The Comedy of Errors The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] · William Shakespeare
NOTE I.
In the spelling of the name of ‘Solinus’ we have followed the first Folio. In the subsequent Folios it was altered, most probably by an accident in F2 to ‘Salinus.’ The name occurs only once in the copies, and that in the first line of the text. The name which we have given as ‘Antipholus’ is spelt indifferently thus, and ‘Antipholis’ in the Folios. It will hardly be doubted that the lines in the rhyming passage, III. 2. 2, 4, where the Folios read ‘Antipholus,’ are correctly amended by Capell, and prove that ‘Antipholus’ is the spelling of Shakespeare. Either word is evidently corrupted from ‘Antiphilus.’ These names are merely arbitrary, but the surnames, ‘Erotes’ and ‘Sereptus,’ are most probably errors for ‘Errans,’ or ‘Erraticus’ and ‘Surreptus,’ of which the latter is plainly derived from Plautus’ _Menæchmus Surreptus_, a well-known character in Shakespeare’s day: see Brian Melbancke’s _Philotimus_ (1582), p. 160: ‘Thou art like Menechmus Subreptus his wife ... whose “husband shall not neede to be justice of peace” for she “will have a charter to make her justice of coram.”’ See _Merry Wives_, I. 1. 4, 5. In spelling ‘Syracusian’ instead of ‘Syracusan’ we follow the practice of the Folios in an indifferent matter. ‘Epidamnum’ not ‘Epidamium’ is found in the English translation of the _Menæchmi_, 1595, so the latter form in F1 is probably a printer’s error.
I. 2. 1. That this scene is laid at the Mart appears from Antipholus’s allusion to this place in II. 2. 5, 6: ‘I could not speak with Dromio since at first I sent him from the mart.’ As this play is derived from a classical prototype, Capell has supposed no change of scene, but lays the whole action in ‘a Publick Place;’ evidently with much inconvenience to the Persons. II. 1. 30. Johnson’s ingenious conjecture may have been suggested to him by a passage in _As you like it_, IV. 3. 17: ‘Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.’ But the received reading of the Folios is perhaps confirmed by a line in the present play, III. 2. 7: ‘Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth.’ II. 1. 108 sqq. The only correction of this passage which we believe to be quite free from doubt is that in line 112, ‘Wear’ for ‘Where.’ Accordingly, with this exception, we have retained the precise words of the first Folio. IV. 2. 38. Grey’s conjecture of ‘lanes’ for ‘lands’ is made somewhat more probable by the existence of copies of F1 in which the word appears ‘lans.’ A corrector would naturally change this rather to ‘lands’ than to ‘lanes,’ because of the rhyme. IV. 2. 46. The Folios have ‘send him Mistris redemption,’ and Rowe, by his punctuation and capital R, made Dromio call Luciana ‘Redemption.’ Pope and Theobald seem to have followed him, though they give the small r. The Folios cannot be made chargeable with this error, for the comma does not regularly follow vocatives in these editions where we expect it. There is no comma, for instance, following the word ‘Mistress’ in IV. 3. 75 or in IV. 4. 39.
IV. 4. 29. The word ‘ears’ might probably be better printed ‘’ears’ for ‘years;’ for a pun--hitherto, however, unnoticed--seems to be indicated by the following words. A very farfetched explanation has been offered by Steevens, and accepted by Delius and, we believe, by all the modern editors, namely, that Antipholus has wrung Dromio’s ears so often that they have attained a length like an ass’s. V. 1. 1. Shakespeare uses the words ‘Priory’ and ‘Abbey’ as synonymous. Compare V. 1. 37 and V. 1. 122. V. 1. 235. It might possibly be better to print this line as two lines, the first being broken: ‘By the way we met My wife....’ But the place is probably corrupt.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.