The play has its humor, but Shakespeare really made the story much funnier in his telling.
#Plautus menaechmi english free
Part of the happy ending of Menaechmi is that the slave will be set free by his real master and both twins leave Epidamnum and return to Syracuse together. The confusion continues after he has been set free because the other twin still treats him as a slave. Much of what would become the conversation between Antipholus of Syracuse and Adriana is done between the visiting Menaechmus and Erotium in this play. His master sends him on an errand for some money which he gives to the other twin who gratefully grants him his freedom. One source of humor is that the visiting twin’s slave also confuses the two men. That adds to the confusion, just as Pinch does to Shakespeare’s Comedy.įinally, both twins appear together and the errors are resolved.
The father-in-law begins to think his son-in-law is bewitched, so he hires an exorcist. The local twin’s father-in-law encourages his wife to refuse him until he returns the mantle, which, as you can guess, ends up in the hands of the wrong twin. In this case the women claim a mantle instead of a chain, and Erotium entertains the visitor. Both Erotium and the local twin’s wife confuse the two brothers. For Plautus, the local twin is a regular customer of a prostitute named Erotium. There is potential for a lot of fun here. (The one from Syracuse thought the other dead, so he took on his brother’s name as a memorial.) Menaechmus of Syracuse has traveled to Epidamnum where the other one now lives, and the confusion ensues. There are the mixups-in this case there is just one set of twins, both name Menaechmus and separated at age seven. Menaechmi is the play which inspired Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors.