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

The Comedy of Errors

William Shakespearec. 1594
ShakespeareHardComedyEnglishShort · 59 pages
Influence16th pct
Popularity20th pct
Where it ranks
#145of 194Overall#24of 38Shakespeare

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

Why It Matters

Shakespeare's earliest farce, pure slapstick: mistaken identities, long-lost twins, and chaos piling up until it all sorts itself out in a single scene. It proved he could build a complicated comic plot right from the start. People still stage it regularly because the physical comedy still works.

The Groblé Take

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

Connections

Where to go next

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

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.

Buy on Bookshop
#2

SparkNotes (No Fear Shakespeare)

2003

#3

Arden Shakespeare

2016

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

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

“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.”

— Antipholus of Syracuse, Act I, scene ii

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