And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
And thereupon these Errors rare arose.8

Το

Ant. E. These ducats pawn I for my father here.
Duke. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.

Cour. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.

Ant. E. There, take it; and much thanks for my good cheer. Abb. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains

go with us unto the abbey here,

And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes :-
And all that are assembled in this place,
That by this sympathised one day's error
Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
And we shall make full satisfaction.—
Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons; nor till this present hour
My heavy burdens are delivered: 10

The duke, my husband, and my children both,
the calendars of their nativity,

And you

Go to a gossip's feast, and joy with me ;

After so long grief, such festivity! 11

Duke. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.

[Exeunt Duke, Abbess, ÆGEON, Courtezan, Merchant, ANGELO, and Attendants.

Dro. S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard ? Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd? Dro. S. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. Ant. S. He speaks to me; I am your master, Dromio. Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon:

Embrace thy brother there, rejoice with him.

[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS S. and E., ADR., and Luc.

Dro. S. There is a fat friend at your master's house,

That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;

She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

Dro. E. Methinks, you are my glass, and not my brother.

I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.

Will you walk in to see their gossiping?

Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.

Dro. E. That's a question: how shall we try it ?

Dro. S. We'll draw cuts for the senior: till then, lead thou

first.

Dro. E. Nay, then thus:

We came into the world like brother and brother;

And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. [Exeunt.

NOTES

TO

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT I.

1 A poor mean woman was delivered. The epithet poor in this line was added in the second folio, seemingly to complete the metre. Many other similar small corrections were made.

2 My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care. The poet seems to have forgotten that Ægeon had previously stated that his wife took care of the youngest son, while he had been like heedful of the other.'

ACT II.

1 Stale-pretence, as in The Tempest, IV. 1, or out of date and esteem, as in Cymbeline, III. 4.

2 Your sauciness will jet upon my love.

The folio has it 'jests upon my love.' We agree with Mr Dyce in thinking that the poet wrote 'jet' in this passage, as in Richard III., Act II. SC. 4

Insulting tyranny begins to jet

Upon the innocent and aweless throne.

In Titus Andronicus, also, we read, 'to jet upon a prince's right.'

3 I must get a sconce for my head. The sconce was also a term for a small fortification. Hence Dromio's pun.

4 Tiring; trying in the folio. Pope made the correction. Mr Dyce proposes trimming.

5 And shrive you; I will hear your confession, and make you explainable.

ACT III.

1 Carcanet, a necklace, or chain hanging from the neck.

2 Mome-dull stupid blockhead, a stock, or post.

3 Patch, a fool or jester.

4 We shall part with neither; that is, we shall depart without either. 5 The doors are made against you; the doors are barred, or made fast

against you.

6 Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous. The folio has ruinate,' but this destroys the rhyme which the poet evidently intended. Theobald and Malone added the word 'hate' to the second line of the quatrain, that it might rhyme with 'ruinate,' but the substitution of 'ruinous' for ruinate,' suggested by Capell, is a much simpler alteration, and more likely to be the true reading.

7 Being compact of credit-being disposed to credit anything, credulous. 8 Decline-incline.

9 And as a bride I'll take thee. The folio has bud-an obvious misprint. 'Bride' is the reading adopted by Dyce and Staunton, and it appears to be at once correct and poetical.

10 Sir reverence. A contraction for 'Save your reverence,' somewhat equivalent to 'By your leave.'

11 Making war against her heir. In the second folio, hair. This appears to be a punning allusion to the War of the League-the war against Henry of Navarre, the heir of Henry III., 1589–93. See Introduction.

ACT IV.

1 Perchance I will be there as soon as you.

I will, instead of I shall, is a Scotticism,' says Douce. In modern phraseology it is so esteemed; but Malone more correctly styles it, 'an ancient Anglicism.' In the time of Shakespeare, and much later, will and shall were used indiscriminately.

2 Tilting-contending, as meteors appear to do in the sky.

3 Stigmatical-stigmatised by nature, deformed in his appearance. 4 Arrested on a band. A bond was anciently written band; a band is also a neckcloth or stock, and Dromio puns upon the word.

5 Mistress, respice finem, respect your end; or rather the prophecy, like the parrot, "Beware the rope's end."'

As for prophesying like the parrot, this alludes to people's teaching that bird unlucky words; with which, when any passenger was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say: "Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies.' To this Butler hints when, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says:

Could tell what subtlest parrots mean

That speak and think contrary clean,
What member 'tis of whom they talk,

When they cry rope, and walk, knave, walk.'—WARBURTON.

Did this companion-did this fellow; the word companion being in Shakespeare's time a term of contempt, in the modern sense of fellow. 7 Away, to get our stuff aboard-stuff implying what we now call luggage.

ACT V.

1' But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair;
And at her heels a huge infectious troop

Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?

Here melancholy is in the male gender (kinsman), yet in the next line we have 'at her heels.' To explain this, it is proposed to take kinsman as neutral, the same as akin, or to substitute their for her. As the metre of the first of these lines is defective, Mr Dyce thinks some word has dropt out.

2 The place of death and sorry execution. In the folio, 'The place of depth,' an evident error. Rowe made the amendment.

3 Fools were shaved, and their hair notched or nicked, in a grotesque

manner.

4 To scotch your face, and to disfigure you. The folio has 'scorch your face.' Warburton suggested scotch, which is undoubtedly a better reading. The well-known line in Macbeth:

"We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it,'

is given in the folio with scorch'd-evidently a misprint.

5 Harlot was a term of reproach applied at that time to cheats among men, as well as to women of light manners. The original meaning of the word was a servant, a hireling; and its progress has always been downwards.

6 Advised-advisedly, with reflection.

7 Besides his urging of his wreck at sea. The folio has her urging of