The Comedy of Errors
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50 free The Comedy of Errors trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare at his most farcical: identical twins separated as babies, each with an identical servant, cross paths in the same town without knowing the others exist. Wives, servants, merchants and officers keep meeting the wrong brother, and every sensible explanation makes things worse. This quiz follows the plot from the opening death sentence to the final reunion. Expect questions on who mistook whom, what went missing, who was arrested and why, along with the characters around the twins, the older comedies Shakespeare borrowed from, the play's first audiences and its afterlife on stage and screen. It suits students revising the play, theatre-goers about to see a production, and anyone who enjoys a tightly wound farce. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can pick up the story as you go.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which record among Shakespeare's plays does The Comedy of Errors, a farce of mistaken twins, hold?
The shortest
The shortest of all Shakespeare's plays, it is also among his earliest, with humour built on slapstick and puns.
Q 02For what offence is the old merchant from Syracuse sentenced to death as The Comedy of Errors opens?
Entering the city
Entering the city is itself the crime: Ephesus and Syracuse are feuding, and each has banned the other's merchants on pain of death.
Q 03Which rock frontman played both Dromio twins in the BBC's 1983 television version of The Comedy of Errors?
Roger Daltrey
Roger Daltrey of The Who played both servants, with special effects putting the two Dromios on screen together for the final scene.
Q 04What do the bewildered Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse blame when strangers in Ephesus greet them by name?
Witchcraft
Witchcraft is their only explanation, since Ephesus had a reputation for sorcery that Shakespeare's audience knew from the Bible.
Q 05The ancient Greek city of Ephesus, setting of The Comedy of Errors, lies in which modern country?
Turkey
Turkey holds the ruins of Ephesus, a city once famous for its Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Q 06Which Ephesus figure is revealed in the final scene of The Comedy of Errors as the twins' long-lost mother?
The Abbess
The Abbess shelters the visiting twins in her priory, then stuns everyone by recognising the condemned merchant as her husband.
Q 07Which Roman playwright wrote the twin comedy that Shakespeare reworked as The Comedy of Errors?
Plautus
Plautus was perhaps the most popular Roman dramatist in 16th-century Europe, and Shakespeare outdid him by adding a second pair of twins.
Q 08Which piece of jewellery ordered by Antipholus of Ephesus is delivered by mistake to his twin from Syracuse?
A gold chain
A gold chain was ordered as a present for Adriana, but the goldsmith gives it to the first man he meets with the right face.
Q 09Which later Shakespeare comedy also separates a pair of twins, Viola and Sebastian, in a shipwreck?
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night returns to the idea with a brother and sister, so one twin spends the play disguised as a young man named Cesario.
Q 10What greets Antipholus of Ephesus when he brings a goldsmith and a merchant home to dine?
A locked door
A locked door keeps him out because his wife is already at dinner indoors with his twin, whom she has mistaken for him.
Q 11What deadline does the Duke of Ephesus give the condemned merchant from Syracuse to raise his ransom?
The end of the day
The end of the day is all the Duke allows, so every muddle in the plot has to happen and be untangled within a few hours.
Q 12What does Adriana suspect about her husband, Antipholus of Ephesus, when he fails to come home for dinner?
He is unfaithful
He is unfaithful, she fears, and her suspicion seems confirmed when the wrong twin denies even having a wife.
Q 13Which sister of Adriana does Antipholus of Syracuse woo while everyone takes him for Adriana's husband?
Luciana
Luciana takes him for her sister's husband, so his wooing alarms her and she begs him to show his wife more kindness.
Q 21At which Ephesus inn does Antipholus of Syracuse tell Dromio to leave their money for safekeeping?
The Centaur
The Centaur is where the money lies safe all along, though its owner first fears his servant has been cheated out of it.
Q 22What does the kitchen maid in Adriana's household claim about Dromio of Syracuse, to his horror?
He is her betrothed
He is her betrothed, she insists, having mistaken him for his twin, and he flees from a woman he has never met.
Q 23What is the name of the Ephesus goldsmith whose delivery to the wrong Antipholus ends in an arrest?
Angelo
Angelo is under pressure himself, hounded by a merchant who is about to sail for Persia.
Q 14How does Antipholus of Syracuse react when the wrong Dromio denies ever being given his money?
He beats him
He beats him, the first of many blows the two servants take from masters who think they are being cheeky.
Q 15Why does an officer arrest Antipholus of Ephesus in the street at the goldsmith's request?
An unpaid debt
An unpaid debt is the charge, because the goldsmith insists he delivered the jewellery and its buyer swears he never received it.
Q 16What do Adriana and the Courtesan conclude is wrong with Antipholus of Ephesus after his baffling behaviour?
He has gone mad
He has gone mad, they decide, once the Courtesan has watched his twin flatly deny a promise she knows he made.
Q 17Which conjuring schoolmaster does Adriana bring to treat her husband in The Comedy of Errors?
Doctor Pinch
Doctor Pinch solemnly takes the furious husband's pulse, then commands Satan to come out of him.
Q 18What finally becomes of the condemned father of the Antipholus twins at the end of The Comedy of Errors?
He is pardoned
He is pardoned by the Duke, who waves away the ransom that one of the reunited sons offers to pay.
Q 19How did the merchant father of the Antipholus twins acquire the newborn Dromio twins as servants?
He bought them
He bought them from parents too poor to raise them, born in the same inn and the same hour as his own sons.
Q 20In the storm that split the family, what did the parents of the Antipholus twins tie themselves to?
A spare mast
A spare mast kept the parents and babies afloat, one group lashed to each end, until a rock split their makeshift raft in two.
Q 24What does the furious Antipholus of Ephesus send Dromio to buy so he can punish his wife?
A rope
A rope's end is what he asks for, meaning a length of cord to use as a whip on his wife and her friends.
Q 25What does Adriana give Dromio of Syracuse after hearing that an officer has seized her husband?
A purse of ducats
A purse of ducats is meant as bail, only for the servant to deliver it to the wrong twin, who has no idea what it is for.
Q 26What does the Courtesan say she gave Antipholus of Ephesus over dinner and now wants returned?
Her ring
Her ring, a diamond by her account, was given to him in return for a promised gift that never came.
Q 27How are Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus dealt with once the conjuring schoolmaster examines them?
Bound and carried off
Bound and carried off to a dark cellar, the pair later escape when the master gnaws through his cords.
Q 28How do the reunited Dromio twins agree to leave the stage in the closing lines of The Comedy of Errors?
Hand in hand
Hand in hand, they decide, because twins who cannot tell which of them is older should not walk one before the other.
Q 29Which Syracuse merchant, father of the Antipholus twins, spends The Comedy of Errors under sentence of death?
Egeon
Egeon, spelled Aegeon in some editions, appears only in the first and last scenes, framing the farce with the threat of execution.
Q 30What does Antipholus of Syracuse send Dromio to arrange so the two of them can flee Ephesus at once?
A ship's passage
A ship's passage is duly booked, but the servant reports the good news to the wrong master, who is busy being arrested.