The Comedy of Errors: my dear heart's dearer heart; sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow

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The Comedy of Errors

     Although a comedy of mistaken identity of two identical twins, my attention is focused on more important themes, such as Shakespeare’s humorous comments on baldness (“a bald conclusion”), and Dromio’s anguish at being pursued by a woman that he wants to literally run away from  (“she is spherical, like a globe”).  Thrown in, of course, are insightful comments about marriage (the neglected wife ‘starve for a merry look’), spirituality (“teach sin the carriage of a holy saint”), jealousy, sadness, angry epithets, and doctors (“you are a conjurer”).   

     But the ultimate, and penultimate, touching themes that I always gravitate to are the passage of time as we age (that time of “sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow” …”Yet hath my night of life some memory”), and professions of deep felt love as Antipholus proclaims his love of Katherine, “my dear heart’s dearer heart.”  I read this amorous poetry, so radiant and heart-felt, and I think that such professions could not be more beautiful…until I read another of his plays. 

Quotes:

Note: There are several times when Shakespeare uses an “a,a” “b,b” rhyme scheme. (Act II, Scene 1, Act III, Scene 1)

(marriage)

“Whilst at home starve for a merry look.

Hath homely age th’ alluring beauty took

From my poor cheek?  Then he hath wasted it.

Are my discourses dull?  Barren of wit?

…My decayed fair a sunny look of his would soon repair.”

     Adriana, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus; speaking of his inattention.  2.2.93-104

“Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.”  Luciana.  3.2.16

“There’s a time for all things.”  Antipholus of Syracuse.  2.2.72

(baldness)

“…the plain bald pate of Father Time himself.”  Dromio of Syracuse.  2.2.77

“There’s no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.”  Dromio of Syracuse.  2.2.79-80

“what he has scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.”  Dromio of Syracuse.  2.2.88-89

“thou didst conclude hairy men plane dealers without wit.”  Antipholus of Syracuse.  2.2.93-94

“Time himself is bald and therefore, to the world’s end, will have bald followers.”  Dromio of Syracuse.   “twould be a bald conclusion.”  Antipholus.   2.2.115-119

(love)

“That never words were music to thine ear,

That never object pleasing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet-savored in they taste,

Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.”

  Adriana.  2.2.124-129

“For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall

A drop of water in the breaking gulf,

And take unmingled thence that drop again

Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyself and not me too.” 

     Ardiana to her husband.  2.2.136-140

“It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,

Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,

My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,

My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.” 

     Antipholus of Syracuse,speaking to the woman he loves, Luciana.  3.2.65-69

“she’s the kitchen wench, and all grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.”  Dromio of Syracuse, about a servant who is in love with him.  3.2.102-109

“No longer from her head to foot than from hip to hip.  She is spherical, like a globe.  I could find out countries in her.”

“In what part of her body stands Ireland?”

“Marry, sir, in her buttocks…”  Dromio to Antipholus of Syracuse.  3.2. 124-129

“As from a bear a man would run for life,

So fly I from her that would be my wife.”  Dromio.  3.2.171-172

"He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,

Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere,

Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,

Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.”  Adriana.  4.2.21-24

 

“Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;

Establish him in his true sense again.”  Adriana.  4.4.51-52

“Hath he lost much wealth by wrack of sea?

Buried some dear friend?  Hath  not else his eye

Strayed his affection in unlawful love,

A sin prevailing much in youthful men

Who give their eyes liberty to gazing?

Which of these sorrows is he subject to?”  The Abbess trying to explain Antipholus’ sadness.  5.1.51-54

“The venom clamors of a jealous woman

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.”  Abbess.  5.1.71-72

“In seven short years that here my only son

Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares?

Though now this grained face of mine be hid

In sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow,

And all the conduits of my blood froze up,

Yet hath my night of life some memory,

My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,

My dull deaf ears a little use to hear.”  Edgeon, Father of  Antipholus.  5.1.320-327

 

Vocabulary

Centaur

aqua vita

impeach

Circe