How The Comedy of Errors drew on Ephesians
A documented line of influence: William Shakespeare demonstrably engaged Paul’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Ephesians
Paul · c. 62
BibleThe influenced
The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare · c. 1594
ShakespeareRelevance
5/10
On The Comedy of Errors’s page
- Setting the play in Ephesus let Shakespeare reach for Paul's letter to that city — Ephesians on marriage underwrites the sisters' debate
- Luciana all but quotes it ("men are masters to their females, and their lords"), and the Abbess preaches the same wives-submit / husbands-love teaching at the close
- Reading Ephesians first turns Adriana and Luciana's quarrel from comic bickering into a genuine dispute over Paul
On Ephesians’s page
- Paul's marriage doctrine in Ephesians — wives submit, husbands love — is the text Shakespeare folds into his Ephesus farce
- Luciana paraphrases it directly: "men are masters to their females, and their lords; then let your will attend on their accords"
- It surfaces again in the Abbess's closing sermon, giving the comedy's tangle of spouses a real argument underneath