Adriana

Play

The Comedy of Errors

Summary

Adriana is the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, a passionate, jealous woman who fears her husband has taken a mistress. The errors of the plot mean she repeatedly confronts the wrong Antipholus — she locks her actual husband out of their home while dining with his twin inside — and her anxieties about marriage, fidelity, and identity give the play an emotional undertow beneath its farcical surface. Her debate with Luciana about wifely patience and independence is one of the play's most substantial exchanges.

Notable Quotations

"I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. / The folly of these errors arises / From mine own importunity." *(5.1)*

"How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, / That thou art then estranged from thyself?" *(2.2)*

Cross-references

• The Comedy of Errors — the play
• Comedies
• character_antipholus_of_ephesus — her husband
• character_antipholus_of_syracuse — whom she mistakes for her husband
• character_luciana — her sister, who counsels patience