And may it be that you have quite forgot
And may it be that you have quite forgot
A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,
Even in the spring of love thy love-springs rot?
Comedy of Errors
Written: c. 1594; Text: First Folio 1623 (Comedy), no quarto editions
Source: Menaechmi and Amphitruo by Plautus.
Characters: Antipholus of Syracuse, Adriana, Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Syracuse, Egeon, Dromio of Ephesus, Luciana, Solinus
Setting: Ephesus
Time: Undetermined
Since translations of Plautus’s plays do not appear until after the writing of Comedy of Errors, it is assumed that Shakespeare worked from the original Latin, which he probably read while at school. This play is diverse in its metrical styles, which is notable in Plautus’s plays. Shakespeare heightened the farcical qualities of the Plautus plays by using two sets of twins. He also elevated its serious quality by adding the Aegeon subplot, which opens the play with tragedy and ends it happily. Shakespeare wrote a variation of this ending for Pericles Prince of Tyre.
Featured Quotes
Not know my voice! O time’s extremity
Not know my voice! O time’s extremity,
Hast thou so crack’d and splitted my poor tongue
In seven short years,
The venom clamors of a jealous woman
The venom clamors of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s toothSimile.
Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother
Dromio of Ephesus
Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:
I see by you I am a sweet-fac’d youth.
It is thyself, mine own self’s better part
It is thyself, mine own self’s better part:
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,Anaphora and Antanaclasis
My food,
Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin
Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin.Alliteration & Parallelism
The time was once, when thou unurg’d wouldst vow
The time was onceHyperbaton when thou unurged wouldst vowAnastrophe
That never words were music to thine ear,
Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time
Dromio of Syracuse
Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the whereforeAlliteration is neither rhyme nor reason?
A man is master of his liberty
A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master, and when they see time,
They’ll go or come.
He that commends me to mine own content
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,
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth
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 eyeHyperbaton;