123 sweet-savoured seasoned sweet (OED savour v. 5–8). Meat was sometimes baked with ‘sweet suet’ or basted with ‘sweet … butter’ (Harrison, 312). ‘Sweet powder’ (OED powder n.1 C3), mixed from aromatic spices and sometimes sugar, was used with pork and other dishes. Cf. 5.1.73.
115] verse Pope 116 Ay, ay] (I, I) 117 thy] some F2
124 to ‘with a view to’ (Abbott, 186), i.e. for
125–52 Adriana insists that husband and wife are literally one; cf. 2.1.94–8. Her view has scriptural basis: ‘For this cause [i.e. marriage] shall a man leaue father and mother, and shallbe ioyned vnto his wife, and two shalbe made one flesshe’ (Ephesians, 5.31; see also Genesis, 2.24, Matthew, 19.5–6). The Elizabethan marriage service refers to husband and wife being ‘made one’ (Shaheen, 109). Yet Adriana’s mistaking of her husband undercuts her claims. Cf. Syracusan Antipholus to Luciana, 3.2.66 and n.
125 Adriana’s repetition of a phrase constitutes rhetorical diacope; see 1.1.66–7 and n. Antipholus may show surprise at my husband. For another repetition, see 126–7 and n.
126 estranged estrangèd; echoing strange at 116
126–7 thysel f ? / ‘Thyself’ rhetorical epizeuxis. Cf. 125 and n., 2.1.106–7 and n.
127–9 i.e. I call your being estranged from me the same as being estranged from yourself, since I am incorporated into you and indivisible from you, and that I-in-you is worth more than even the best, partial aspect of you alone. See LN. Later, Syracusan Antipholus will woo Luciana with identical language, as if unconsciously remembered from Adriana; see 3.2.61 and n.
127 strange to ‘a stranger to’ (cf. 116); ‘distant from’
129 better part perhaps ‘best qualities’ (Ard2) or soul (Ard1); cf. 3.2.61 and n.; also ‘My spirit is thine, the better part of me’ (Son 74.8).
129 SD Adriana probably clutches after Antipholus, who pulls away, prompting Adriana’s plea that he not tear (130) himself from her.
131–5 Adriana repeats Antipholus of Syracuse’s drop-of-water image from 1.2.35–8. For Antipholus in 1.2, the image bespeaks his fear of self-negation and dissolution from mixing his identity with others (see 1.2.35–40 and n.). By contrast, Adriana embraces the marital incorporation of two selves into one (see 127–9n.). Images of watery dissolution will recur when Antipholus woos Luciana; see e.g. 3.2.45–52 and n.
131 fall let fall; in a secondary sense, ‘fall as’, since in Adriana’s metaphor Antipholus is the drop and she (perhaps with unintended irony) the breaking gulf (i.e. the breaking coastal sea-waves: OED gulf n. 1) in 132; cf. falling, 1.2.37.
124 spake … touched] spake, look’d, touch’d Steevens4 to thee] om. Pope 127 ‘Thyself’] Folg2; Thy selfe F; Thy ‘self’ Oxf1 128] Theobald; That vndiuidable Incorporate F; That, undividable incorporate, Kittredge 129 SD] this edn 131 know,] Rowe; know F
136–52 Pursuing the implications of marital incorporation, Adriana argues that one partner’s (Antipholus’) breaking of the marriage vows makes the other partner (Adriana) equally guilty of adultery. Her speech underscores her earlier concern for her husband’s reputation (Oxf1); see 2.1.108–12 and n.
136 dearly deeply, keenly (OED adv. 3c); Ard1 glosses ‘grievously’.
touch … quick proverbial (Dent, Q13). The quick is the core of one’s being, the seat of feeling and emotion.
137 licentious sexually unrestrained by law or morality
138 consecrate consecrated
139 ruffian lust Personifications of lust (F has ‘Ruffian Lust’) as a lower-class criminal are not uncommon in the period; cf. Luc 693; Son 129.1–4; FQ, 3.1.17, 4.7.4–8.
contaminate contaminated
140 spurn kick. Adriana applies to herself the word that Ephesian Dromio used to protest against her abusive treatment of him at 2.1.81–4 (see n.).
