34 buttoned … steel more realistic imagery: Fennor refers to ‘peuterbuttond, shoulderclapping Catch-poles’ (sig. B1v); steel may function as a metonymy for the hardness (like armour) of the Officer’s leather coat and, by extension, of the Officer himself; see heart of steel (3.2.150); cf. ‘As hard as steel’ (Dent, S839). Hutton’s Black Dog of Newgate has a ‘hart of hardest Steele’ (sig. B3v); see 32–40n. Cf. 3.2.150 and n.
35 A fiend … fairy Fairies in popular tradition were demonic and dangerous, despite the mere prankishness attributed to Robin Goodfellow (see MND). In some accounts, fairies had the power to possess and even abduct people (Latham, 163; see Lewis, 122–38). Falstaff fears destruction from fairies (MW 5.5.47–8). See also 55n.
36 wolf See 32–40n.
buff a stout leather typically made of oxhide (or calf’s skin, 4.3.18), oiled, with a fuzzy surface, and dull whitish-yellow in colour; worn as protection by sergeants and catchpoles (see OED n.2 2b); also at 45. Soldiers also wore buff; see 4.3.28n.
33 him] him fell Collier2; opp. him … Keightley; him by the heel Ard1 (Spedding, per Ard1) 34 One] (On) 35 fairy] fury Pope2 (Theobald)
37–40 hexameters
37 backfriend secret enemy, false friend (OED n. 1), here a ‘friend’ who, like a bailiff, approaches one from behind
shoulder-clapper The Officer ‘claps’ (seizes or ‘strikes’: OED clap v.1 6) his victim from behind on the ‘shoulder’ (OED shoulder n. C3, only citation) (see 32–40n.). Greene describes a sergeant as wearing down his ‘mace’ (his staff of office) from shoulder-clapping, i.e. tapping the mace on the victim’s shoulder (see OED mace n.1 1, 2); cf. 4.3.27 and n. Shoulder-clapping was a signature action of the bailiff: Fennor refers to ‘that long suspected blow vpon their [i.e. debtors’] shoulders’ (sig. A3v; see also 34n.).
countermands gives command against (OED v. 6, first citation); thus, countermands / The passages means ‘prohibits from using the passageways’. The Officer prevents his quarry from escaping into the labyrinthine byways of the city and, instead, commands him to the ‘counter’. ‘Counter’ (or ‘compter’) was a term for a debtors’ prison (or dungeon); there were several in and around London, including Southwark (OED n.3 7), Wood Street and the Poultry; see also 39n., on runs … well.
38 creeks narrow or winding passageways penetrating the interiors of places and passing out of sight, as in a labyrinth (OED n.1 5)
narrow lands a puzzling phrase. Fc’s ‘lands’ is a correction of ‘lans’. In the best explanation to date, Steggle argues that ‘narrow lands’ invokes the image of an isthmus, a narrow passageway. He further notes that an area known as Alsatia (including Ram Alley) in the Inns of Court district enjoyed legal status as a sanctuary from arrest for debt (see also Sugden, 14, 426), a status also claimed for the area around Gray’s Inn. Dromio’s allusion, then, may be to the sergeant attempting to prevent debtors from escaping into such sanctuary passageways (the gloss is partially anticipated by Ard1).
39 hound The association of sergeants and bailiffs with dogs (particularly bloodhounds) was common: e.g. ‘a brace of Bandogs … came snarling behind me, and fastened on my shoulder’ (Fennor, sig. B1v); see also 32–40n. Later, the sergeant becomes a horse; see 4.3.25 and n., on sob.
runs … well Two contradictory meanings seem to be in play. The hound (i.e. hunting dog) runs counter in that it follows the scent mistakenly, in the direction opposite to that taken by the prey (OED counter adv. 1), with a quibble on counter as the jail towards which the Officer hastens his victim (see 37n., on countermands). However (and yet), the hound (or Officer) also tracks game (OED draw v. 74a) well by the mere scent of the foot (OED dry-foot adv. 2, first citation) (see also Shakespeare’s England, 2.336). On the primary level, the second image of effectiveness appears to cancel out the first of errancy, unless the hound, by pursuing its quarry in the wrong direction, picks up the right trail. On the secondary level, the Officer both runs victims to the Counter prison and tracks others relentlessly.
