A five-act comedy first performed in 1592-93 and first published from "foul papers" in the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare's shortest play, The Comedy of Errors is based on Menaechmi by Plautus. The play's comic confusions derive from the presence of twin brothers, unknown to each other, in the same town. Its twists of plot provide suspense, surprise, expectation, and exhilaration and reveal Shakespeare's mastery of construction.

Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is condemned to death in Ephesus for violating the ban against travel between the two rival cities. They lead him to his execution, he tells the Ephesian Duke, Solinus, that he was shipwrecked many years ago while sailing with his wife, Aemilia, and two pairs of identical twins-their twin sons, both named Antipholus, and twin servants, both named Dromio. In the course of the storm, his wife, one of their sons, and one their servants, were lost. At eighteen, Aegeon had allowed the remaining Antipholus and Dromio to leave Syracuse for Ephesus to search for their long-lost twins, at which point both of them had disappeared as well. After five years or searching, Aegeon had come to Ephesus to find them. The Duke, so moved by this story that he postpones Aegeon's sentence; and grants Egeon a day to raise the thousand-mark ransom that would be necessary to save his life, or the execution will continue.

Meanwhile, unknown to Egeon, his son Antipholus of Syracuse (and Antipholus' slave Dromio) arrives in Ephesus, --where Antipholus' missing twin, known as Antipholus of Ephesus, is a prosperous citizen of the city. Adriana, Antipholus of Ephesus' wife, mistakes Antipholus of Syracuse for her husband and drags him home for dinner, leaving Dromio of Syracuse to stand guard at the door and admit no one. Shortly thereafter, Antipholus of Ephesus (with his slave Dromio of Ephesus) returns home and is refused entry to his own house. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse has fallen in love with Luciana, Adriana's sister, who, after receiving his advances, is appalled at the behaviour of the man she thinks is her brother-in-law.

The confusion increases when a gold chain ordered by the Ephesian Antipholus is instead delivered to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus refuses to pay for the chain (unsurprisingly, since he never received it) and is arrested for debt. His wife, seeing his strange behaviour, decides he has gone mad and orders him bound and held in a cellar room. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse and his slave decide to flee the city, which they believe to be enchanted, as soon as possible--only to be menaced by Adriana and the debt officer. To escape they seek refuge in a nearby abbey.

When later, Adriana encounters Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse; she thinks they have escaped from the doctor. The pair are required to flee from Syracuse into a nearby abbey for refuge.

Adriana now begs the Duke to intervene and remove her "husband" from the abbey into her custody. Her real husband, meanwhile, has broken loose and now comes to the Duke and levels charges against his wife as they lead Aegeon to his death. In the midst of everyone trying to tell their varying accounts of the day, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse arrive with the abbess-who turns out to be Aemilia, Aegeon's long-lost wife. The twins all sort out their stories in the presence of the Duke. In the end, Aegeon is released from his death sentence and reunited with his wife and sons, Antipholus of Syracuse is set to marry Luciana, and all has been put to right. All ends happily with the two Dromios embracing.