The Comedy of Errors
()
About this ebook
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.
Read more from William Shakespeare
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: All 214 Plays, Sonnets, Poems & Apocryphal Plays (Including the Biography of the Author): Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, The Tempest, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, The Comedy of Errors… Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare in Autumn (Seasons Edition -- Fall): Select Plays and the Complete Sonnets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare Quotes Ultimate Collection - The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare's First Folio Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Romeo & Juliet & Vampires Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to The Comedy of Errors
Related ebooks
The Comedy of Errors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy of Errors: A Comedy Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy Of Errors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors - Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy of Errors: Including "The Life of William Shakespeare" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy of Errors (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography: The Life of William Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy of Errors In Plain and Simple English (A Modern Translation and the Original Version) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedy of Errors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Novel Approach to Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Collection (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Works [Classics Authors Vol: 3] (Black Horse Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Works of Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of William Shakespeare (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete William Shakespeare Collection (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Actually Complete Works of William Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (WordWise Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Collection ( included 150 pictures & Active TOC) (AtoZ Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare: The Complete Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Actually Complete Works of William Shakespeare (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Collection (Centaurus Classics) [37 Plays + 160 Sonnets + 5 Poetry Books + 150 Illustrations] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works of Shakespeare (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Shakespeare Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Classic Illustrated Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contact Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Comedy of Errors
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare
The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare
Copyright © 2018 by OPU
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Act I
SCENE I. A hall in DUKE SOLINUS'S palace.
Enter DUKE SOLINUS, AEGEON, Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants
AEGEON
Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall
And by the doom of death end woes and all.
DUKE SOLINUS
Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;
I am not partial to infringe our laws:
The enmity and discord which of late
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
Who wanting guilders to redeem their lives
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
Excludes all pity from our threatening looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars
'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath in solemn synods been decreed
Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,
To admit no traffic to our adverse towns Nay, more,
If any born at Ephesus be seen
At any Syracusian marts and fairs;
Again: if any Syracusian born
Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,
His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose,
Unless a thousand marks be levied,
To quit the penalty and to ransom him.
Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Therefore by law thou art condemned to die.
AEGEON
Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,
My woes end likewise with the evening sun.
DUKE SOLINUS
Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
Why thou departed'st from thy native home
And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.
AEGEON
A heavier task could not have been imposed
Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable:
Yet, that the world may witness that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I'll utter what my sorrows give me leave.
In Syracusa was I born, and wed
Unto a woman, happy but for me,
And by me, had not our hap been bad.
With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased
By prosperous voyages I often made
To Epidamnum; till my factor's death
And the great care of goods at random left
Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
From whom my absence was not six months old
Before herself, almost at fainting under
The pleasing punishment that women bear,
Had made provision for her following me
And soon and safe arrived where I was.
There had she not been long, but she became
A joyful mother of two goodly sons;
And, which was strange, the one so like the other,
As could not be distinguish'd but by names.
That very hour, and in the self-same inn,
A meaner woman was delivered
Of such a burden, male twins, both alike:
Those,—for their parents were exceeding poor,—
I bought and brought up to attend my sons.
My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
Made daily motions for our home return:
Unwilling I agreed. Alas! too soon,
We came aboard.
A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
Before the always wind-obeying deep
Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
But longer did we not retain much hope;
For what obscured light the heavens did grant
Did but convey unto our fearful minds
A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
Which though myself would gladly have embraced,
Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
Weeping before for what she saw must come,
And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
Forced me to seek delays for them and me.
And this it was, for other means was none:
The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us:
My wife, more careful for the latter-born,
Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,
Such as seafaring men provide for storms;
To him one of the other twins was bound,
Whilst I had been like heedful of the other:
The children thus disposed, my wife and I,
Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast;
And floating straight, obedient to the stream,
Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.
At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,
Dispersed those vapours that offended us;
And by the benefit of his wished light,
The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered
Two ships from far making amain to us,
Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this:
But ere they came,—O, let me say no more!
Gather the sequel by that went before.
DUKE SOLINUS
Nay, forward, old man; do not