38 lands] Fc; lans Fu; launds Oxf; lanes (Grey)
40 One i.e. the Officer, as at 34. Since One incorporates hound (39), the line may allude to urban legend, such as of the ‘Black Dog of Newgate’, a phantom beast that terrified prisoners and harried condemned men to the gallows (see Hutton). Hutton likened the Black Dog to Cerberus, the many-headed dog in Greek mythology that guards the gates of Hades (sig. B3r).
Judgement both legalistic and theological. In Hutton, ‘Iudgment’ refers to the condemnation of Newgate prisoners to death (sig. C3v). Judgement recalls the medieval morality-play tradition, e.g. in Everyman, where Death comes as an arresting officer (‘every man I reste’, 116) requiring a ‘rekeninge’ (106). The morality-play devil sometimes carries his victim offstage to hell. Richard Willis, a contemporary of Shakespeare, recalls seeing as a boy a morality play in which an officer with a mace acted as a nightmarish figure of divine judgement (see Bishop, 69–70).
hell another cant term for prison, especially debtors’ prison (OED n. 5); also the theological place of final torment; cf. Tartar limbo (32). OED (n. 4) cites Fuller’s Worthies of England (1662): ‘There is a place partly under, partly by the Exchequer Court commonly called Hell; … formerly this place was appointed a prison for the Kings debtors, who never were freed thence, untill they had paid their uttermost due demanded of them’ (2.236). Fuller also alludes to the proverb ‘There is no redemption from Hell’ (see Tilley, R60). Dromio plays upon the proverb in his request for Antipholus’ redemption (46).
41, 42 matter Dromio misunderstands Adriana’s question, ‘what’s wrong’ (41), for ‘what’s the legal issue’ (42).
42, 45 ’rested arrested; ‘’rest’ is an aphetic form of ‘arrest’ (OED rest v.2); also at 4.4.3. That form morphs into Dromio’s pun at 4.3.25.
42 on the case on an action in law for damage between individuals (OED case n.1 P8). Dromio may also pun on case as suit of clothes (OED n.2 7a) (Malone); the Officer arrests Antipholus by laying hand on his clothing. That conjunction of legal case and apparel may be reiterated by Dromio in the next scene; see 4.3.13–14 and n. As a legal phrase, on the case refers to a form of common-law suit between private parties, developed, by analogy with trespass, to facilitate legal actions that lacked any prescribed ways to proceed; such litigations became known in abbreviated form as ‘actions on the case’ (Shakespeare’s England, 1.390). Dromio’s on the case echoes Adriana’s in this case (5).
43 What … arrested? Adriana is baffled by Dromio’s fantastical, quibble-drenched talk (32–40).
44 well modifying know; placed for the rhyme with 45, well/tell
41] verse as Munro 42, 45 ’rested] (rested) 44–6] Capell; prose F
45–6 Dromio shifts into tumbling verse.
45 is he is (see Blake, 6.3.1); the context implies the subject.
buff See 36n., on buff; see also 4.3.23 and n.
which who
46 mistress, redemption with redemption in apposition to money, since Dromio is playing upon, and reversing, the proverb ‘There is no redemption from Hell’ (see 40n., on hell). F4 emended to ‘Mistress Redemption’, as if Dromio were so addressing Adriana, making for a contrast to Mistress Satan at 4.3.50.
47 SD *Exit Luciana In F, this SD occupies a separate line after a full stop at at (47). Here the SD is relocated to immediately after Adriana’s ‘Go, fetch it, sister’, leaving Adriana to address her expression of ‘wonder’ to herself or to Dromio and making her This (47) refer to the relative clause begun by That (48; an F2 emendation for F’s ‘Thus’).