141–4 The repetition of And at the beginning of each line again instances anaphora ‘when we make one word begin, and … lead the dance to many verses’ (Puttenham, 198). The successive And-plus-verb clauses, launched at 140, make Adriana sound, for a moment, possessed rhetorically while she talks of being ‘possessed with an adulterate blot’ (146). On anaphora, see also 120–4 and n.
142 Adriana imagines her forehead (brow) becoming stained from adultery and her husband ripping away the skin; cf. ‘stain the brow’, 1H4 1.1.85. Later, Ephesian Antipholus will call Adriana a harlot (4.4.102 and n.; cf. 5.1.205) and threaten to disfigure her face (5.1.183 and n.). The brow–cloudy, frowning, bent, lifted, sad, gentle, angry, honest, gracious–recurs in Shakespeare as a place where disposition is revealed. See LN.
stained dulled in beauty and morally defiled; stigmatized (OED stain v. 5a, b, c); cf. MV 1.3.139. The sense of stain recurs in blot (146) and dis-stained (152); cf. also 3.2.13 and n., on tainted.
harlot unchaste
143 false deceitful, treacherous (Folg2)
144 it the ring, grammatically; the marriage, metonymically. Adriana’s husband will obtain a ring from the Courtesan (see 4.3.70 and n.).
deep profoundly, intensely, earnestly (OED adv. 2); cf. ‘deep contemplative’ (AYL 2.7.31); see Blake, 3.3.3.1.
vow Here and at 145, Adriana may mean that Antipholus can divorce her simply by taking a vow, a classical Roman practice.
137 licentious?] licentious; Rowe; licentious! Rann 139 contaminate?] contaminate! Rann 141 ‘husband’] Andrews subst.; husband F 142 off] (of)
146 I … with Adriana may mean that she experiences Antipholus’ infidelity as a moral blemish inducing physical effects (OED blot n.1 1, 2), with possessed suggesting ‘endowed with’ (OED possess v. 9a); cf. TS 3.2.50. More darkly, Adriana may perceive his infidelity as a possessing demon (see OED possess v. 4) (cf. the personification of lust at 139). Forms of ‘possess’ occur more frequently in CE than in any other Shakespearean play and take on varied meanings; see 183 and see also, with associated nn., 3.1.105–6; 3.2.165; 4.4.56, 93; 5.1.44, 246.
adulterate adult’rate; adulterous (OED adj. 2)
blot Cf. 142 and n., on stained.
147 blood Antipholus’ alleged sin of adultery has tainted (stained, 142), i.e. morally and physically corrupted, Adriana’s blood (see OED stain v. 4a, 5d), with sin having physiological consequences.
crime sin (OED n. 2); cf. Oth 5.2.26.
149 poison Lucrece describes her body as ‘poison’d’ and her blood as ‘stain’d’ by Tarquin’s rape (Luc 1655–9).
150 strumpeted … contagion i.e. turned into a whore by your disease (of adultery); OED’s earliest citation for ‘strumpet’ as a verb; contagion can mean ‘poison’ (OED n. 3b) (cf. Ham 4.7.147, Son. 66.6), as well as ‘disease’ (OED 2). The imagery of 149–52 recalls the spectre of syphilis raised at 85–6.
151 Keep … truce To ‘keep fair league’ would be to ‘keep honest agreement’, with league meaning covenant (OED n.2 2), and fair, ‘lawful’ or ‘proper’ (Crystal & Crystal, adj. 10); both are military terms. Cf. 2.1.107.
