The dramatic comedy in Ephesus

The wife of the Syracuse merchant Egeon gave birth in Epidamnum to a pair of twins "[.] .which was strange, the one so like the other, / As could not be distinguish'd but by names. " ( Comedy of Errors - Act I, Scene I). In that same inn and at that same time, another woman produced another pair of twins, those two buds equally alike. They were later purchased by Egeon to attend to his own sons. And all lived happily. However, before long, a storm such as one might say was blowing fire through heaven's nostrils split this happy family apart: the father found himself with one son and one of the adopted children, while the mother with the remaining two. Upon turning eighteen, the son Egeon had brought up and loved more than his own self took his servant as a travel companion and set out looking for his brother. A symbolic departure, as it were. Why should we see anything symbolic in this incipient odyssey? As we are about to see, many sound reasons compel us to do so.

There is no telling whether Shakespeare actually and voluntarily intended to weave the plot of his play along the following lines, but it is our opinion, due to the one-too-many "coincidences", that these lay hidden in the recesses of the writing poet's mind, as did all the myths and their echoes (for he was a good classicist, in spite of what his contemporaries and, later, his critics thought) and readily fueled his inspiration with their eternal histories that helped him stretch a canvas much broader and far more deeply human than it appears when first leafing through the text.

It is interesting and rather unusual in Shakespeare's writings that the hero's age is specified. Antipholus of Syracuse is eighteen years old, hence at the threshold of adulthood from a biological point of view. But his grown-up psychology has just about begun to take shape. To reach completeness, he is supposed to be fulfilled as much psychologically as he is biologically. The adventurous quest of his brother seems to be a quest of fulfillment. Let us suppose that Antipholus of Syracuse sets out looking for his other half, Antipholus of Ephesus, driven by his wish for completeness. But the Syracusian does not travel alone: he is accompanied by Dromio of Syracuse, from whom he has never been separated. As already mentioned, Dromio had been purchased to serve him for better or for worse. Dromio is not of the same blood as Antipholus; he is a stranger, yet the two are inseparable. If we were to find a purpose for him, Dromio is the one that links Antipholus to society: he feeds him, sees after him, watches over him. Dromio is like a living garment for his master and travel companion. But then again, Dromio of Syracuse himself cannot become fulfilled unless he finds Dromio of Ephesus. Here is, for one thing, a two-fold dichotomy (not an antonymical dichotomy): the two Antipholi form a whole not only with one another, but also each with his respective Dromio. The coordinates of this two-fold dichotomy are presented to the reader from the very first scene of the play.

But they are not the only ones on quest. After Antipholus of Syracuse had departed on his perilous journey, Egeon waited for some time, then eventually decided to set out himself to look for his remaining son, whose absence made him feel so frustrated. By now, he has already been travelling for five years. In this case we deal with an antonymical dichotomy, for there is a sense of opposition in the pair begetter / offspring, that has nothing to do with a couple of twin brothers who are in fact the two separate halves of one and the same creation. Moreover, keeping in mind that the begetter moves down the ladder of existence while his offspring moves up and the countless discrepancies that separate parents from children, we can easily discern the intrinsic antithetical nature of this newly-discovered unity. Which is in fact not unique either, but doubled by that of the separation between Egeon and Emelia, his wife - a clearly antonymical dychotomization of their unity as a couple. This double-folded antonymical dychotomy is also being presented in the first scene of Act I.

It goes without saying that all these members of so many unities apparently shattered (although they look for each other, their unity is unspoiled from an emotional point of view) have been made by the playwright to gather in Ephesus so they can meet again. The future restoration of the initial unities is being heralded, from the very first lines of Act II, by a symbol. Antipholus of Syracuse speaks to Dromio about the inn called The Centaur , where they both stopped. Although from the point of view of the plot, such as it unfolds before the readers, Egeon has only got another day to live and Antipholus of Syracuse has been warned that he, too, may fall under the same implacable fate awaiting the Syracusans who trespass the territory of Ephesus, that is, under the curse that they end their lives there - in spite of all these, a gleam of hope persists at the linguistic level. Unexpected by anybody, modest like any gleam of hope that barely lights the horizon, it hides behind this word nobody actually cares about, this funny title of a one-night refuge: The Centaur .

