19 managed managèd
21 us Luciana’s sentiments turn personal.
22 compact of credit composed, made up (OED compact adj.1 2) of trust (OED credit n. 1); cf. MND 5.1.8.
23 i.e. though another woman has your affection, at least show us the appearance of love; continuing Luciana’s false-apparel language. Adriana had earlier fastened on Antipholus’ sleeve; see 2.2.179 (Ard2). Cf. wearing one’s heart upon one’s sleeve (see e.g. Oth 1.1.64), but here the heart would be false. In arm, Williams suspects a phallic innuendo (Glossary, 30, citing TGV 5.4.57, AC 5.2.82).
24 We … turn ‘We turn according to your movements’. In Ptolemaic astronomy, the Prime Mover imparts movement to the concentric celestial spheres and to the planets within them; cf. MND 1.1.193, MV 5.1.61.
move including the sense of ‘affect with emotion’ (OED v. 25b). Luciana’s you, like us and We, hints that she herself is being moved. The second clause in the line repeats the idea of the first (rhetorical tautologia), perhaps to intensify effect.
26 Comfort … cheer … call rhetorical commoratio, an idea repeated in different words; cf. 152 and n., on Go, hie … post; 158 and n.; 4.3.69 and n., on leave … gone. The repetition creates emphasis.
27 vain deceptive (Crystal & Crystal, n. 1); also ‘empty’ (OED adj. 2), as in ‘empty words’ (Ard2); see also 185.
28 flattery probably pronounced ‘flatt’ry’
20 is] are F2 21 women!] Theobald2; women, F but] Theobald; not F 21–2 believe, / Being … credit,] Rowe; beleeue / (Being … credit) F 26 wife] F2; wise F
29 else otherwise
30 wonder miracle (OED n. 2a)
hit of light upon (OED hit v. 12); of sometimes means ‘on’ (Abbott, 175).
31 ‘in your knowledge and your grace you manifest yourself to be not less’
32 our earth’s wonder perhaps Queen Elizabeth (Douce, 226). CE is presumed to have been performed before Elizabeth’s Court on 27 December 1594.
more … divine ‘more divine than is earth’
34 earthy, gross conceit earth-bound, dull (OED gross adj. 13a) understanding (OED conceit n. 2); on conceit, cf. 4.2.64–5 and n., MV 3.4.2–3. The neo-Platonic opposition between fallible, earthly human understanding and the divine soul’s pure truth (37) occurs elsewhere in Shakespeare: e.g. MV 5.1.63–5 (Ard2).
35 Smothered suppressed, covered up (OED v. 3a, first citation)
errors Antipholus’ second reference to error; see 2.2.190 and n. Here errors means mistakes of perception and judgement based on humankind’s inherent limitations (Ard2).
36 folded concealed, i.e. enfolded, enveloped (OED v.1 8a); cf. Luc 675.
37 my … truth ‘my inner knowledge of the uncorrupted truth’ (about whom he loves)
38 it i.e. my soul
wander referring indirectly to errors (35), since Latin errare means to wander; on wander and its recurrence, see 1.2.31 and n.
unknown with perhaps a denial of carnal knowledge (i.e. of Adriana). Shakespeare sometimes uses ‘know’ euphemistically for sexual relations; e.g. AW 5.3.287 (see Williams, Glossary, 179–80); Malcolm claims himself ‘yet / Unknown to woman’ (Mac 4.3.125–6).
39–40 Antipholus now invites the transformation he previously feared; see 1.2.97–102 and n.
39 Would you do you wish to
create me new drawing power from the Pauline vision, emphasized by Protestants, that one can be created anew, reborn, into Christ; see, e.g. Romans, 6.4; Ephesians, 4.22–4.
41 I am I Cf. I am thee (66); ‘Am I Dromio? … Am I myself?’ (72–3); ‘I am not Adriana’ (2.2.118).
29+ SP] (S. Anti., Ant., Anti.) 34 earthy, gross] Riv; earthie grosse F; earthy-gross Cam (Walker, Critical)
42 weeping On Adriana’s crying, see 2.1.114 and n.
43 homage See 2.1.103 and n.; there Adriana uses homage bitterly.
44 Far … 2more rhetorical palilogia, repetition for emotional intensity
decline ‘incline’ (OED v. 4), but with more forcefulness (Ard1); cf. declining, 139 and n.; de- perhaps implies his turning away from Adriana (Ard2).
45–52 The conjoining here of love and water (mermaid, drown, flood, waves, drowned, sink) calls up the play’s extensive water imagery, beginning in the shipwreck story in 1.1 and continuing in the drop-of-water simile (1.2.35–40, 2.2.131–5). That imagery associates the loss of individual identity and the search for a completing other with liquefaction; here, such dissolution of identity facilitates love. Antipholus avoids being drowned in Adriana’s tears but wishes to be consumed in Luciana’s waters. Cf. 169 and n.