49 band i.e. bond (OED n.1 10), a written obligation of debt; also a common neck ornament worn by gentlemen; also at 4.3.31, 33. Thus, band introduces the secondary image of a fabric neck-cloth (Steevens) or ruff (Crystal & Crystal, band n. 6) and sets up Dromio’s asseveration (at 50) that a chain is stronger than a mere band. Here and subsequently, Dromio’s agitation shows itself in quibb
les.
50–1 2on … 1chain perhaps punning on ‘for a chain’ and ‘attached by a chain’ (e.g. handcuffs)
51 Dromio’s repetition of chain makes the word chime like a bell or clock, thus confusing Adriana with his question. When Dromio says chain, a bell (the priory bell, for example (Cam2)) might be sounded offstage. Adriana may mishear chain for ‘chime’ (although Kökeritz records no rhyme of these two words). The clock-like chiming of chain ties it to the motif of time, as it had earlier been tied to the motif of debt (as in 4.1) (O’Donnell, 416). Ringing, ring and chain will be again associated at 4.3.78 (see n.). Although Dromio was not present when the debt for the chain was mentioned, the audience assumes his knowledge.
52 Combined, these two speeches constitute a 13-syllable verse line parallel to, and rhyming with, 53. From here to 61, the lines vary in form (tumbling verse, hexameter, pentameter), perhaps underlining their speakers’ agitation.
46 him, mistress, redemption] Theobald2; him Mistris redemption F; him Mistris Redemption F4 redemption–] Wells; redemption, F 47 SD] Cam subst.; opp. at. F with the key] this edn at,] Rowe; at. F 48 That] F2; Thus F 51 chain–] Dyce2 subst.; chaine, F 51, 54 hear] (here)
53 one Though F reads one, Dromio means ‘on’ (i.e. onward). ‘On’ and ‘one’ were Elizabethan near-homonyms, both probably sounded as un (Kökeritz, 132; Cercignani, 41; see e.g. TGV 2.1.1–2); F spells One as ‘On’ at 34 (see t.n. and OED on prep.). Thus, Adriana hears one confusedly and wonders whether the clock is striking backwards (54), one o’clock, since Dromio had said that it was two o’clock when he left Antipholus. For a similar pun, see ‘Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on’ (1H6 1.2.42). The large clock in Theodore Komisarjevsky’s production (1938) turned itself an hour back at this point, heightening the play-world’s fantasticality.
54 hours F4 inserted an apostrophe, ‘hour’s’ (i.e. ‘hour is’), making Adriana’s reference concrete and drawing attention to F’s more generalizing statement, which may allude obliquely to the sense of recurrence in farce.
That primarily, the sound of the clock striking one; secondarily, the idea of time running in reverse
55 i.e. a sergeant is so terrifying that he could frighten time, or the clock (hour), into moving backwards. That would especially be so if the sergeant is a devil (33) or fairy (35). Additionally, hour probably involves a pun on ‘ower’ (debtor) or ‘whore’; see also hour at 61. See LN, and cf. 2.2.29 and n., on hours.
55, 60 sergeant judicial officer charged with the arrest of offenders (OED n. 4a; see also 7b); cf. 4.3.31 and n. Cf. 4.1.6n., on officer.
