a romantic story of love and
friendship. There is every likelihood that it was an
adaptation--amounting to a reformation--of a lost 'History of Felix and
Philomena,' which had been acted at Court in 1584. The story is the same
as that of 'The Shepardess Felismena' in the Spanish pastoral romance of
'Diana' by George de Montemayor, which long enjoyed popularity in
England. No complete English translation of 'Diana' was published before
that of Bartholomew Yonge in 1598, but a manuscript version by Thomas
Wilson, which was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton in 1596, was
possibly circulated far earlier. Some verses from 'Diana' were
translated by Sir Philip Sidney and were printed with his poems as early
as 1591. Barnabe Rich's story of 'Apollonius and Silla' (from Cinthio's
'Hecatommithi'), which Shakespeare employed again in 'Twelfth Night,'
also gave him some hints. Trifling and irritating conceits abound in the
'Two Gentlemen,' but passages of high poetic spirit are not wanting, and
the speeches of the clowns, Launce and Speed--the precursors of a long
line of whimsical serving-men--overflow with farcical drollery. The 'Two
Gentlemen' was not published in Shakespeare's lifetime; it first appeared
in the folio of 1623, after having, in all probability, undergone some
revision. {53}

'Comedy of Errors.'

Shakespeare next tried his hand, in the 'Comedy of Errors' (commonly
known at the time as 'Errors'), at boisterous farce. It also was first
published in 1623. Again, as in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' allusion was
made to the civil war in France. France was described as 'making war
against her heir' (III. ii. 125). Shakespeare's farcical comedy, which
is by far the shortest of all his dramas, may have been founded on a
play, no longer extant, called 'The Historie of Error,' which was acted
in 1576 at Hampton Court. In subject-matter it resembles the 'Menaechmi'
of Plautus, and treats of mistakes of identity arising from the likeness
of twin-born children. The scene (act iii. sc. i.) in which Antipholus
of Ephesus is shut out from his own house, while his brother and wife are
at dinner within, recalls one in the 'Amphitruo' of Plautus. Shakespeare
doubtless had direct recourse to Plautus as well as to the old play, and
he may have read Plautus in English. The earliest translation of the
'Menaechmi' was not licensed for publication before June 10, 1594, and
was not published until the following year. N