45 train ‘entice … into a mistake’, ‘deceive’, ‘lure’ (OED v.1 4); ‘entrap’ (OED v.2 1)
not … note an off-rhyme; each n- word concludes a three-syllable phrase.
mermaid meaning both the beautiful, fish-tailed woman of popular belief and the dangerous siren (see 47) of classical tradition, the latter generally being represented as winged, with a woman’s upper body and bird’s legs (see Homer, Od., 12.165–200, Ovid, Met., 5.551–63). Golding translates Ovid’s ‘Sirenes’ (Met., 5.555) as ‘Meremaides’ (5.689); see also Spenser, FQ, 2.12.30–2. Both mermaids and sirens sang with surpassing sweetness (cf. Luc 1411, VA 777), which lured men to drowning. Shakespeare elsewhere associates mermaids with sirens (e.g. 3H6 3.2.186, VA 777). Steevens quotes Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s The History of the World (1601): ‘Mermaids in Homer were witches, and their songs enchauntments’ (Table to the Second Tome). Antipholus apprehends Luciana as, alternately, a goddess (39) or a destructive temptress (45–6).
note song (OED n.2 6)
46 flood of tears Cf. 2.1.114 and n.
46, 48 tears … hairs a rhyme (Kökeritz, 486)
47 siren See 45n., on mermaid.
48 golden hairs Mermaids had flowing blonde hair. In Golding’s translation of Met., the mermaids/sirens have ‘yellow feathers’ (5.694) (‘flavescere pennis’, Ovid, Met., 5.560). See also 188 and n.
49 *bed F2 corrected F’s ‘bud’ to bed; see 50n.; cf. bed at 17, 43.
take suggesting ‘possess sexually’ (see Williams, Glossary, 301), as at RJ 4.5.10
thee sometimes emended to them (Capell) to refer to Luciana’s hairs (48), a gain in decorousness but a loss of Elizabethan sexual frankness. The coital consummation of die (51) makes most sense with thee.
44 decline] incline Collier2 (Collier, Notes) 46 sister’s] F2 (sisters); sister F 49 bed] F2; bud F; bride Dyce thee] them Capell
50 supposition fancy (OED n. 3b), quibbling on the Latin suppositio, ‘placing underneath’, since, in Antipholus’ fantasy, Luciana would be underneath him. The image reinforces the sexual quibble on die (51) and strengthens the case for F2’s bed (49). The word may also bring to mind Gascoigne’s Supposes (1566), whose action is structured by false suppositions.
51 die experience mortal death, or sexual orgasm (OED v.1 7d); die is sexual slang common in Shakespeare (see Williams, Glossary, 98). Portia promises her tears as ‘the stream / And wat’ry death-bed’ for Bassanio (MV 3.2.46–7).
52 True love will not sink because of its buoyant airiness (cf. ‘love’s light wings’, RJ 2.2.66); if it sinks, it does not deserve to survive (cf. ‘Love is a spirit all compact of fire, / Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire’, VA 149–50). Antipholus’ light (luce in Italian) is associated with ‘Luciana’ (see 56 and List of Roles, 8n.). But light can also mean frivolous, or unchaste (OED adj.1 14a, b), making light love liable to sink for its earthiness. Roberts sees an allusion to the practice of women suspected for witches ‘being swum’: if the woman floated, she was guilty of witchcraft; if she sank, she was innocent (although liable to drown). For Antipholus, if love floats, it would be proved sorcery, associated with lasciviousness (Roberts, ‘Circe’, 197–8). Antipholus’ feelings about Luciana appear conflicted.
dro
wned drownèd
she i.e. love
53–60 stichomythia: see 2.1.10–41n. The intensifying verbal contest will culminate in the shared tripartite line at 60.
53–4 See 4.1.93 and n., on madman.
54 mated a triple pun: (1) overcome (OED mate v.1 1); (2) amazed (OED mated adj.1 1; cf. Mac 5.1.78); and (3) matched, married (OED adj.3 1; cf. 5.1.282).
55 See 56n., on fair sun.
fault defect
56 For from
gazing intent, even rapt, staring (OED gaze v. 1a); used similarly at 57; see 1.1.88n., on gazing. In Shakespeare, gazing often feeds love; e.g. TGV 2.1.43.
fair sun another play on ‘Luciana’ as light (see 52n.). The sunlight brightness of the mistress’s eyes is a sonnet convention: ‘a bright light burned unmeasured in her eyes / … a spirit all celestial, a living sun / was what I saw’ (Petrarch, 90.3–13). In the poetic commonplace, the mistress’s eyes incite love (sight being the most intense of the senses); see e.g. Helena on Hermia’s eyes, MND 1.1.183, 230; 2.2.91–2. The image grew so clichéd that Shakespeare mocked it: ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’ (Son 130.1); cf. 102–49 and n.
by nearby
52 she] he Rowe 53+ SP] (Luc.)
57 gaze See 56n., and 1.1.88n., on gazing.
58 wink close my eyes (OED v.1 1a). Antipholus means that closing his eyes and missing Luciana’s sunlight are the same as looking into the night.
night meaning perhaps Adriana, in opposition to Luciana as sun (56) (Oxf1)
60 That’s The antecedent is love (59).
61 better part i.e. soul; cf. 2.2.129 and n. Antipholus employs (here and at 64) language picked up from Adriana in 2.2 (see 2.2.127–9n.); he is still caught up in the heightened suggestiveness, or ‘enchantment’, created in that scene.
62 Cf. ‘The clear eye’s moiety and the dear heart’s part’ (Son 46.12) (Ard2).
63 aim object, target
64 my heaven’s claim ‘my claim to heaven’, i.e. my salvation; see 79 and n., on claims.
66 for … thee Although F’s I am thee has sometimes been emended, it squares with Antipholus’ previous declarations and imitates Adriana’s similar claim of identity with her husband (cf. 2.2.125–52 and n.). Antipholus may mean that, because he is united with Luciana, she should call herself the sister-wife referred to in 65. The line is hardly clear. Cf. 41 and n.
66–7 thee. / Thee rhetorical anadiplosis, repetition of a word from the end of a previous line in the beginning of the next. In the second part of 66 and in 67, thee appears three times: as a predicate nominative, a direct object and an indirect object.
57 where] Rowe3; when F 59 ‘love’] Theobald subst., Wells; loue F 60–1] Pope; F lines sister. / sister. / part: / 66 thyself ‘sister’, sweet,] Folg2; thy selfe sister sweet, F; thy self, sister sweet; F4; thy self Sister, Sweet; Rowe3 am] mean Rowe3; aim Capell; claim (Cuningham)
68 nor I no The double negative heightens emphasis (Blake, 6.2.3.1); see also no at 4.2.7.
69 SD *Antipholus attempts physically to take Luciana’s hand, as his ‘Give me thy hand’ (a binding offer of marriage) and Luciana’s reaction in the second part of the line indicate.
70 good will favourable regard (OED goodwill n. 2); approval (Cam2); perhaps hinting unconsciously that she is weakening towards Antipholus’ advances (Wells)
71–7 These lines of alternating verse and prose provide a transition from the lyricism of the Antipholus–Luciana interlude to the bawdy prose satire of the Antipholus–Dromio exchange about Nell the kitchen wench. Dromio’s comic vision infiltrates and usurps the episode in style and tone. Although F sets all the lines as verse, the present edition treats Dromio’s speeches as prose because they seem too varied in number of syllables, too rhythmically irregular and too devoid of alliteration for tumbling verse (see 3.1.11–85n.). The speeches through to 93 employ rhyming or repeated end-words, mixing the sense of prose and poetry; their monosyllabic, short-phrased, urgent bursts of imagery displace Antipholus’ love-fantasy in favour of Dromio’s fantasticality.
73 Am I myself Cf. 41 and n.
74 perhaps with Thou art and 1thou art elided
75–149 Dromio’s experience mirrors parodically that of Antipholus. Both Syracusans are claimed by women; undergo challenges to their identity; wonder if they are transformed. Nonetheless, Antipholus enters pursuing Luciana, while Dromio arrives fleeing Nell, so that the scene divides and caricatures male responses to women. To Antipholus, Luciana is a romance goddess, yet potentially a dangerous siren. To Dromio, Nell is a nightmare version of the possessive, domineering woman, whose gigantism reflects her capacity to devour him. Nell functions as a comic inversion of Luciana and a displaced representation of Adriana. Antipholus and Dromio fear being ‘possessed’ in multiple ways; see e.g. haunts (79).
69 SD] this edn 70.1 OF SYRACUSE] Rowe; Siracusia F running] Collier2 72+ SP] (S. Dro., Dro.) 72–3] Rowe3; verse F 75–6] Rowe3; verse F
75 ass See 2.2.205n.
76 besides myself out of my wits (besides = beside) (OED beside prep. 5a); see 4.1.93 and n.; cf. e.g. 1H4 3.1.177.
78 besides myself ‘in addition to belonging to myself’
79 claims Cf. claim at 64; either asserts a right to (marry) (OED claim v. 3), or asserts possession of (by marriage) (OED 2a); cf. 4.1.110, 4.4.156 and n.
haunts pursues (see OED haunt v. 4); also ‘molests [me] as a supernatural being’ (OED 5b)
80, 84 have suggesting sexual possession (Wells); cf. lust in Son 129.10 as ‘Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme’. See Williams, Glossary, 153.
