1873), with act and scene divisions taken from Ernest Rhys, ed., Thomas Dekker, Mermaid Series (London: Ernest Benn, 1947).) The servants usually come off worst in these conflicts, and their case is put by Tyb, Gammer Gurton's maid in Stevenson's (?) A Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt and Merie Comedie: Intytuled Gammer Gurtons Nedle:
Cham worse then mad, by the masse, to be at this staye!
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Cham chyd, cham blamd, and beaton all thoures on the daye,
Lamed, and hunger-storued, prycked vp all in iagges,
Hauying no patch to hyde my backe saue a few rotten ragges!
(Gammer Gurton's Needle I.iii.5-8)
(The edition cited is Joseph Quincy Adams, ed., Chief Pre-Shakespearean Drama: A Selection of Plays Illustrating the History of English Drama from Its Origins down to Shakespeare (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1924).) return
1.33 Pope's emendation; Folio has 'trying' in line 97, which does not make sense: a compositor's error. See Foakes p.32 col. and n. return
1.35 Ralph Berry, Shakespeare and the Awareness of the Audience (London: Macmillan, 1985), p.39. return
1.37 Such sexual punning is extremely common in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Here is another example, this one taken from Greene's The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon, and Frier Bongay, and culminating in the comic beating of Miles, the servant: the bawdry does not serve any deeper dramatic function as it does in The Comedy of Errors - it simply promotes humour:
Bacon.
Come on, sirha; what part of speech is Ego?
Miles.
Ego, that is I; marrie, nomen substantiuo.
Bacon.
How prooue you that?
Miles.
Why, sir, let him prooue himselfe and a will; I can be hard, felt, and vnderstood.
Bacon.
Oh grosse dunce!
Here beate him.
(Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay II.ii.529-534)
(The edition cited is that of Collins.) Here we have 'a will', the male member, which is 'hard' and 'felt' when the man is 'vnderstood' by the woman during intercourse. See p.86 n.2.33. [return to n.2.33] [return to n.3.80] return
1.39 Loc. cit.; see also n.28 above. return
1.40 Line numbers are taken from William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, ed. H.J. Oliver (London: Methuen, 1979). return
1.41 Blaze Odell Bonazza, Shakespeare's Early Comedies: A Structural Analysis, Studies in English Literature vol.9 (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), p.39. return
1.42 In both plays mistaken identity, marital conflict and madness are prominent themes; Dekker actually refers to Shakespeare's play: 'Twere a good Comedy of Errors that ifaith' (1 Honest Whore IV.iii). (The edition cited is the anonymous collected edition of 1873, with act and scene divisions following the edition of Rhys.) return
1.43 Elliot sees Pinch as 'a tonal masterpiece. His pedantic gravity parodies and relieves the increasing angry seriousness of the two Antipholuses. But, above all, he bodies forth concretely the play's spirit of weird fun' (E.R. Elliot, 'Weirdness in The Comedy of Errors', University of Toronto Quarterly, 9 (1939), 105). This ignores the play's more serious underlying themes; I think the whole madness episode involving Pinch looks forward to the similar events in Twelfth Night. In any case, as seen in Dekker's play, the consequences of madness in Elizabethan society were so dreadful that it is unlikely that the idea of sane people being treated as mad would leave an audience entirely at ease, unless, perhaps, they were quite lacking in sensitivity. return
1.44 Alexander Leggatt, Shakespeare's Comedy of Love (London: Methuen, 1974), pp.18-19. return
Proceed to The Taming of the Shrew