The name of this inn suggests an inevitable connection with the name of the town in which it stands: Ephesus . Our recollections are imbued with confusion, because they echo a troublesome and uncertain rumour about a connection between a centaur and Ephesus . And all of a sudden, there is bright light. The gigantic figure of Hercules emerges from the ruins of memory, covering the Renaissance sky. That wonderful jester of ancient times, while on a pilgrimage in Delphi , caused an unspeakable hullabaloo in Pythia's temple and inflicted upon her a revenge worthy of a hero's fury, since she refused to show him the way in which he could expiate the most recent of his all too many killings. Hercules went so far as to cast her sacred tripod only the gods knew where. Apollo himself interfered and a formidable wrestling followed: the colossus challenged a god born of the same begetter and the two could not be appeased except by the intervention of their Olympian father's strokes of lightning. The dispute ended in peace. The oracle showed Hercules the way he was supposed to take in order to pay for his blood-shedding: he had to accept, free-willingly, to become a slave for the following three years. Hercules let himself be sold to Queen Omphalia for a price of three talents. As was expected of him, he managed to shift, from the condition of slave, to that of husband of the Queen of Lydia.

Instead of the three years of bondage, there followed three years of pleasures, slackness, and drowsy resting. Essentially important for the analysis of the Shakespearian comedy is the gossip that has cut through the ages and reached our ears, namely that all during this time Hercules was engaged in such womanly pursuits as spinning, reeling and weaving; not to mention that his mistress and wife had him walk about dressed in women's clothes. Hence, the legend does not only deal with disguise (a behavioural dychotomic-antonymical structure), but also with the adaptation to the occupations of the opposite sex.

And yet, the hero had not given up completely his formidable fame of enforcing justice with the club. For instance, while in the proximity of - let us guess - Ephesus , Hercules was overcome by sleep and lay down in the shadow of a tree. And behold, some thieves called Cercopi, found nothing better to do than try to take advantage of him. The outcome is no surprise: they were all bound tight and taken before Queen Omphalia. Hence, it is near the town of Ephesus that Hercules recovered his manly condition and turned back from a woman into a warrior. As we mentioned earlier, Antipholus of Syracuse had come down to Ephesus an adolescent, so he may become an adult; in the newly-shed light of the legend, we may also add that the ephebe he was aspired to become a man. By the way, the Ephesian Cercopi, too, are pawns of dychotomic-antonymical thought, since they so much indulged in the gift of lying that Jove eventually deprived them of their speech and turned then into monkeys, into nowadays' men without human faces.

Let us now return from the town to the inn standing in it. So the inn was called The Centaur . After his three years' penance in sweet slavery, Hercules went to Deianeira as a suitor and won her hand. They left together, but soon their path was barred by the overflown waters of the river Evenos. Nessus the centaur happened to pass by. He offered, full of chivalry, to take Deianeira on his back to the other bank. Once there, the kind centaur turned aggressive. Upon hearing his young wife's scream, Hercules shot an arrow poisoned with the blood of the Hydra and killed the centaur. The two spouses were reunited after the waters had separated them (as is the case of the Shakespearian characters). The centaur, a being made of two different and opposed hypostases, since it is both man and animal, takes part in the antonymical dychotomization (he, too, is such a structure) of the unity of the Hercules-Deianeira couple.

Then, the same system of thought creates new sequences that take the scenario further on, building up an eloquent conjectural framework that proves useful to the evolution of the characters in The Comedy of Errors . Before passing away, Nessus the centaur gathered blood from his arrow-inflicted wound and offered it to Deianeira. He advised her that, if she ever felt Hercules' love for her failing, she should imbue one of his shirts in that blood and give it to her husband to wear: the shirt, he claimed, would restore his love for her (a ritual to be found in many people's folklore). Then a time came when Deianeira felt as though she was being cheated. But, instead of lighting up again the flame of love in her husband's heart, Nessus' shirt stuck to his body and could not longer be removed; it sent through his flesh the flames of Hell. The dychotomic-antonymical feature acquired by the object is easily noticed here: the shirt that supposedly possessed the gift of restoring love was in fact the shirt that caused death. The hero eventually spared himself further pain and stepped alone onto his own stake. This last step achieved the profecy that he was to die from a dead man's hand (in our play, too, objects possess dychotomic-antonymical reflexes and the destiny of each character is in turn influenced by another character that is presumed dead).

