Comedy of Errors

Yes, Shakespeare again... my apologies (but not really).

The comedy of Errors is about 60 pages long, and I enjoyed it so much I finished it in a day. (Which is good, because I started reading a sci-fi novel and boy is it difficult)
It also has a very promising start; a father is about to be executed for entering the city, but he gets the chance to explain himself to the duke. He tells him that he had a wife and two sons; twins. When they were born, there was an exceedingly poor wife who gave birth to another set of twins, and the father bought them to give to his twin sons, so they could attend them.

You still with me?

So when he, his wife, their twin sons and the bought twin brothers sail back home, there is a storm. They tie themselves to a wooden beam, mother, a son and a slave on one side and father, a son and a slave on the other side. And of course the beam breaks in half, and of course they are separated until the boys are all grown up.
Oh, and they didn’t bother to give them separate names, too. Since they looked so much alike.

So when one of the twins, the one who lived with his father, decides to search for the other half of his family, this brings them to a city forbidden to their origin, where the father is arrested. And then mayhem and error happens. The slaves mix up their masters, one’s wife doesn’t get why her husband is suddenly in love with her sister, and a smithy demands payment for the commissioned chain he’d just given to his customer. Lots of facepalms assured.

I thought that this was a very clever play, and I’d recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read Shakespeare yet because they think it’d be too difficult.


Until next time,

Bejoes


PS: apparently it was Shakespeare-day yesterday. I hope you celebrated this with writing a sonnet or sighing 'Romeo, oh Romeo' a few times.