81, 85 lays possibly punning on ‘lay’ as ‘have sexual intercourse with’ (see Williams, Glossary, 183)
84–6 not … me Dromio’s need to differentiate between two meanings suggests that ‘have me as a beast’ might provoke ribald audience laughter and then require clarification. Ard1 sees a pun on a beast and ‘abased’ (citing W.J. Craig); for other examples, see 2H4 2.1.37–8, Tim 4.3.325.
88 reverend worthy of great respect (OED adj. 1a), applied ironically to Nell’s body. Cf. 5.1.5, 124 and n., 134.
89 without unless (OED conj. 2)
90 sir-reverence ‘with all respect’ (OED n. 1b), a contracted version of the deferential ‘saving your reverence’, or ‘save-reverence’ (Boswell–Malone), with Nell masculinized in sir. The contraction sometimes occurs as an apologetic formula in relation to excrement (OED 2); cf. RJ 1.4.41–2 (Ard2).
lean poor, meagre (OED adj. 2), playing against fat (91)
91 fat obese; also abundant (OED adj. 10)
82 such] such a Theobald2 88 reverend] (reuerent) ay] (I) 90 ‘sir-reverence’] Dyce2; sir reuerence F; sir-reverence Capell
94–5 kitchen wench Cf. ‘kitchen-maid’, 4.4.75 and n.
95 grease animal fat for cooking; body fat (OED n. 1a); perspiration (Crystal & Crystal, n.) (cf. MW 3.5.113–14); also punning on ‘grace’ (Cam1) and pronounced the same (Kökeritz, 110)
96 lamp in contrast to Luciana as sun (56)
97 rags ragged clothes (Folg2)
tallow animal fat (used for making candles)
98 a Poland winter i.e. for a very long time, as in the long, dark span of a northern European winter
98–100 If … world At doomsday the world will be consumed by fire; cf. 2 Peter, 3.12, 7 (Shaheen, 110). Dromio’s doomsday subtly recalls Egeon’s doom at 1.1.2; see also 154.
99 week possibly punning on the homonymic ‘wick’ (Ard1; Kökeritz, 153; although Cercignani questions, 150)
101 complexion Antipholus probably means temperament (OED n. 1) (cf. TN 2.5.26), but Dromio (102) understands skin colour (OED n. 4a).
102–49 Dromio’s virtuosic catalogue of Nell’s properties parodies Antipholus’ rhapsodizing of Luciana and the blazoning typical of Elizabethan Petrarchan love sonnets (see 56n., on fair s
un; cf. Petrarch, Canzoniere, 157; Sidney, A&S, 9; Spenser, FQ, 2.3.22–6). In response to Antipholus’ catechism-like questions, Dromio anatomizes the woman into descriptive properties, but does so in a burlesque, anti-Petrarchan spirit (cf. Donne, ‘Elegy 14: The Comparison’). This set-piece is typically a highpoint in theatrical productions. For comic prototypes, see e.g. Launce’s itemizing in TGV 3.1.274–370 (Cam1); Licio’s inventory of Celia in Lyly’s Midas, 1.2.30–85 (Ard2).
102 Swart black or dark brown (OED adj. 1a, b); cf. Son 28.11; sometimes used for blackamoors and fairies: ‘No goblin or swart Faëry of the mine’ (Milton, Comus, 436) (Steevens4)
104 overshoes shoe-deep (cf. TGV 1.1.24); the image is proverbial (Dent, S380).
grime soot, coal-dust deposited on the skin (OED n.), from working in the smoky kitchen
106 mend amend, put right; also at 2.2.110
92–3 ‘fat marriage’] Folg2 (Dyce subst.); fat marriage F 103 sweats;] Knight; sweats F
107 in grain dyed fast, indelible (OED grain n.1 10c); cf. TN 1.5.237–8; see 5.1.311 and n.
107–8 Noah’s … it Noah’s flood was the biblical anticipation of baptism; thus, Dromio alludes to the water of baptism that mends the fault of original sin (cf. Mac 2.2.64). God flooded the earth to cleanse it of sinful man, with only Noah, the lone righteous man, and his family allowed to live; see Genesis, 6.9–9.17. Dromio perpetuates the play’s water and sea imagery.
110 Nell Nell the ‘kitchen wench’ (94–5) is probably the same character as Luce, introduced at 3.1.47.1 (see n.), later recalled as the railing ‘kitchen-maid’ (4.4.75) and alluded to as the ‘fat friend’ (5.1.414). Concerning the inconsistency in names, Dromio may use Nell generically, as he later does ‘Dowsabel’ (4.1.110), or perhaps Shakespeare simply renamed her, not wanting to repeat Luce as too close to Luciana and wishing to pun on Nell.
The Comedy of Errors Page 36
