Mojo, The Bard, & Me

That goldsmith there, were he not pack’d with her,

Could witness it, for he was with me then;

Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,

Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,

Where Balthazar and I did dine together.

-Antipholus of Ephesus

The Comedy Of Errors    Act V, scene i     Line 224

The MW online gives us the definition of porpentine as an obsolete version of porcupine. Fair enough. But whether you go with porpentine or porcupine, I think it’s a delightful name for an inn or restaurant which is what we have here.

I believe this is our first foray into The Comedy of Errors. Since my knowledge of this play is non-existent, I did a little reading on it, and a little listening of it. Certainly I didn’t cover the whole thing, but I’ve got a pretty good sense of the gist of it, and this one is pure comedy farce (unlike some of the other comedies – for instance, The Merchant Of Venice). Let me see if I can summarize.

There are two sets of twins separated shortly after birth. One set of twins are rich kids, and the other set of twins are poor kids who become the servants of each of these two rich kids. Somehow or other, the two rich brothers have the same name, Antipholus, and the two servants have the same name, Dromio. Throughout the play they are referred to as Antipholus of Ephisus or Antipholus of Syracuse (same for the Dromios) in the text so that we can keep them straight. The play takes place in Ephisus where the Syracusans are visiting. All the other people in the play can’t tell the twins apart and up until the final scene the twins don’t end up in the same place at the same time. And also, none of the twins know that their other twins are in this town. As you can imagine, the misunderstandings abound, and that’s what the play is built on; misunderstanding after misunderstanding. At this point in the play we are moments away from the two sets of twins appearing on the stage together as we’re in the final scene and only a few hundred lines are left.  

So there are all sorts of amazing coincidences built into this play that we’d have to overlook, but we can do that. We can just say ‘Well, that’s Hollywood,’ like we would do for a lot of movies. And  we assume that they used one guy to play both Antipholuses and one guy to play both Dromios, but I do wonder how they pulled off the very end of the play where the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios finally end up on stage together. Anyway, today's Totally Random line is part of just one of many, many misunderstandings that come about in the play. But I’d prefer to get back to the Porpentine.

For one thing, I think it’s a great word. And much better than porcupine which isn’t pronounced por-cue-pine, it’s pronounced por-kee-pine. Why not go with a word that we can pronounce as we see it? And for another thing, what a great name for an inn or restaurant. The Porpentine (or Porcupine). I googled it, and there is at least one Porcupine Inn, and one Porcupine Restaurant in the U.S. I didn’t spend any time on it, so I’m guessing there’s more than one. And why not? It’s a great name for a place. And he dined there with Balthazar. Balthazar! There’s gotta be few of those kicking around as well. Can you imagine? Someone asks you where you were and you would be able to say I was dining at the Porpentine with Balthazar? I just think it would be fabulous to be able to say that. ‘I dined with Balthazar at the Porpentine.’

Don’t you?

I tried to find an interestingly named restaurant that I'd been to. All I could come up with was the place where we had this stuff. I don't even remember what this stuff was. I think that might be reindeer meat on the top. The place was interesting because it was a really fancy place and it was in the middle of nowhere. Literally. But it was called Husset, which is not nearly as good as the Porpentine. I don't know what Husset means, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean Porcupine.