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A Comedy Of Errors - By Shakespeare A Family seperated by a shipwreck and A Stupid Law creates this Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is arrested for having the audacity to enter the city of Ephesus thus violating the ban against travel between the two rival cities. As Egeon is led to his execution, he tells the Ephesian Duke, Solinus, that he was in Syracuse searching for his wife and one of his twin sons, who were separated from him 25 years ago in a shipwreck. The other twin, who grew up with Egeon, is also search of the missing half of their family. “I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, (Unseen, inquisitive) confounds himself.” (Act, 1, scene 2, lines 35-3  Antipholus S. laments his lost state during his quest to find his twin brother and mother. He is in a strange place, away from family and homeland, where no one recognizes him. The brothers are identical twins and each has an identical twin slave named Dromio. The Duke is grants Egeon a day to raise the thousand-mark ransom that would be necessary to save his life. Meanwhile, his Antipholus of Syracuse his slave Dromio is also visiting Ephesus--where Antipholus' missing twin, known as Antipholus of Ephesus, is a prosperous citizen of the city. “They say this town is full of cozenage, As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, Soul-killing witches that deform the body, Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such-like liberties of sin  #x201D; (Act 1, scene 2, lines 97-102) Antipholus S. voices his fears and prejudices about Ephesus, which he sees as a place full of liars, cheats, charlatans and even sorcerers with the power to deform their victims’ bodies. Adriana, Antipholus of Ephesus' wife, mistakes Antipholus of Syracuse for her husband and drags him home for dinner, leaving Dromio of Syracuse to stand guard at the door and admit no one. “I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides myself.” (Act 3, scene 2, line 76) Dromio S. has doubts about his own identity after being mistaken for his twin brother; he is being claimed by a woman whom he does not know. Shortly thereafter, Antipholus of Ephesus (with his slave Dromio of Ephesus) returns home and is barred from to his own house. Antipholus of Syracuse has fallen in love with Luciana, Adriana's sister, who believes that the man she thinks is her brother-in-law is acting inappropriate. The confusion increases when a gold chain ordered by Antipholus of Ephesianis is given to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus refuses to pay for the chain (unsurprisingly, since he never received it) and is arrested for debt. His wife, seeing his strange behavior, decides he has gone mad and orders her husband bound and held in a cellar room. “How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, That thou art then estranged from thyself? ‒ Thyself I call it, being strange to me, That undividable, incorporate, Am better than they dear self’s better part. Ah, do not tear away thyself from me; For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall A drop of water in the breaking gulf, And take unmingled thence that drop again Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself, and not me too.” (Act 2, scene 2, lines 119-129) Adriana rebukes the man she believes to be her husband for absenting himself from her. She believes that husband and wife are indivisible from each other, so that the absence of one irreparably takes something away from the self-identity of the other. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse and his slave decide to flee the city, --only to be menaced by Adriana and the debt officer. They seek refuge in a nearby nunnery. Adriana now requests the Duke to intervene and remove her "husband" from the abbey into her custody. Her real husband, meanwhile, has broken loose and now comes to the Duke and levels charges against his wife. The situation is resolved by the Abbess, Emilia, who joined a nunnery when her husband and disappeared at ses. She reveals herself to be Egeon's long-lost wife and mother of the twins. Antipholus of Ephesus reconciles with Adriana; Egeon is pardoned by the Duke and reunited with his wife; Antipholus of Syracuse resumes his romantic pursuit of Luciana, and all ends happily with the two Dromios embracing. “Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you I am a sweet-fac’d youth;” (Act 5, scene 1, lines 417- Dromio E. is reunited with his long-lost identical twin brother, Dromio S. “I think you have all drunk of Circe’s cup #x201D; (Act 5, scene 1, line 271) The Duke tries to explain the confusion caused by the appearance in Ephesus of the two sets of twins, each set being unknown to the other, by saying it must be due to witchcraft. Circe was a sorceress in ancient Greek mythology, and appears in Homer’s Odyssey, in which she turns Odysseus’s men temporarily into pigs by giving them wine spiked with a magic potion.  Abracadabra  |
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The Comedy of Errors would be a good name for the happenings in the Magazine.  Abracadabra
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