Aegeon uses the oxymoron “pleasing punishment” to describe the act of childbirth, registering at once the pain of maternal labor as well as its rewards:
[...] my spouse;
From whom my absence was not six months old
Before herself—almost at fainting under
The pleasing punishment that women bear—
Had made provision for her following me
And soon and safe arrivèd where I was.
Appealing to the mercy of the Duke, and possibly hoping to gain clemency for himself, Aegeon emphasizes the challenges that his wife, Aemilia, experienced while pregnant with their twin sons. Throughout the course of her pregnancy, she was separated from her husband while he conducted business in the city of Epidamium, far from their home city of Syracuse. While heavily pregnant, she had to travel a great distance to be reunited with Aegeon, practically fainting as a result of the toll that pregnancy and travel took on her body.
Despite the various inconveniences and pains that his wife has experienced in the course of pregnancy, Aegeon describes her condition a “pleasing punishment,” as it resulted in the birth of two healthy sons. A punishment is not generally thought of as pleasing, and Aegeon’s oxymoronic phrase brings together highly contrasting notions of pleasure and pain, enjoyment and suffering, punishment and reward. This oxymoron, then, interprets pregnancy as something of a paradox: a kind of suffering that nonetheless yields great joy by producing a healthy child—or in the case of Aegeon and his wife, two healthy children.
Antipholus of Syracuse uses the oxymoronic phrase “trusty villain” to describe his personal slave, Dromio of Syracuse. This oxymoron registers the complex relationship between these two characters, as well as the ambiguous nature of the “fool,” a role which the two Dromios fulfill in this play. Antipholus of Syracuse says:
A trusty villain, sir, that very oft
When I am dull with care and melancholy,
Lightens my humor with his merry jests
In describing Dromio as a “trusty villain,” Antipholus suggests at once that he can be “trusted” to be villainous as a consistent personality trait, but also that there is something surprisingly beneficial about Dromio’s characteristic attempts to vex and provoke the man he serves. As he explains, Dromio’s “merry jests” come at the expense of Antipholus, but they nonetheless lighten his mood in dark times.
This oxymoronic phrase, “trusty villain” seems to capture the duality of the “fool” in the early modern period. On one hand, the fool pulls pranks, causes mischief, and insults those in power. On the other hand, the fool is also an employee of those whom he mocks, and his jesting is ultimately a form of paid entertainment for those who can afford it. In the play, the two Dromios cause additional problems for their masters, but fittingly, they are also the source of much of the play’s comedy.
Luciana employs the oxymoron “self-harming jealousy” when counseling her sister against worrying over the attention and affections of her husband.
Self-harming jealousy, fie, beat it hence
Jealousy is generally thought of as a self-interested feeling of competition with others, and, indeed, Adriana rails furiously against both her husband—whom she imagines is conducting an affair—and against his hypothetical mistress. Nevertheless, Luciana suggests that the real victim of jealousy is the jealous party themselves, who behave in an unbecoming manner as a result of their irrational jealousy; this behavior, she implies, is to their own detriment.
In many ways, the play seems to confirm Luciana’s position, treating jealousy as a form of self-degradation rather than as a way of defending one’s own interests. Adriana becomes increasingly absurd as her jealousy grows and her suspicions deepen. She cycles quickly through an index of exaggerated emotions—terror, rage, woe—and, foregoing all pride, she grovels for her husband to return to her.
As Adriana’s character descends into irrationality, Luciana becomes the play’s voice of reason, vainly advising her sister to come to her senses and to overcome her jealousy. Ultimately, Adriana’s jealousy does prove self-defeating: in attempting to win her “husband” back, she ironically almost commits adultery with her brother-in-law and locks her own husband out of the house so that she can lavish her attention, mistakenly, upon his twin.