55 ’a he, i.e. the hour
56 Although one can be in debt to time or to nature (cf. the proverb ‘To pay one’s debt to nature’, Dent, D168), it is nonsensical, Adriana claims, to imagine time itself being in debt. In 55, Dromio seems to have reversed a principle of nature; he had previously reversed an eschatological one in denying redemption from hell (46). Adriana has momentarily entertained the image of time running in reverse (54). A sense of topsy-turvydom, of inversion of normal laws and principles, is infecting Ephesus.
fondly foolishly
54 hours] (houres); hour’s F4 55 ’a] it Pope; he Capell 56 debt? … reason!] this edn; debt: … reason? F
57 The line is puzzling; Slights glosses, ‘Time … is bankrupt because it is indebted to season (i.e. the occasions appointed by people for certain purposes) for more worth or value than it intrinsically has’ (24); i.e. season confers value greater than that possessed by mere time (cf. 1.2.68 and n., on out of season; 2.2.47 and n.; also 2.2.67n. and the wit-debate about time in 2.2). For Dromio, the significant occasion is Antipholus’ arrest, an event with more significance or value than that possessed by undifferentiated time; thus, the value presumed by Time is actually owed to occasion. But this, like other glosses for the line, strains to make sense. Dromio’s rapid-fire patter and mental leaps appear meaningful but are difficult to comprehend.
bankrupt F’s spelling, ‘bankerout’, may have been pronounced as three syllables (not discussed by Kökeritz); ‘bankerout’ derives from French banqueroute.
58–61 say … day … way … day a quadruple rhyme, concluding the scene’s intermittent couplets
58–9 Time is a thief because it moves forward stealthily as well as inexorably (by night and day). Dromio may be alluding to the proverb ‘Time steals’ (Dent, T334.1); cf. ‘Take Time when time comes lest time steal away’ (Tilley, T313) (Ard2).
60–1 Time will turn itself back (by an hour) to avoid being apprehended by a sergeant for theft and debt. Dromio offers a superficially rational proposition fashioned out of pun and metaphor. No wonder Adriana does not answer him.
60 ’a he (i.e. Time)
in … theft in debt and guilty of theft
61 hour See 55n.
61.1 *with the purse A purse is a common property on the Renaissance stage (Dessen & Thomson, 173); Ephesian Antipholus had asked for a purse of ducats (4.1.105) and will later complain that Adriana has denied him the bag of gold (4.4.97). Accordingly, the ‘Nursery’ Prompt-book employs a purse (rather than loose money, 62) as the suitable property here (Evans, 3.1.20).
62–5 See 1–6n., 3.2.1–52n.
62 there’s the money Luciana might hand the purse either to Dromio directly or to Adriana, who gives it to Dromio. The latter possibility underscores Adriana’s authority and follows in reverse the movement of the key (see 29n., on Here).
62–5 straight … injury The scene ends, as it began, with a quatrain of alternating end-rhymes; on straight/conceit, see Kökeritz, 198; on straight, see 1.1.86n.
57 bankrupt] (bankerout) 60 ’a] Staunton; I F; Time Rowe; he Malone 61.1 with the purse] Dyce 62–5] alternating indentation as Capell 62 SP] Luc. F3 SD] this edn
64–5 I … injury Adriana feels burdened (pressed down) by the imaginative part of her mind. She takes comfort from her ability to imagine hopefully (cf. 25), while she feels injury from her suspicions and doubts about Antipholus, established at the scene’s opening. By conceit she means both fanciful conception, i.e. imagining, and imagination as an attribute or faculty (OED n. 7a, b); a common term in Shakespeare; cf. 3.2.34 and n. That Adriana now lives in her conceit suggests how much events are being transformed by the characters’ imaginations.
4.3 The location is presumably the mart, although, again, exactitude is not essential.
0.1 *with the chain Antipholus might wear the chain, carry it or otherwise display it, signifying his good fortune. It will become evidence for the Courtesan in deducing Antipholus’ madness (85–8); also at 5.1.8.1 (see n.).
1–11 Antipholus echoes the musings of Men.’s traveller Menaechmus, to whom a series of ‘strange things’ (‘mira’) have been happening ‘in strange ways’ (‘miris modis’, 1039); see Men., 1039–48. (The Latin mirus includes the senses of ‘astonishing’ and ‘wondrous’.)
4–6 Some rhetorical anaphora; see 2.2.120–4 and n.
