it violated the law of probability, and how inferior in this respect it was to its model the Suppositi of Ariosto. In transforming the comedy, he accordingly took great pains to rectify these mistakes, and with such success that, in The Taming of THE Shrew, there is no fault to be found with the reasons for Lucentio's (Aurelio's) change of character with Tranio (Valeria), or with the manner in which the former obtains an opportunity of intercourse with Bianca (Phylema). All that part of the Suppositi relating to the arrival of Erostrato's (Aurelio's, afterwards Lucentio's) father, which had been originally slurred over, is now carefully worked out; the reason for Petruchio's (Ferando's) wooing becomes apparent; and his character, with that of his servant Grumio (Sandar), is made clear, forcible, and consistent. Passing from The Taming of A Shrew to The Comedy of Errors, we observe a very close connection in thought between the two plays, but a very decided advance in dramatic skill in the later composition. This we know for certain was written before 1598: the versification, which in parts has some resemblance to the metre of the Moralities, suggests that it preceded A MidsummerNight's Dream; and for other reasons, to be presently noticed, it may be taken as an earlier production than Love's Labour's Lost. In The Comedy of Errors the motive of confusion and mystification which inspired the Induction to The Taming of A Shrew is vigorously worked. The plot was suggested by, and in great part adapted from, the Menæchmi of Plautus. Whether Shakespeare knew this comedy in the original is a question that has been debated with much vivacity between the opposite parties, who are concerned to prove either the poet's learning or his want of learning. Those who lay stress on Ben Jonson's testimony, that Shakespeare had "small Latin and less Greek," think he must have been indebted to William Warner's translation of the Menæchmi, though this was not published till 1595. Considering, however, that Plautus and Terence were then studied in the English grammar schools, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that a knowledge of these authors formed part of Shakespeare's stock of Latin, which may well have seemed "small" to the erudite Ben Jonson without being in itself despicable; and I may observe, what I have never seen noticed, that Shakespeare was evidently acquainted not only with the Menæchmi, but with the Amphitruo, and that, at a later date, he borrowed from Plautus's Mostellaria the names of Tranio and Grumio for The Taming of THE Shrew. The matter is not of importance; it is of far more interest to mark the great advance in dramatic skill, exhibited in the handling of plot and character in The Comedy of Errors, when compared with the play we have just been examining. As in The Taming of A Shrew, so in The Comedy of Errors, the poet is seen to have brought together materials from various quarters, for while the main situation is borrowed from the Menæchmi, the reduplication of the confusion by the introduction of the twin slaves is suggested by Sosia and his double in the Amphitruo; on the other hand, the misadventure of Ægeon, whose person is required, both to explain the position of affairs at the opening of the play, and for the final dénouement, is taken from the story told to the Siennese traveller in the Suppositi of Ariosto. Shakespeare excels Plautus-who is content with explaining the initial entanglement in a Prologue-as much in the development of the situation, as in the bold ingenuity with which he steers the action through the fourfold complications, caused by the likeness between the two sets of twins; indeed the whole movement of the play offers a remarkable contrast to the uncertain handling of the plot in The Taming of A Shrew. Not less admirable is the versatility shown in the representation of character. The contrast between the two Antipholuses; the charmingly outlined person of Luciana (a very delicately-conceived substitute for the father-in-law in the Menæchmi); the mingled devotion and jealousy in the aggrieved wife, Adriana; the tact and wisdom with which she is reproved by the Abbess; the farcical intervention of Dr. Pinch (a good humoured satire on the pretensions of certain Puritan divines to deal with cases of persons supposed to be possessed)-all this indicates what a stride in dramatic invention had been made by the poet since his first essay in comedy. But, as is the case in The Taming of A Shrew, the most interesting feature in The Comedy of Errors, viewed historically, is its illustration of the manner in which Shakespeare learned from the art of earlier poets to produce that unreal and poetical atmosphere which is the great charm of what may be called his Comedies of Illusion. The most imaginative comic effect in this play is the state of mind produced respectively in Antipholus and in Dromio of Syracuse by the unexpected treatment they receive from the inhabitants of Ephesus. The slave simply doubts his own identity. When claimed by the Ephesian cook-maid as her lover, he runs away till he meets his master : ANT. SYR. Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast? DRO. S. Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? ANT. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. Antipholus, equally perplexed, is more subtle in his reasoning. After being addressed by Adriana, his brother's wife, as her husband, he asks : Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? I'll say as they say, and persever so, And in this mist at all adventures go.2 Aftewards he ascribes his adventures to the witchcraft of the city: There's not a man I meet but doth salute me 1 Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc. 2. Some other give me thanks for kindnesses; Even now a tailor called me in his shop, And showed me silks that he had bought for me, Sure, these are but imaginary wiles, And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.1 Finally, he is driven to desperation; while Dromio, who has become reconciled to the situation, as is natural to his grosser nature, is quite ready to stay in the city of witches. ANT. S. I see these witches are afraid of swords. DRO. S. She that would be your wife now ran from you. ANT. S. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence : I long that we were safe and sound aboard. DRO. S. Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm: you saw they speak us fair, give us gold methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch. ANT. S. I will not stay to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.2 To represent a man so puzzled as to doubt about his own identity was a conception well within the reach of the ancient comic dramatist; and Plautus had furnished an example of it in the Sosia of his Amphitruo, which had been crudely copied in the Jenkin Careaway of the old Morality, Jack Juggler. But the more spiritual form of illusion found in The Comedy of Errors, as in the Induction to The Taming of A Shrew, is entirely mediæval, and was imported into those plays by Shakespeare from the examples furnished to him in Lyly's Endimion, in which the action is affected by the agency of fairies, witches, enchanted fountains, and human beings transformed into trees. From Lyly, too, Shakespeare took the idea of the 1 Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 3. 2 Ibid. Act iv. Sc. 4. 3 SOSIA. Di immortales, obsecro vestram fidem, Ubi ego perii? ubi immutatus sum? ubi ego formam perdidi? Nam hic quidem omnem imaginem meam, qua antehac fuerat, Compare vol. ii. p. 355. VOL. IV G underplot, in which some well-marked character, not absolutely necessary to the evolution of the main plot, is brought on the stage to amuse the audience with his oddities and witty abuse of language. In The Comedy of Errors this part is filled by Dromio of Syracuse, and the following specimen of dialogue, entirely different in style from anything in The Taming of A Shrew, will, when compared with the extract I have given from Mydas, furnish ample evidence of the cause of the change in Shakespeare's comic manner : DRO. S. Well, sir, I thank you. DRO. S. nothing. ANT. S. something. DRO. S. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for No, sir: I think the meat wants that I have. ANT. S. In good time, sir; what's that? DRO. S. Basting. ANT. S. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. DRO. S. If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it. ANT. S. Your reason? DRO. S. Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting. ANT. S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a time for all things. DRO. S. I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. ANT. S. By what rule, sir? DRO. S. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself. ANT. S. Let's hear it. DRO. S. There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature. ANT. S. May he not do it by fine and recovery? DRO. S. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and to recover the lost hair of another man. ANT. S. Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement? DRO. S. Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit. ANT. S. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. DRO. S. Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair. ANT. S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. 1 See p. 73. |