Original: Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more.
Modern: Merchant from Syracuse, stop begging.

Original: I am not partial to infringe our laws:
Modern: I won’t show favoritism by breaking our laws.

Original: The enmity and discord which of late
Modern: The hatred and conflict that recently

Original: Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
Modern: Started because of your duke’s bitter and violent actions

Original: To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
Modern: Against merchants who are our honest fellow citizens,

Original: Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,
Modern: Who, lacking enough money to buy their freedom,

Original: Have seal’d his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
Modern: Have paid for his harsh laws with their lives,

Original: Excludes all pity from our threat’ning looks.
Modern: Prevents me from showing any mercy in my threatening expression.

Original: For, since the mortal and intestine jars
Modern: Because ever since the deadly civil conflicts

Original: ‘Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
Modern: Between your rebellious people and us,

Original: It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
Modern: It has been officially decided in formal assemblies,

Original: Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,
Modern: By both the people of Syracuse and ourselves,

Original: T’ admit no traffic to our adverse towns:
Modern: To allow no trade between our enemy cities.

Original: Nay, more, if any, born at Ephesus
Modern: In fact, more than that—if anyone born in Ephesus

Original: Be seen at Syracusian marts and fairs;
Modern: Is seen at Syracuse’s markets and fairs,

Original: Again, if any Syracusian born
Modern: Or likewise, if anyone born in Syracuse

Original: Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,
Modern: Comes to the harbor of Ephesus, he will be executed,

Original: His goods confiscate to the duke’s dispose;
Modern: His property seized for the duke to do with as he pleases,

Original: Unless a thousand marks be levied,
Modern: Unless a thousand marks can be raised

Original: To quit the penalty and to ransom him.
Modern: To pay the fine and buy his freedom.

Original: Thy substance, valu’d at the highest rate,
Modern: Your possessions, valued at their highest worth,

Original: Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Modern: Don’t add up to even a hundred marks.

Original: Therefore, by law thou art condemn’d to die.
Modern: Therefore, according to our law, you are sentenced to death.

In Act I, Scene i of The Comedy of Errors, Egeon, an elderly merchant from Syracuse, stands before Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, having been arrested upon his arrival in the city. A longstanding law between the rival cities of Syracuse and Ephesus decrees that any Syracusan found in Ephesus is subject to death unless he can pay a ransom of one thousand marks. Egeon cannot pay the sum, and so the Duke sentences him to death. However, before carrying out the sentence, the Duke asks Egeon to explain how he came to be in Ephesus, and Egeon proceeds to recount the tragic history that has brought him there.

Egeon tells the Duke that he has come to Ephesus in search of his son, and in doing so reveals a remarkable story of a family torn apart by a shipwreck many years before. He and his wife had been traveling with their twin infant sons and a pair of twin infant servants when their ship was destroyed in a storm. The family was separated in the disaster, with Egeon and one of each set of twins surviving and drifting one way, while his wife and the remaining children drifted another. After years of separation, the son raised by Egeon has set out in search of his lost twin brother, and Egeon has followed out of fatherly worry when his son did not return. Moved by the old man’s sorrowful tale, the Duke grants Egeon a single day to seek the ransom money before his execution is carried out.

The Comedy of Errors centers on two sets of identical twins separated in infancy during a shipwreck. Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio of Syracuse arrive in Ephesus, unknowing that Antipholus’s twin brother (Antipholus of Ephesus) and his servant (Dromio of Ephesus) live there. The Syracuse visitors are unaware of local laws that condemn Syracusans to death unless they pay a heavy fine, though the Duke grants Antipholus of Syracuse until evening to find the money.

The confusion begins immediately when the wrong Dromio approaches Antipholus of Syracuse, speaking of dinner and a wife waiting at home. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Ephesus’s wife Adriana and her sister Luciana encounter what they believe is Adriana’s husband (actually his twin), leading Adriana to drag the bewildered Syracuse twin home for dinner. The errors multiply as both masters beat the wrong servants, money and gold chains are given to and demanded from the wrong people, and Antipholus of Syracuse finds himself locked out of his own home while his twin dines inside with his wife.

The chaos escalates when a goldsmith demands payment from Antipholus of Syracuse for a chain delivered to his twin, leading to an arrest. Adriana, believing her husband has gone mad, calls for Dr. Pinch to exorcise him, while both Dromios suffer beatings and confusion from their mistaken identities. The resolution comes when old Egeon, condemned to die at sunset for being a Syracusan in Ephesus, recognizes both Antipholus twins as his sons. The Abbess of the local priory reveals herself to be Emilia, Egeon’s long-lost wife and the twins’ mother, reuniting the family and resolving all the mistaken identities. The Duke pardons Egeon, the twins are reconciled with their respective lives, and order is restored to Ephesus.