4 tender offer under formal and legal terms (OED v.1 1a). The word hints at Ephesian geniality, and behind it the mercantile, contractual Ephesian world that has ensnared his twin.
5 other others. Indefinite pronouns could be used as singular or plural (Blake, 3.3.2.7).
7 Even perhaps pronounced ‘e’en’
8 silks eastern luxury commodity, evocative of Elizabethan London. English imports of Mediterranean raw silk increased dramatically during the last third of the 16th century. London (especially Cheapside) was becoming notable for its dyeing, finishing and retailing of silk cloth (Jack, 106–7; Clay, 2.20, 39; Peck, 225).
63 SD Exit Dromio] Cam1 subst. with the purse] this edn 65 SD] Rowe; Exit. F 4.3] Capell (SCENE III.) (Theobald subst.) 0.1 OF SYRACUSE] Rowe; Siracusian F with the chain] this edn; wearing the chain / Collier2 1+ SP] F2 subst.; not in F
10 imaginary wiles deceitful tricks of the imagination
, illusions
11 Lapland sorcerers Lapland was famous for witches (see OED n. b). ‘For practise of witchcraft and sorcery’, the Lapps ‘passe all nations in the world’ (Fletcher, sig. L5r).
13 here’s the gold The converse of 1.2.54, where Antipholus demanded to know the whereabouts of his gold and the other Dromio expressed bafflement, as Antipholus does here (15).
13–14 What … new-apparelled a perplexing line. Dromio is surprised at Antipholus’ freedom from the Officer. He jokes by applying old Adam, a proverbial image of fallen man, to the officer of the law (Dent, A29) (Cam2a). But new-apparelled makes for difficulty. (1) If it alludes to suit (4.2.43–5) in both its sartorial and legal senses, then Dromio may be asking whether Antipholus has found a new victim/legal case (‘suit’) for the Officer, i.e. got rid of him (Singer) (on ‘case’, see 4.2.42n.); cf. 26n. (2) Instead of the victim, new-apparelled may describe the pursuer: ‘Do you have with you the Officer, who appears clothed like Adam after the Fall?’, referring to biblical Adam’s picture or image in his post-Edenic clothing, and perhaps to a real picture (Douce). When casting Adam out of Eden, God dressed him in ‘garmentes of skinnes’ (Genesis, 3.21), recalled to Dromio by the Officer’s coat of calf’s skin (18) or buff (4.2.36 and n., on buff). On old and new Adam in the New Testament, see 14 LN.
16–33 Adam … that Dromio’s repetitions of proper noun or pronoun + relative pronoun–Adam that (16, 17), he that (17, 19, 22–3, 26, 32), the man … that (23–4), he … that (25), one that (33)–give an incantatory rhythm to his speeches and constitute rhetorical anaphora; see also 2.2.121–4 and n.
16–17 kept the paradise ‘And the Lord God toke the man, and put hym in the garden of Eden, that he myght worke it, and kepe it’ (Genesis, 2.15); paradise may also be an allusion to a London inn or even room or chamber (Wells) (see OED n. 4b), although no such locale has been found.
17–18 he … Prodigal The Officer’s calf’s skin coat reminds Dromio of the fatted calf killed to celebrate the return home of the Prodigal Son, who had squandered his inheritance (Luke, 15.23). Here the ‘prodigal’, i.e. spendthrift, is being arrested by an officer wearing a coat associated with prodigality. The prodigal story was a recurrent metaphor related to debt (see e.g. MV 1.1.128–30); Fennor mentions it adorning a wall in a debtors’ prison (sig. B3r). Further associations may be in play. In KJ, ‘calve’s-skin’ is treated as the clothing of the traditional fool (KJ 3.1.129). Var. KJ also notes calf’s skin’s association with dastardy and cowardice (3.1.59n.). See 4.2.36 and n., on buff.
The Comedy of Errors Page 39
