“The Comedy of Errors” is one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, and it has all of the elements of mistaken identity, clever wordplay, and general plot nuttiness that characterize some of the better known comedies of this kind. I will confess that, speaking entirely as an amateur reader just getting into the material, I prefer the tragedies and histories to the really light-hearted comedies (I’m not really a rom-com fan).
Nevertheless, there are some very memorable lines and speeches in “Comedy.” The best lines are in general spoken by women. The basics of the story are that two sets of identical twins are separated at birth, and each set (consisting of a master, Antipholus, and a servant, Dromio) resides in the respective cities of Syracuse and Ephesus. But the two cities are at war–any resident of one city spotted in the other is subject to arrest and punishment by death. When Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse end up in Ephesus (the home of Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus), madcap hijinks ensue.
But in one very touching scene, Adriana (wife of Antipholus of Ephesus) is very anxious that her husband has not come home and worries that he is with other women. The comedy of the scene is that she is actually speaking to Antipholus of Syracuse, who has never set eyes on her before. But the message of the speech to him is nevertheless very powerful. Some scholars have called Adriana one of Shakespeare’s proto-feminists. If so, she is a feminist who takes deeply to heart the sacrality of the marital bond and the stain of adultery. Here is her speech–I was struck especially by the indivisibility of the marital union and the notion of “better parts,” which some of us even still call “better halves” in speaking of our wives. The language about the pollution of adultery affecting both halves of the union is also memorable.
I, I, Antipholus, looke strange and frowne,
Some other Mistresse hath thy sweet aspects:
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
The time was once, when thou un’urg’d wouldst vow,
That never words were musick to thine eare,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savour’d in thy taste,
Unlesse I spake, or look’d, or touch’d, or carv’d, to thee.
How comes it now, my Husband, oh how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thy selfe?
Thy selfe I call it, being strange to me:
That undividable Incorporate
Am better then thy deere selfes better part.
Ah doe not teare away thy selfe from me;
For know, my love, as easie maist thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulfe,
And take unmingled thence that drop againe
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thy selfe, and not me too.
How deerely would it touch thee to the quicke,
Shouldst thou but heare I were licencious?
And that this body consecrate to thee,
By Ruffian Lust should be contaminate?
Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurne at me,
And hurle the name of husband in my face,
And teare the stain’d skin of my Harlot brow,
And from my false hand cut the wedding ring,
And breake it with a deepe-divorcing vow?
I know thou canst, and therefore see thou doe it.
I am possest with an adulterate blot,
My bloud is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I doe digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion:
Keepe then faire league and truce with thy true bed,
I live unstain’d, thou undishonoured.
