Her
part, poor soul! Seeming as burdened
With
lesser weight but not with lesser woe,
Was
carried with more speed before the wind;
And
in our sight they three were taken up
By
fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.
-Aegeon
The Comedy of Errors Act I, Scene i, Line 107
We’re in the middle of Aegeon’s tale at the beginning
of the play which gives us the backstory to the play. He’s describing how his
wife, with two of the four boys, drifted away after the boat split in two and they
were picked up by fishermen of Corinth. He’ll go on to explain that he and the
other two boys, in the other half of the boat, were picked up by sailors from
Epiduarus. And that is the premise for how two of the boys and the mother were
separated from the other two boys and their father.
It's a pretty hokey story, but also pretty important as
it gives an important part of the premise for the rest of the play. Good ol’ backstory,
eh?