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Dromio of Syracuse

Comedy of Errors

Love and Water

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The Comedy of Error’s concluding dialogue between Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse neatly ties up an underlying theme of this farce, that true love — brotherly, marital or other — renders the lovers indistinguishable, “Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother.” But this metaphor of the mirror at the end of the play is a shift from the similes of drops of water that recurred previously.
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Seasons, Elements and Humors

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The four seasons, the four elements and the four humors were all related. The four seasons spring, summer, autumn and winter paralleled the four humors blood/sanguine, yellow bile/choleric, phlegm/phlegmatic and black bile/melancholic, which in turn paralleled the four elements air, fire, water and earth. Good health and good disposition of character or personality were believed to be a matter of keeping one’s humors in proper balance.
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But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?

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Dromio of Syracuse
But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
Antipholus of Syracuse
Dost thou not know?
Dromio of Syracuse
Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, 
When in the “why” and the “wherefore” is neither rhyme nor reason? 

Antipholus of Syracuse
Shall I tell you why?
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 39

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Themes:

Figures of Speech:

Connected Notes:
Seasons, Elements and Humors

How ill agrees it with your gravity

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Adriana
How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood.
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.

This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls,
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 179

Source Type:

Spoken by:
, , ,

Figures of Speech:
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Who is that at the door that keeps all this noise?

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Adriana
Who is that at the door that keeps all this noise?
Dromio of Syracuse, within
By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.
Antipholus of Ephesus
Are you there, wife? You might have come before.

A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?
For a fish without a fin,
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Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?

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Dromio of Syracuse
Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
Am I your man? Am I myself?
Antipholus of Syracuse
Thou art Dromio, thou art
my man, thou art thyself.

But lest myself be guilty to self wrong,
I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

Dromio of Syracuse
I am an ass,
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 2
Line 79

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Spoken by:
,

Most mighty duke, behold a man much wronged

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Abbess
Most mighty duke, behold a man much wronged.
 All gather to see them.
Adriana
I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.

One of these men is genius to the other.
And so, of these, which is the natural man
And which the spirit?

Duke
One of these men is genius to the other.
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Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother

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Dromio of Ephesus
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?

We came into the world like brother and brother;
And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

Dromio of Syracuse
Not I,
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Source:
Act 5
Scene 1
Line 430

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Spoken by:
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Connected Notes:
Love and Water