ABSTRACT
In The Comedy of Errors, Luciana is trying to impress upon her impatient sister the Christian duty of a wife, as stated typically in "An Homelie of the state of Matrimonie": wives "relinquish the lybertie of their owne rule". Luciana had said, "A man is Master of his libertie". Twin homilies on adultery by Adriana have caused trouble in posing the major textual cruces of the play. In the first, she looks at the case of the adulterer and his 'name' from the point of view of the effect upon the adulterer himself; in the second, from the point of view of the effect upon the innocent wife and, through her, of the reflected effect upon the husband also. When Adriana thinks she has cornered her husband but has cornered Antipholus of Syracuse instead, she bestows on him a companion homily on the innocent wife adulterated by her husband, and the reflected effect upon him.
