The Comedy of Errors (Bard to the Bone #11)

Year written: 1594

Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): xx

Plot in a paragraph: An old guy is about to be chopped merely for being in Ephesus. He’s given a day to come up with a ransom. Unbeknownst to him, one of his two identical twin sons (the one he raised – not the one who he was separated from at birth) has also arrived in Ephesus, with his servant, also one of identical twins separated at birth).  Various cases of mistaken identity, stuff with chains and courtesans. Of course, the old guy doesn’t get chopped, marriages are saved (despite the husband clearly playing away from home!)

Things that worked well: the slapstick and the long-suffering of Dromio (esp of Ephesus)

Things that didn’t work well: The weirdness that at no point does either of the Syracusan guys (Ant and Dom) stop and say “well, you know, we’ve spent AGES looking for the place where our doubles might be. And now we’ve arrived in a place where people seem to know us already, despite the fact that we’ve never been here before, so, you know, maybe we’ve ARRIVED???”

Favourite character: Angelo? The courtesan?

Words I learnt: 

Word	Definition
Reft	Reft – carry out raids in order to plunder.
Beshrew	Beshrew- to curse
Loureth	Loureth – The verb is derived from Middle English louren, lour, loure (“to frown or scowl; to be dark or overcast; to droop, fade, wither; to lurk, skulk”),[1] probably from Old English *lūran, *lūrian,[2] from Proto-Germanic *lūraną (“to lie in wait, lurk”).The English word is cognate with Danish lure (“to lie in ambush; to take a nap”), Middle Dutch loeren (modern Dutch loeren (“to lurk, spy on”
Shrive	Shrive- (of a priest) hear the confession of, assign penance to, and absolve.
Carcanet	Carcanet – Carcanet or carcan is a jeweled collar or necklace, from the old French, carcan, meaning collar. Carcanets were typically quite elaborate and formal, worn closely fitted to the neck.
Mickle	Mickle – a large amount
Carracks	Carracks – A carrack (Portuguese: nau; Spanish: nao; Catalan: carraca) is a three- or four-masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for European trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic and quickly found use with the newly found wealth of the trade between Europe and Africa and then the trans-Atlantic trade with the Americas. In their most advanced forms, they were used by the Portuguese and Spaniards for trade between Europe, Africa and Asia starting in the late 15th century, before being gradually superseded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by the galleon.
Waftage	Waftage –  the act of wafting or state of being waftedbroadly : conveyance

Lines worth knowing: 

Act scene lines	Character	Lines	Comment
Act 1, scene 2, lines 35	Antipholus of Syracuse	I to the world am like a drop of waterThat in the ocean seeks another drop,
Act 1 scene two 98	Antipholus of Syracuse	As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Act 2, scene 2, line 187	Antipholus of Syracuse	What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Act 3 scene 1, line 106-7	Balthasar	A vulgar comment will be made of it;And that supposèd by the common routAgainst your yet ungallèd estimationThat may with foul intrusion enter inAnd dwell upon your grave when you are dead;For slander lives upon succession,Forever housèd where it gets possession.	Reputation is hard to build, easy to shred…
Act 3, scene 2, line 100	Dromio of Syracuse	If she lives to doomsday, she’ll burn a week longer than thewhole world.

Marc’s entirely subjective verdict and score out of 5 bards (ymmv): 2, on a good day

Will I be tracking down movies of this? : no

How far would I travel to see a good production of this? A mile? I did see this, in 1990 or 1991 in Adelaide…

Limericks

Despite seeking their long-lost doubles

Ant and Dom have brains like bubbles

They’re double-twinned

(Plausibility binned)

But it all ends with an end to their troubles

AND

Two seeking for their twins long-lost

While a wife doth her hubby accost

There’s nonsense with chains

And for Domio pains

In a bin can the play be so tossed!

AND

Antiphol’s in search of his (doppel) ganger

But is always a dropping a clanger

He thinks not that he’s found

His lost brother’s home ground

And of his servant he’s always a banger

UPDATE

What other people think:

Haven’t looked – not that bothered.

Books/chapters/articles I might try to track down: 

Gordon, C. (2010). Crediting errors: Credit, liquidity, performance and The Comedy of Errors. Shakespeare, 6(2), 165-184.

Heinze, E. (2009)  “‘Were it not against our laws’: Oppression and Resistance in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors“, 29 Legal Studies (2009), pp. 230–263
Perry, C. (2003). Commerce, Community, and Nostalgia in The Comedy of Errors. In Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism (pp. 39-51). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.