Keep ‘if you keep’
bed metonymy for marriage
152 *dis-stained unstained; clear of stain (Folg2) (cf. 142 and n., on stained). The usage is unconventional: the OED defines ‘distain’ as to defile, stain or dishonour (OED v. 2); ‘distain’ occurs in Luc with the sense of ‘stain’ (786), but here Shakespeare means the opposite. Theobald understood dis- in a ‘privative sense, implying … negation, reversal of action’, as in ‘disjoin’, ‘displease’ or ‘dissuade’ (OED dis- prefix 4). Such a nonce-use of dis- as negation occurs in ‘dis-horn the spirit’ (MW 4.4.64). John Palsgrave’s Lesclarcissement de la langue Francoyse (1530) defines ‘distayne’ as ‘chaunge the colour’ (sig. 3E5v) (Folg2). Following Theobald, dis-stained is hyphenated to signify its usage.
undishonoured undishonourèd; OED adj., first citation
149 thy] my F2 151–2] lines transposed in Cam1 152 dis-stained … undishonoured] Theobald; distain’d … vndish
onoured F; distain’d, and … dishonoured Rowe; unstain’d … undishonoured Hanmer (Theobald); distain’d … one dishonoured White; undistain’d … undishonoured Keightley
153 Plead … dame Cf. Men., 369.
154 two hours old another time marker
155–7 To match Adriana’s manner, Antipholus speaks with heightened poeticism: parallelisms, alliteration (t, w), end-rhyme and (in 156–7) rhetorical conduplicato (repetition of a word, here word, in successive clauses).
155 strange responding to Adriana’s strange (116) and estranged (126); see 116n.
156 Who The antecedent, I (154), occurs some distance away; see Abbott, 263. Who with Wants (157) has the grammatical force of third-person (Cam2).
scanned interpreted (OED v. 4); cf. Ham 3.3.75.
157 Wants See 55n.
158 brother i.e. brother-in-law
161–2 These lines break the pattern of verse and perhaps make room for physical reactions.
167 ‘What is the direction and meaning of your plot?’ The terms course and drift constitute a repetition (tautologia) for effect, since the words can have approximately the same meaning (see OED course n. 19; drift n. 4b).
compact compàct; conspiracy (OED n. 1c)
161–2] F4, Munro; verse Wells; printed on one line in F 162 me?] Rowe2; me. F; me! Dyce 163 this] thus F2 166 SD] Andrews subst.
169 Villain See 1.2.19n.
170 mart alluding to the site of 1.2 (see 1.2n.); also the place of the present action (see 14n., on here), although conceptually the action is moving closer to Adriana’s house (see Ard2)
173 inspiration knowledge gained through supernatural agency (OED n. 3a); -ion is two syllables.
175 counterfeit dissimulate (OED v. 6)
grossly obviously (OED adv. 2), or clumsily (OED 6b); cf. MW 2.2.142.
slave Cf. 1.2.87 and n., on slave.
176 mood anger (OED n.1 2b); cf. TGV 4.1.49.
177–8 ‘Let it be an offence done to me that you are estranged, but do not compound that injustice with increased contempt.’ Adriana’s phrase my wrong refers to the injustice or harm that she has sustained from Antipholus (OED wrong n.2 5a, b); cf. 4.2.8 and n., on spite; TS 4.3.2. Her exempt means ‘cut off’ or ‘removed from allegiance’ (OED adj. 1c, d); cf. AYL 2.1.15, 1H6 2.4.93; more is a comparative intensifier: ‘greater’ (Blake, 3.2.3.4). The repetition of wrong with different meanings is rhetorical antistasis. The shift here (177–208) into rhyme marks Adriana’s ‘abandonment of anger’ and Antipholus’ ‘transition from hostility to acceptance of a fantastic situation’ (Ard2).
179 sleeve Luciana will later use sleeve as an image of marital deception; see 3.2.23 and n.
180 The comparison of man and wife to an elm with a vine trained to grow around it was proverbial (‘The vine embraces the elm’, Dent, V61). The ‘Homily on Matrimony’ alludes to Psalms, 128.3: ‘Thy wife shall be as a vine plentifully spreading about thy house’ (Homilies, 540). Adriana will contrast the fruitful vine to Usurping infectious ivy (184–6), i.e. Antipholus’ presumed paramours. Adriana employs vivid but literary imagery. Although elms were common in Warwickshire, Shakespeare probably took the image of elm and trained vine from reading rather than observation (see Ellacombe, 88; Richens, 157). For classical antecedents and contemporary examples, see LN.
