Adriana Timeline and Summary

More

Adriana Timeline and Summary

  • 2.1.1. At home, Adriana sits worrying where E. Antipholus and E. Dromio are, as her husband is late for dinner and the servant has been sent to bring him home, but neither have returned.
  • 2.1.10: Adriana chats with Luciana, who tries to calm her by insisting men are at liberty to do as they please. Adriana wonders why men should have more liberty than women, and reveals a bit of irritation at her role as an obedient and quiet wife.
  • 2.1.26: Adriana suggests that the reason Luciana has stayed unmarried is because of the servitude Luciana thinks is endemic to marriage.
  • 2.1.28: Adriana thinks getting married is the solution to a woman’s troubles (basically, once married, a woman can exercise her influence).
  • 2.1.30: Since Luciana thinks she knows so much about marriage, Adriana asks what her sister would do about a husband with a wandering eye.
  • 2.1.32: Adriana marvels at Luciana’s answer that she would patiently put up with her imaginary husband’s imaginary philandering. Adriana explains (not so nicely) that Luciana’s come up with this foolish method of coping only because she has no actual experience in facing marital reality. If Luciana really knew what it was to have a lover cheat, Adriana says, she wouldn’t be Little Miss Patience.
  • 2.1.44: Adriana encounters E. Dromio, and she quizzes him as to where her errant husband, whom E. Dromio was sent to fetch, has gone. She sends E. Dromio off again with the threat of beating him.
  • 2.1.87: Adriana worries that E. Antipholus’s attention is now being bestowed on others because she is no longer pleasing to him. She worries that age has stolen her beauty and wit. Really, though, she says she’s used the best years of her life on E. Antipholus. So basically, if she has lost anything, it is entirely his fault. She declares any ruins that might be found inside her have only been ruined by him. Ultimately, one sunny look from him would repair all her faults.
  • 2.1.103: Adriana continues on this self-pitying line, in spite of Luciana’s encouragement. She’s convinced her man has developed a wandering eye, because she sees no other explanation for his absence. Adriana recalls that E. Antipholus promised her a necklace, and wonders if it’s that that keeps him. Adriana then makes a convoluted speech comparing herself to a jewel that wears out with time, while her husband is like the gold setting of a jewel that retains its luster. Ultimately, she laments that a man can philander all he likes without ruining his reputation. She resolves to spend the rest of her life weeping away any remaining beauty she might have, and then die.
  • 2.2.110: Adriana and Luciana come upon S. Antipholus and S. Dromio. Adriana, mistaking S. Antipholus for her man, E. Antipholus, berates him. She immediately accuses the man of having a mistress, and talks about how she was once the only woman that pleased him. If he does not love her anymore, then he has become estranged from himself, as she is an inseparable part of him. She adds that he would be really upset at her if she were unfaithful, yet since they are one being, his unfaithfulness reflects on her as though she were also unfaithful. If he would rather not have a faithless wench for a wife (which he is transforming her into), it would be best for him to keep to his true bed, and true wife.
  • 2.2.157: Adriana gets drawn into further confusion when she mistakes S. Dromio for E. Dromio, who she sent to find her husband. Overall, the two men completely don’t understand what she’s talking about or who she is, which leads Adriana to conclude that Antipholus and Dromio are colluding to play a joke on her. Still, she says she’s fastened to her husband like a vine on an elm tree, and anyone that comes between them is worthless and an imposter.
  • 2.2.203: Adriana decides she’s not going to play the crying fool about this situation any longer. She will bring S. Antipholus home to dinner (still thinking he’s her husband) and she tells S. Dromio to play the gatekeeper and keep out anyone that wants to come in to her home. She tells her "husband" she’ll get him to confess to his silly pranks, and forgive him for them.
  • 3.1.61: Adriana comes outside and yells about who is making so much noise at the gate as she’s trying to dine with her husband. Though the man inside won’t say he’s her husband, the man outside insists he is. She is oblivious.
  • 4.2.1: After dinner and the whole gate phenomenon, Adriana laments that her "husband" came on to his sister. She begs Luciana for all the details of how S. Antipholus (who she still thinks is E. Antipholus) looked when he professed his love for Luciana.
  • 4.2.8: Adriana interrogates Luciana, and hears that S. Antipholus denied that Adriana is his wife, and really seems to love Luciana. She asks short, bewildered questions, and ultimately wants to know if Luciana was moved by any of his speech.
  • 4.2.17: Adriana is frustrated and hurt. She declares she has no patience over this matter. Instead, she berates her husband as a disgusting, deformed, ugly, vicious, and idiotic man. She quickly relents, though, that she doesn’t really think so badly of him; she only wishes other women saw him as awful, too (so they’d keep their hands off of him).
  • 4.2.41: Adriana’s just gotten the news from S. Dromio that her actual husband, E. Antipholus, has been arrested. She wonders why on earth he’s been arrested, and if perhaps he had some debt that she didn’t know about. She asks whether he was arrested on a bond (debt) and S. Dromio makes puns about the chain necklace. They get wrapped up in a conversation about the nature of time before anything can be further clarified.
