ABSTRACT
Attempts have been made to locate Errors in early modern contexts. Curtis Perry compares the networks of exchange in this play's Ephesus with the credit-based economy in early modern England and sees "Shakespeare's engagement with contemporary anxieties about the commercialization of social bonds". This chapter argues that the Circean associations in Errors reveal the problems of characters' civic affiliations and link this play with Elizabethan discourses about the vulnerability of English identity. Circe's threat to men includes that to national identity. While Solinus's reference to Circe is the only direct mentioning of her in Errors, this play includes several speeches reminding us of this enchanting sorceress. Shakespeare explores in Errors two senses of the term "error": mistaking and wandering. Like the Circes in early modern England, who represent foreign and female attractions threatening English identity, the Ephesians entice Dromio of Syracuse to shed his Syracusan identity.