169 lie’st! For] Oxf1; liest, for F 172–3 names?–… inspiration.] Ard2; names? … inspiration. F; names, … inspiration? F4 176 mood.] (moode;); mood? F4; mood! Hanmer 179 SD] Folg2 subst.; thine. She clings to him. / Bevington4
181 Whose weakness Cf. ‘Lykewyse ye husbandes … geuyng honour vnto the wyfe, as vnto the weaker vessell’ (1 Peter, 3.7; see Shaheen, 109).
182 communicate partake of (OED v. 6)
183 possess See 146n., on I … with; possess can also mean ‘infect’ (OED v. 2c). Shakespeare may be combining meanings: demonic possession and venereal disease; cf. 85–6 and n.
from ‘apart from’ (Blake, 5.4.2)
dross dregs, impure matter (OED n. 2)
184 ivy … moss parasitic plants, represented as destructive, troublesome and useless. On ivy, cf. Tem 1.2.86–7; on moss, Tit 2.3.95. On ivy and elm, cf. MND 4.1.43–4.
briar ‘A prickly, thorny bush or shrub’ (OED n.1)
idle useless, barren (OED adj. 3a); cf. 214, Oth 1.3.140.
185 with intrusion by forced entry; cf. 3.1.103–4 and n., Luc 848.
186 Infect possibly alluding to syphilis; cf. 85–6 and n.
confusion ruin, destruction (OED n. 1)
187 SD as the third-person she (187) and her (187, 188) indicate
187 2she … theme ‘she takes me as the subject of her discourse’
moves propounds or puts forward (OED v. 30); cf. MA 4.1.73. The word also carries the legal sense of ‘plead’ (OED 28).
theme ‘subject’ (OED n. 1), as at 5.1.65
188–92 Cf. 5.1.352; TN 4.1.60–3 (Ard2).
188 implying that he has an uncanny recollection of her or that she is a dream-figment. In Men., Sosicles Menaechmus believes that Erotium is dreaming (395).
190 error first occurrence in the play of this key word; cf. 3.2.35; 5.1.388, 397. Here error refers to a prior state of mind that misleads the senses, a delusion (OED n. 3a), consistent with Antipholus’ fear of Ephesian sorcery (see 1.2.97–102 and n.).
191 sure uncertainty ‘definite mystery’, an oxymoron
191–2 uncertainty … fallacy an off-rhyme (after seven rhyming couplets), perhaps a ‘fallacious’ rhyme marking Antipholus’ error-fraught decision
181 stronger] F3; stranger F 187 SD] Capell subst.
192 entertain … fallacy i.e. treat the error as if it might be true (see OED entertain v. 14b). In Men., Sosicles Menaechmus follows Erotium indoors for the purpose of material gain, ‘booty’ (441).
*the offered F’s ‘the free’d’ may reflect a ‘compositor’s misdivision of the contracted form “thofred” in the copy’ (Cam1).
fallacy delusive notion, error; the condition of being deceived (OED n. 4, first citation); Shakespeare’s only use
194 SD1 Dromio babbles to himself, as implied by his failure to respond to Luciana’s command (193) and by her question, ‘Why prat’st thou to thyself’ (199). Both Syracusans are lost in wonder.
194 beads prayer beads, a rosary, implying that Dromio would repeat ‘Hail Marys’ and ‘Our Fathers’ to ward off evil spirits
cross me cross myself, i.e. make the sign of the cross on my body for its evil-averting power; a reference to Catholic practice
195 fairy land Fairies were thought to possess not only a dark power but a passion and vitality exceeding those of quotidian life (see Lewis, 123–38). Protestant reformers associated fairies and the fairy realm with Catholic superstition: ‘what a world of hel-worke, deuil-worke, and Elue-worke had we walking amongst vs heere in England, what time that popish mist had befogged the eyes of our poore people’ (Harsnett, sig. S3v); see also Woodcock, 9–29.
spite of spites ‘worst of all possible vexations’; spite denotes an outrage, harm or injury, produced by a malignant force (OED n. 1).