There is also a second reference to the world of the centaurs whose beings bring together two different worlds. We notice that the names of the two brothers can be divided into the prefix anti -, meaning opposition, and Pholus . Now Pholus was another centaur, one living in Pholos. While he was hunting for the wild boar of Erymanthus, the same Hercules visited Pholus, son of Silenus and of a nymph. He was copiously treated, but without wine, which upset the hero. It was not that Pholus did not have a jug full of wine; but it belonged, in common, to all centaurs. For the sake of his new friend, however, the centaur uncorked the jug and the scent of the blessed beverage spread all around, tickling the noses of all centaurs, no matter how far they were. They charged the source of the pleasant scent equipped with rocks, torches and tree trunks. A life-and-death struggle followed. Unfortunately for him, the peaceful Pholus, while burying his fellow-centaurs, picked an arrow out of the body of one of them and looked at it inquisitively, wondering how something as small as that could cause death. While he was fumbling with it, the arrow fell onto his leg and killed him, too.

It is against this mythical background adorned with multiple dychotomic-antonymical structures that the episodes of the play are projected, thus creating an environment in which they develop naturally, though often so deeply concealed in the text as to seem incredible.

In anticipation of the revelation that Antipholus of Ephesus, though physically identical with his brother, is opposed to the latter as far as character is concerned, Antipholus of Syracuse meets Dromio of Ephesus, his twin brother's servant. Their talk, the requests and laments they exchange facilitate the comprehension of the fact that the two brothers are as much alike as the two masks of one and the same youth, as the two faces of one and the same talent (in fact, the term pholus also designates an ancient Greek coin, hence the enhanced dychotomic-antonymical value of the name - head and tail are the two inseparable, yet opposed, faces of one and the same coin).

A new humble name of an inn helps stregthen the symbolical framework, foretelling the future. Dromio of Ephesus informs his master - that is, the one he presumes to be his master - that his wife is waiting for him at the Phoenix . But is that not the of the bird that died and rose again from its own ashes? And is it not what is about to happen to all these characters who are presumed dead by the others, yet will rise again, or to one particular character who is presumed to be mad, yet will prove to be as sane as ever? Since it is a town where strange things occur: "ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: [.] 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. " ( Comedy of Errors - Act I, Scene II). They are a skillful gang ready to lend reality a different face, such as may serve their purposes.

The game of destiny makes poor Dromio of Ephesus describe his former encounter with his pseudo-master in these terms: "DROMIO OF EPHESUS: .he told his mind upon mine ear. [.] I scarce could understand it " ( Comedy of Errors - Act II, Scene I). Of course, he reaches the conclusion that he dealt with a lunatic quite out of his mind. Later, indeed, Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, blames the same thing upon the same man, insisting in her turn, when she meets Antipholus of Syracuse, on how difficult it is for her to grasp his true personality: "ADRIANA: [.] How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thyself?. " A little earlier, upon noticing his indifference, she even felt to be another woman: "[.] I am not Adriana nor thy wife. " ( Comedy of Errors - Act II, Scene II).

Adriana's beauty and love persuade Antipholus of Syracuse to accept the swapping of lives that is being forced upon him: "ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised? Known unto these, and to myself disguised! I'll say as they say and persever so, and in this mist at all adventures go ( ibidem ). The same attitude stands for his servant as well, who has to face his own, equally confusing, adventures: "DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: [.] This is the fairy land: O spite of spites! We talk with goblins, owls and sprites. " ( ibidem ); when they come together, the two of them make up a chorus of bewilderment: "DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: I am transformed, master, am I not? - ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE : I think thou art in mind, and so am I. - DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape. - ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE : Thou hast thine own form " ( ibidem ).

