The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-02


large and round that she has been COM
pared to a globe. asks: In what part
of her body stands Frafce2" Dromio
answers: In her forehead, armed ana
reverted, making war against her heir.
France was in a state OF civil war,
fighting for and against her heir. Henry
". from August, 1889, until February,
1894
3. The subject of the comedy and
much of the plot are drawn from one
of Plautus' dramas. Shakespeare trans
fers the scene from Epidamnune to
Ephesus that city which had an evil
repute for it's roguery, Righteousness
and magical practices, city in which
such errors might be supposed TO be
the result of sorcery and witchcraft. 10
Shakespeare belongs wholly the serious
background. from which the farcicai
incidents stand out in reIief-the story
of the Syracusean merchant who al
most forfeits his life in the search Tor
his lost children, and finally RECEIVERS
both the lost ones and his own liberty
4. DR.. Dowden points out the follow
ing lines as among the most beauti1ul
in the play. But he adds, such pas
sages, in which character of human
passion rather than incident cnleny m
terests us. are rare" The old man,
prisoner before the duke, finds that his
son does not recognize his face nor re-
member his voice:
Aegeon. Why look you strange on me?
You know me well.
Antipholus Of E. l never saw you in my
life till now.
you saw me last
And careful hours with times deformed
Have written strange defeatures. in my
But tell me yet. dost thou not know my
voice?
Aegeon. Dromio nor thou?
Dromio of E Ay sir. but am sure l
do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you
are now bound to believe him..
Aegeon. Not know my voice, times
extremity.
Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my
In seven short years that here my only
Knows not my feeble key of untund
Though now this grained face of mine be
In sap-consunling winters drizzled snow.
And all the conduits of my blood froZe up,
Yet hath my night of life some memory
My dull deaf ears little use to hear.
All these old Witnessed cannot err
Tell me thou art my son Antipholus,
Antipholus of L. never saw my father
Aegeon. But seven years since. in
Thou know st we parted; but perhaps. my
Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in
misery.
5. 1.-THE Comedy of Errors" was
played off the evening of lnnocents
day Dec. 2S), 1894, in the hall of Grays
inn. before a crowded audience of
laAfr. fr1a
There was some disturbance during the
evening on the part of guests from the
Inner Temple who, dissatisfied with the
accommodation afforded them, retired
in dudgeon. so that night" the ccn-
temporary chronicler states, was be-
gun and continued to the end nothing
but confusion and errors, whereupon IT
was afterward called the Night of Err
rors.'" Shakespeare was acting on the
same day before the queen at Green
witch. and it is doubtful if he were
present. On the morrow commission
of oyer and terr1iner inquired into the
causes of the tumult. which was at
tributed to a sorcerer having ''foiSted
q company of base and common fellows
to make up our disorders with play
of errors and confusions." A second
performance of the Comedy of En-
rors'' was given at Gray's Inn hall by
6. 1895. Sidney Lee.
G. I'm the plot thus carefully COM
posed there are at least two features
worth our notice. The first. at which
we need merely glance, is the vigorous
effect of dramatic contrast produced
by beginning this prolonged farce with
the romantic narrative of Aegeon's
and misfortunes and wan
behring's, and by ending il with the still
mora ron, a :, ffc 6iScovary that the ah-
bess of Epnesus is the long-lost wife
whom he has so faithfully mourned.
The second is the fundamental source
of all the fun and trouble-the elabo-
rate, double Confusion of IDENTITY
Barrett Wendell.
Georg Brandes' Estimate of the Play.
. This comedy on the frontier line of
farce shows with what giant strides
progresses in the tech
n;que of his art. 1t has the blood of
the theatre in its veins; We can al
ready discern the experienced actor in
the dexterity with which the threads
of the intrigue are involved, and wo-
ven into an evermore intricate tangle, 4
until the simple solution is arrived at
While Loves Labor's Lost" still
dragged itself laboriously over the
board, here we have an impetus and a
brio in all the dramatic passages which
reveal an artist and foreteil a master
Only the rough outlines of th~ play
are taken from Plautus; and the mo- |
tive, the possibility of incessant con-
fusion between two masters and two |
is manipulated with a skill |
and certainly which astound us in a /
beginner, and sometimes with quite ir- |
whimsicality. No doubt the |
merry play is founded upon an extreme !