Thus such a plot as that of the Menaechmi was by no means the sheer impossibility which Shakespeare made it by attaching indistinguishable Dromios to his indistinguishable Antipholuses.

[Footnote 89: Menaechmi, 404: this may, however, be only a translation from the Greek.]

A woman in the Menaechmi of Plautus, iv, 6, 1, complains justly of this double standard of morality: Nam si vir scortum duxit clam uxorem suam, Id si rescivit uxor, impune est viro.

The Comedy of Errors is confessedly taken from the Menaechmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

The Menaechmi of Plautus.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi.

"Pigs are considered to be clean ten days after birth, and for that reason were then called by the ancients sacred, as being then first fit for sacrifice: and so in the Menaechmi of Plautus, when a character thinking some one in Epidamnus to be out of his wits and seeking to purify him, asks: 'How much are sacred pigs here.'

Plautus Menaechmi, II, 2, 279.

One of the two Menaechmi is, on his arrival at Epidamnus, mistaken for his brother, of whose existence he does not know, and much to his amazement is introduced into the brother's life and possessions.

The Menaechmi is one of the immortal comedies and has survived in many forms on the modern stage all over Europe.