The Comedy of Errors, Act I, Scene 1, the Rescue of Aemilia from the Shipwreck

The Comedy of Errors

William Shakespearec. 1594
Influence16th pct
Popularity20th pct
Shakespeare

Read this if you…

  • want an all time fat joke riff
  • want Shakespeare's shortest play
  • want his first comedy

Skip this if you…

  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated
  • haven't read the classic comedies yet

The Groblé Take

Fun premise, great jokes, good climax, easy quick read

Connections

The lineage through The Comedy of Errors

Built Onwhat came beforeThe Comedy of ErrorsActsEphesians

  • Acts by Luke. The Comedy of Errors built on it. - The play's Ephesus is *Acts* 19's Ephesus — Shakespeare relocated his Plautine farce there precisely to overlay Luke's city of sorcerers and exorcists - The witchcraft motif and the exorcist Doctor Pinch draw directly on *Acts* 19:13-29, where would-be exorcists meet a city steeped in magic - Read the source and the comedy's free-floating sense of bewitchment stops being a joke and starts looking deliberate
  • Ephesians by Paul. The Comedy of Errors built on it. - 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
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Fishermen pull the shipwrecked Aemilia and her infant twins from rough seas, the moment that scatters the family the play later reunites.

Francis Wheatley, 1795

Wood engraving depicting one of the twins' confused encounters from Charles and Mary Lamb's prose retelling.

Charles Gray, 1844

Antipholus of Ephesus is detained by an officer in the street as Dromio of Ephesus stands by carrying a rope.

J. Coghlan, 1816

Aegeon's family shipwreck — the storm splits the boat against a rock, separating Aegeon and one twin from Aemilia and the other.

Louis Rhead, 1918

Frontispiece showing the two Dromio twins together, the play's twin-pair central conceit.

1890

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$9.99$9.31

Folger Shakespeare Library

2005

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise Google, without breaking the scene to do it.

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Notable Quotes

We came into the world like brother and brother, And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.

Dromio of Ephesus, Act V, scene i
All 10 quotes, with sources →
Adaptations

Screen & Stage

Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)

AcclaimPraised by 4 notable voices
  • Roger Daltrey, rock musician & actor (The Who), 1944–: "Here I was, working with a Shakespeare text, understanding it, getting the jokes."
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romantic poet and critic, 1772–1834: "Shakespeare has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce."
  • Richard Rodgers, composer (Rodgers & Hart / Rodgers & Hammerstein), 1902–1979: Shakespeare had never been used as a musical comedy source, and we settled at once on The Comedy of Errors.
  • Harold Bloom, literary critic; Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale, 1930–2019: "Exuberant fun as it is and must be, this fierce little play is also one of the starting points for Shakespeare's invention of the human."

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