In the meantime, poor wretched Dromio of Ephesus manages to find his real master, but cannot persuade him that he beat him earlier for the mere guilt of having summoned him home - since the servant actually summoned the other Antipholus. Soon afterwards, the two of them fall victims to their unknown and unsuspected brothers who have been appointed unwilling masters in the other pair's own house. Hence, the two pairs of twins are reunite. The brothers confront each other, they fight for the same right "to really be who they believe they are". How eloquent, this substantialization of their situation! One believes to be one person and is constantly mistaken for another. A kafkian theme and a reason to lose one's mind. The new arrangement of the chess figures upon the board available to the playwright allows us to check what has been said earlier about the symbolism of the inns' names. For instance, the angry Antipholus of Ephesus goes to eat - since he is no longer accepted at his wife's table occupied by the other brother - to a tavern called The Tiger . With the determination to take revenge on his wife, he finally invites his pals, accompanied by a courtisan, at The Porpentine . This sign-language is eloquent; it is to be found in all subsequent English literature, down to Charles Dickens' novels. Tension rises higher and higher. So Antipholus of Syracuse is being mistaken for Antipholus of Ephesus. Moreover, his sister-in-law, Luciana, who suspects that his indifference and denials of a man absolutely stranger and unaware were in fact due to some new love he may have, suggests to him the very double play that he dislikes so much: "LUCIANA: [.] 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 eye; be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty; apparel vice like virtue's harbinger; bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?. " ( Comedy of Errors - Act III, Scene II). This is the short-version forerunner of a treaty of bourgeois false morality, the sketch of the classical love triangle from the future revue theatre, the voice of the conceited and vainglorious social conventions. It tells us that the appearance of the cheater's behaviour (that belongs to the vast range in which we are interested) may be due, in part at least, to pity; the pseudo-pity preached here conceals the fear to disturb a temporary social adjustment; this fear, in its turn, springs from the resistence of inertia before anything new. Through Luciana, the specified society protects the flimsiness of its morals and introduces - imposes, even - the mask.

It is apparently this society that Antipholus of Syracuse refers to when he answers her: "ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: [.] Against my soul's pure truth why labour you to make it wander in an unknown field? Are you a god? Would you create me new?. " ( ibidem ). He does not conceive of lying. He much sooner accepts a miracle that may change him into a different person, than wearing a mask. All the more so as his heart has chosen the woman who considers herself to be his sister-in-law and is talking to him about a so-called wife of his, her sister, whom he has never even heard about so far. Luciana is the one to whom he pays the passionate homage of his love. His words draw a portrait of her against a golden background. She retorts that his words belong to her sister, or at least they should do so. "ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE : Call thyself sister, sweet. " ( ibidem ), says the unknowing Syracusan who simply translates, in this cue, the relationship between his brother and himself.

On the other hand, Dromio of Syracuse experiences the very same kind of confusions: he finds out that there is a cook in that house and fears that she, too, may claim to become mistress of his soul and offer herself to him as a well-known realm of marital bliss. His actual master points out: "ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: There's none but witches do inhabit here. She that doth call me husband, even my soul doth for a wife abhor. " ( ibidem ) a.s.o.

The first misunderstanding in the play occurs in reference to a sum of money; it is a slippery and brisk element of discord, foretelling the troubles to follow. In the last-but-one act, a new element interferes and causes a dispute; this time, it is in reference to a necklace which is a different image, on the one hand, of gold and, on the other hand, of bondage since a chain essentially prevents the scattering of things that have become disorganized. This particular necklace enhances the symbolism of the rope purchased by Dromio of Ephesus. Then comes a third element of the same family: a ring which is, even more than the rope and the necklace or chain, a symbol of the ultimate unity of the characters in a sort of universal marriage, if one wishes to see it that way, or else a symbol of a magical circle - the Syracusans see the town of Ephesus in such a light - that keeps the characters within itself for good. Thus, the necklace and the ring present a hypostasis of gold different from the one the reader stumbles on at the beginning of the plot and from the commerce making use of it (which is in fact the cause of the misunderstandings between the two cities, that led to Egeon's arrest).

At the climax of the plot, foretold by the sudden coming out of these three artefacts, both pairs of brothers are considered out of their minds, they are all bound tight, prevented from leaving the scene of events and forced to await their outcome. Before any such outcome, it was inevitable that the mother of the two Antipholus should make her appearance as well. She, too, was the victim of a destiny that eventually made her life hilariously tragic, since she had been married and had given birth to two children only to become the abbess of a convent. Once the mother has been squeezed into the play's plot, Egeon, her former husband, is being brought to the fore, too, so whole bunch of unlikely misdaventures can end well.