  • 4.2.63: Adriana sends S. Dromio off with money for E. Antipholus’s bail; she wants her man home immediately. She says her thoughts and imaginings are both her comfort and her torture. She can only imagine what’s going on with her husband, his arrest, and probably their marriage, too.
  • 4.4.46: Adriana, faced with the seemingly mad E. Antipholus, pleads with the charlatan she’s brought, "Doctor Pinch," to restore her husband’s senses again. She says she’ll give the quack doctor whatever he wants, if only he can cure her husband.
  • 4.4.59: Adriana is absolutely distraught to hear E. Antipholus insist that he isn’t insane, and she cries out that he is a distressed soul.
  • 4.4.65: Adriana appeals to her husband, who says he was left out in the cold when he pleaded with the gatekeeper to be let in for dinner. She knows he dined at home, and she says if he’d only stayed put with her, he could’ve avoided arrest and all these slanders.
  • 4.4.79: Adriana, thinking her husband is insane, wants answers. She wonders whether it’s better to simply agree with E. Antipholus about all of his nonsense in his maddened state.
  • 4.4.85: Adriana insists she sent bail money to E. Antipholus with Dromio as her messenger. Further, she insists she didn’t lock her husband out of their house at dinner time.
  • 4.4.100: Adriana calls E. Dromio a liar as E. Dromio swears he received no gold for bail and that Adriana locked him and E. Antipholus out.
  • 4.4.106: As E. Antipholus moves to attack her, Adriana cries out for him to be tied up.
  • 4.4.114: Adriana chides the officer, who wishes that they wouldn’t bind E. Antipholus. Adriana asks if the officer would rather see E. Antipholus hurt himself and make a public spectacle. (Uh… too late!)
  • 4.4.119: Adriana is a logistical juggernaut – she says she’ll pay the officer whatever is due and take her husband out of his care. She also wants to pay the man to whom her husband is indebted. She bids Pinch, the would-be doctor, to bring E. Antipholus back safely home. Then Adriana rails against this unhappy day. She continues by speaking to the officer, and finds out that E. Antipholus owes Angelo the goldsmith money for a necklace, though she notes she never received the gold chain her husband spoke of.
  • 4.4.141: Adriana hears the Courtesan talk of a necklace, and she reiterates that she wishes to find out the truth. She bids the officer to bring her to the goldsmith.
  • 4.4.145: Seeing S. Antipholus and S. Dromio approach with their swords drawn, Adriana cries out to have them tied up again.
  • 5.1.33: Adriana pleads with the Merchant to not harm her poor, insane husband. She asks that both Antipholus and Dromio be bound again and brought to her house in order to recover.
  • 5.1.45: Adriana explains to the Abbess that her husband has had a bad week, but it wasn’t until today that he seemed to become a crazy person.
  • 5.1.55: Adriana admits to the Abbess that her husband may be in love with some other woman. She insists she did reprimand him for his behavior as well as she could – in private and public. At the Abbess’s pressing, Adriana admits she bothered him about it in bed, at the table, and even in company. Basically, she says she wouldn’t let up on the subject.
  • 5.1.90: The Abbess criticizes Adriana, essentially saying the woman has been a shrewish nag, which would drive any man to distraction and another woman’s bed. Adriana says the Abbess is only criticizing her the same way she’d criticize herself. She tries to send in some men to get her husband out of the priory, but the Abbess rebuffs her. Adriana asks if perhaps the Abbess can have him brought out.
  • 5.1.98: Adriana says she wants to be her husband’s nurse and take care of this sickness he seems to have. She says it’s her duty as a wife to tend to her man, so she just wants him home with her.
  • 5.1.109: When the Abbess won’t let him go, Adriana insists she won’t leave without him. She says it isn’t so holy of this holy lady to stand between a husband and wife’s sacred bond.
  • 5.1.114: Adriana agrees with Luciana to go to the Duke with a complaint against the Abbess. She says she will weep at the Duke’s feet, and not rise until he has agreed to forcibly remove her husband from the Abbess’s care.
  • 5.1.136: Adriana pleads her case to the Duke, asking for justice. She concludes by pointing out that she married E. Antipholus at the Duke’s recommendation. Adriana says E. Antipholus has been taken by a fit of madness, and was raging hardcore in the streets. Though she did get Antipholus and Dromio bound up and taken to her home, they seem to have escaped only to rush into the marketplace again with drawn swords. She describes how afterwards the men ran away and escaped into the priory, claiming sanctuary. She asks the Duke to please get her husband out so they can seek professional help.
  • 5.1.178: Adriana tells a messenger, who complains of the men’s escape, to shut up. She says the messenger is lying, as she knows Antipholus and Dromio are hiding in the priory. She relents when she hears her husband’s voice from outside the priory. She decides he must be invisible and running around.
  • 5.1.207: Adriana disputes E. Antipholus’s claim that he didn’t have dinner with Adriana. She accuses him of false report.
  • 5.1.332. Adriana is taken aback once she sees the identical Antipholuses. She marvels that she sees two husbands, and asks which had dinner with her, only to find out that the one who dined with her is not the one who married her. She closes her part in the play by insisting that she sent money with a Dromio, although it never arrived to E. Antipholus.