# Aegeon — The Comedy of Errors character guide

> Aegeon in The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Aegeon Duke, Duke Hapless Aegeon, Aegeon Dromio, old Aegeon, Aegeon Hopeless

**First appearance:** 0002-act-i-scene-i

## Snapshot

A Syracuse merchant who has spent five years hunting his lost twin sons, and now faces execution in Ephesus merely for being born where he was.

## Who they are

Aegeon opens the play as a condemned man, granted one last speech to explain how shipwreck scattered his family: one son and a servant bound to a mast with him, the other two carried off with his wife. His grief is methodical and unshowy, a merchant's ledger of losses recited because, as he says, the world should witness that his end was wrought by nature, not by vile offence. His story plants the entire machinery of the comedy — the twins, the shipwreck, the missing mother — while he waits under sentence for a ransom he cannot possibly raise.

## Relationships

### [Antipholus of Ephesus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters/antipholus_of_ephesus)

_family_

Aegeon is the long-lost father of Antipholus of Ephesus, seeking him in Ephesus under threat of execution.

### [Abbess](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters/abbess)

_family_

The Abbess is revealed to be Aemilia, the long-lost wife of Aegeon, and they are reunited at the play's end.

### [Duke Solinus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters/duke_solinus)

_social_

Aegeon is a prisoner before Duke Solinus, who shows mercy by granting him a day to find ransom.

### [Adriana](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters/adriana)

_family_

Adriana is the daughter-in-law of Aegeon, though they do not recognize each other until the final scene.

## In the story

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/chapters/act-i-scene-i)

Condemned to death; recounts his tragic story of shipwreck and family separation.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/chapters/act-v-scene-i)

Led to execution but saved by the reunion with his wife and sons.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters/aegeon
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_comedy_of_errors_se/characters