196 F’s line, retained here, has been much emended by editors because of its shortness and its reference to owls; see t.n. and LN.
198 breath Demoniacs often experienced breathlessness (see Ewen, 96, 170, 191).
pinch … blue proverbial (Dent, B160). Fairies pinched the lustful or the lazy; see e.g. MW 5.5.45–102. In Tem, Prospero charges his ‘goblins’ to make his enemies ‘pinch-spotted’ (4.1.258–60). For other examples, see Lyly, Endymion, 4.3.33–45 (Ard2); Jonson, Alchemist, 3.5.32, 36; Middleton, The Witch, 1.2.9–10.
pinch This word will be made manifest in Doctor Pinch (4.4), who captures and binds (‘pinches’) Ephesian Antipholus and Dromio.
192 offered] Capell; free’d F; favour’d Rowe3; proffer’d Collier2 (Singer)
; forced Halliwell 194 SD1] Cowden Clarke SD2] Bevington4 subst. (after sinner.) 196 We … and] We talke with Goblins, Owles and Elves F2; We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish Pope; We talk with goblins, ouphs, and elvish Theobald; We talk with goblins, owles, elves, and White; For here we talk with goblins, elves, and Keightley; We talk with fairies, goblins, elves, and Ard1; We talk with goblins, elves and Ard2; We talk with goblins, oafs, and Oxf; We talk with goblins, ouphs, and Cam2a sprites!] Staunton; Sprights; F
199 prat’st See 1.2.101n., on prating; cf. 2.1.80.
200 The line’s first foot is trochaic, with Dromio disyllabic; the second is iambic, with Dromio again disyllabic for a feminine ending (-io) before the epic caesura, a standard variation (Wright, Metrical, 165).
Dromio, thou snail Luciana’s second Dromio turns the name into a representative category (rhetorical diaphora) for an unresponsive and idle servant, possibly joking on the Greek etymology for Dromio’s name: dromeos, a runner (Oxf1; see List of Roles, 5, 6n.). Plautus’ Asinaria contains a play on fast/slow (441), with Dromo as the name of a slow-paying debtor. A model for such etymological irony also occurs in Lyly, Campaspe, 1.22–8. Luciana’s repetition of thou, rhetorical diacope, creates a sense of vehemence.
sot blockhead; drunkard (OED n.1 1, 2); Ephesian Antipholus will use a similar term against Ephesian Dromio at 3.1.10 (see n.).
201–8 On the danger of transformation in Ephesus, see 1.2.97–102 and n.
201 transformed transformèd
201–2 not … 2I a lapse in rhyme pattern
202 art i.e. are transformed
204 ape animal; counterfeit; fool. (1) Dromio imagines himself literally an ape, probably a Barbary ape, ‘the tailless monkey described in ancient Greek proverbs and natural histories as tamable, trainable’ and substitutable for a human (Maisano, 67). In performance, Dromio might pose and gesture as an ape, such acting encouraged by shape (203), which can denote a species’ visible appearance (OED n.1 5a) (Maisano, 68). In Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Mephistophilis turns a servant into an ape for attempting to perform magic, and, like CE, Marlowe rhymes shape and ape (1126–7). (2) Dromio also draws on the meaning of ‘to play the ape’ (OED ape n. 2b, 3), i.e. to imitate or counterfeit reality. In that sense, Dromio implies that he is transformed into a kind of automaton, a magically manipulated counterfeit of himself. Shakespeare invokes the notion of ape as counterfeit elsewhere, e.g. LLL 5.2.325, Cym 2.2.31, WT 5.2.99–100. (3) Finally, ape is a synonym for ‘fool’ (OED 4), a characterization picked up in 205.
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