The general idea or plan of the piece is borrowed from the Menæchmi of Plautus, but the plot is entirely recast, and made much more diverting by the variety and quick succession of the incidents. To the twin brothers of Plautus are added twin servants; which, to be sure, greatly heightens the improbability; but, as Schlegel observes, "when once we have lent ourselves to the first, which certainly borders on the incredible, we should not probably be disposed to cavil about the second; and if the spectator is to be entertained with mere perplexities, they cannot be too much varied."

There has been considerable diversity of opinion as to the immediate source of the plot. Collier discovered that an old drama entitled The History of Error was acted at Hampton Court, January 1, 1577, and probably again at Windsor on Twelfth Night, 1583; and he conjectures the Poet to have taken this as the basis of his comedy, and to have interwoven parts of it with his own matter, especially the doggerel verses. The older play not having been recovered, nor any part of it, we have no means of either refuting or verifying this conjecture. — Another opinion supposes the Poet to have drawn from a free version of the Menæchmi published in 1595, as A pleasant and fineconceited Comedy, taken out of the most excellent witty poet Plautus." This version, to be sure, did not come out till after The Comedy of Errors was written: but then Shakespeare may have seen it in manuscript; for in his preface the translator speaks of having "divers of this poet's comedies Englished, for the use and delight of private friends, who in Plautus's own words are not able to understand them." Nevertheless I am far from thinking this to have been the case; there being no such verbal or other resemblances between the two, as, in that case, could scarce have been avoided. The accurate Ritson ascertained that of this version not a single peculiar name or phrase or thought is to be traced in Shakespeare's comedy. On the whole, I cannot discover the slightest objection to supposing, along with Knight and Verplanck, that the Poet may have drawn directly from Plautus himself; the matter common to them both not being such but that it may well enough have been taken by one who had small Latin."

First Merchant, Friend to Antipholus LUCE, Servant to Adriana.

Enter the DUKE, ÆGEON, Jailer, Officers, and other Attendants.

Ege. 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 :

1 We should say, "I am not the party to infringe," or, "I'll take no part in infringing." So, in Measure for Measure, v. 1, we have "In this I'll be impartial"; meaning "I'll take no part in this."

79

The enmity and discord which of late

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

Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods, —
Excludes all pity from our threatening looks.
For, since the mortal3 and intestine jars
"Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,
T' admit no traffic to our adverse towns:
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 ;4
Unless a thousand marks be levied,
To quit the penalty and ransom him.
Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;

Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.

Æge. Yet 'tis my comfort, when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening Sun.

Duke. Well, Syracusian, say, in brief, the cause

Why thou departed'st from thy native home,

2 Guelder is the name of a Flemish and of a German coin; the former equal to about thirty-eight cents of our reckoning, the latter to about eighty

seven.

3 Mortal is deadly or fatal. Commonly so in Shakespeare.

4 Dispose for disposal or disposition. The Poet has many such shortened forms. So, in iii. 1, of this play we have “within the compass of suspect"; that is, suspicion.— Confiscate, also, for confiscated. The Poet has many like shortened preterites, such as consecrate, dedicate, suffocate, situate, and contaminate.

5 To quit, here, is to set free from, or to release; much the same as to acquit. The Poet has it repeatedly so.

And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.

Ege. A heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable :

Yet, that the world may witness that my end

Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,

I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
In Syracusa was I born; and wed.

Unto a woman, happy but for me,

And by me too, had not our hap been bad.
With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased
By prosperous voyages I often made

To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,
And the great care of goods at random left,
Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
From whom my absence was not six months old,
Before herself almost at fainting under
The pleasing punishment that women bear
Had made provision for her following me,
And soon and safe arrivèd where I was.
There had she not been long but she became
A joyful mother of two goodly sons;

And, which was strange, the one so like the other
As could not be distinguish'd but by names.
That very hour, and in the self-same inn,

A meaner woman was deliveréd

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike:
Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
Made daily motions for our home return:

6 Here, as in many other places, nature is natural affection.

7 As is here equivalent to that they. The word was used much more

loosely in the Poet's time than it is now.

8 For in the sense of because or for that.

A frequent usage.

Unwilling I agreed. Alas, too soon

We came aboard!

A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
Before the always-wind-obeying deep
Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
But longer did we not retain much hope;
For what obscurèd light the heavens did grant
Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
Which though myself would gladly have embraced,
Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
Weeping before for what she saw must come,
And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
Forced me to seek delays for them and me.
And thus it was, - for other means was none :
The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us:
My wife, more careful for the later-born,
Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,
Such as seafaring men provide for storms;
To him one of the other twins was bound,
Whilst I had been like heedful of the other:
The children thus disposed, my wife and I,
Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast;
And floating straight, obedient to the stream,
Were carried towards 10 Corinth, as we thought.
At length the Sun, gazing upon the Earth,

9 Shakespeare uses instance with various shades of meaning not always easily distinguishable; such as example, motive, ground, assurance, prognostic, or warning; which latter is the meaning here.

10 Towards is one or two syllables, and has the accent on the first or second syllable, indifferently in Shakespeare, according to the needs of his verse. Here it is two syllables, with the accent on the first.