MASTER SLAVE RELATIONSHIP IN THE COMEDY OF ERRORS BY

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Dromio of Syracuse often jests to relieve his master's melancholy,

Antipholus of Syracuse imagines that Dromio of Ephesus is joking: "I am
not in a sportive humour now: / Tell me, and dally not, where is the
money?" (1.2.58-59).1 Dromio replies in terms of the beating he expects
to receive: "I from my mistress come to you in post; / If I return I shall
be post indeed, / For she will scour your fault upon my pate" (1.2.63-
65). Dromio of Ephesus' anxiety stems from a blow he received earlier that
afternoon. "The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell," he informs
Antipholus of Syracuse; "My mistress made it one upon my cheek; /
She is so hot because the meat is cold" (1.2.45-47).2 Household
beatings apparently are a customary part of Dromio of Ephesus' life. When
Antipholus of Syracuse, exasperated over Dromio of Ephesus' repeated
denial of any knowledge concerning the disputed "thousand marks,"
threatens to "break that merry sconce of yours" (1.2.79), Dromio darkly
jests:

I have some marks of yours upon my pate;

Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders;
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

(1.2.82-86)

Antipholus of Syracuse defuses the inflammatory charge of Dromio's joke

by reminding him of his abject social status: "Thy mistress' marks? what
mistress, slave, hast thou?" (1.2.87). Despite textual references to the
Dromios as servants, they are typically called slaves in The Comedy of
Errors.4 T. W. Baldwin noted that, "for the ancients, 'Dromo is a slave's
name in Terence, Lucian, and in a comedy extracted by Athenaeus.'
Dromo appears in Lucian's Timon as the 'Stock name for a slave.'"5 Grown
angry, Antipholus of Syracuse beats the slave Dromio: "What, wilt thou
flout me thus unto my face / Being forbid? There, take you that, sir
knave" (1.2.91-92). "What mean you, sir? for God's sake hold your
hands," a fearful Dromio replies: "Nay, and you will not, sir, I'll take my
heels" (1.2.93-94). 
Shakespeare's initial identification of the Dromios as slaves occurs within
the context of physical violence. Antipholus of Syracuse's "I'll to the
Centaur to go seek this slave" (1.2.104) echoes two verses later in
Adriana's remark "Neither my husband nor the slave return'd" (2.1.1).
The repeated emphasis upon the Dromios' status as slaves immediately
after the beating of act I fixes the sociopolitical value of subsequent
thrashings in the play.

Returning to his mistress Adriana, Dromio of Ephesus stresses his bodily

abuse:

Adr. Say, didst thou speak with him? knowst thou his mind?
Eph. Dro. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear,
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.
Luc. Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning?
Eph. Dro. Nay, he struck so plainly I could too well feel his blows; and
withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them.

(2.1.47-54)

Adriana equates this beating with the condition of slavery. When Dromio of
Ephesus complains—"So that my errand due unto my tongue, / I thank
him, I bare home upon my shoulders; / For in conclusion, he did beat
me there"—she commands "Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him
home" (2.1.72-75). Dromio's reply evokes a Christian context that
doctrinally repudiates the corporeal violence associated with slavery:

Eph. Dro. Go back again, and be new beaten home?

For God's sake, send some other messenger.
Adr. Back slave, or I will break thy pate across.
Eph. Dro. And he will bless that cross with other beating;
Between you I shall have a holy head.

(2.1.76-80)

Dromio of Ephesus' repetition here of his earlier phrase "for God's sake"
(1.2.93) and the wordplay latent in his notion of blessing a "cross"—a
crucifix/an inscribed wound—"with other beating" strengthen the ironic
Christian frame for negatively appraising his master's thrashing of him.
"Am I so round with you, as you with me, / That like a football you do
spurn me thus?" Dromio painfully questions; "You spurn me hence,
and he will spurn me hither; / If I last in this service you must case me
in leather" (2.1.82-85).
Later beatings of the Dromios match early pummelings both in their extent
and magnitude. Dromio of Syracuse receives his twin's painful reward
when he denies knowledge of having spoken of a mistress and dinner to
his master (2.2.7-62). "Think'st thou I jest?" Antipholus of Syracuse
exclaims, "hold, take thou that, and that" (2.2.23). Beaten, Dromio
cries, "Hold sir, for God's sake" (2.2.24), repeating the Christian
talisman for the third time in the play. "Was there ever any man thus
beaten out of season," Dromio laments, "When in the why and the
wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason" (2.2.47-48). Dromio of Ephesus
finds only in the welts left by blows a language of protest equal to his
bewilderment. "That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to
show," he tells Antipholus of Ephesus: "If the skin were parchment
and the blows you gave were ink, / Your own hand-writing would tell
you what I think" (3.1.12-14). Dromio's body makes him think is the terse
remark, "I think thou art an ass" (3.1.15)—an animal ordained to bear.
"Marry, so it doth appear," Dromio sadly agrees, "By the wrongs I
suffer and the blows I bear; /I should kick, being kick'd, and being at
that pass, / You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass"
(3.1.15-18) Once again, the slave's final utterance sounds the muted note
of rebellion.

Antipholus of Ephesus administers the final beating of a slave in The

Comedy of Errors when his own Dromio brings him a rope's end instead of
money for the master's bail (4.4.8-37). In reply to Antipholus' enraged
judgment "Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an ass,"
Dromio of Ephesus soberly generalizes the disturbing impression of the
unjust treatment of slaves in this play: "I am an ass indeed; you may
prove it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour of my
nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service
but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating; when I am warm
he cools me with beating; I am waked with it when I sleep, raised with
it when I sit, driven out of doors with it when I go from home,
welcomed home with it when I return, nay, I bear it on my shoulders
as a beggar wont her brat; and I think when he hath lamed me, I shall
beg with it from door to door" (4.4.25-37). Dromio's conclusion
resonates with a significance far larger in its implications than the meaning
of the local thrashings that the slaves receive for their several errors of
mistaken identity. Nevertheless, the physical violence that the audience
has witnessed and the many threats that it has heard justify both the
seriousness and the length of Dromio's complaint.

"By status the Dromios of Shakespeare's play are the slaves of Latin
comedy," Kathleen Lea notes, "but in behavior and misfortunes they
are the servants of the Commedia dell'arte . . . beaten as regularly as
any Zanni."