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Date & text

The play contains a topical reference to the wars of succession in France which would fit any date from 1589 to 1595. William Warner's translation of the Menaechmi was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on June 10, 1594, and published in 1595. Warner's translation was dedicated to Lord Hunsdon, the patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It has been supposed that Shakespeare might have seen the translation in manuscript before it was printed — though it is also true that Plautus was part of the curriculum of grammar school students. Charles Whitworth, in his edition of the play, argues that The Comedy of Errors was written "in the latter part of 1594."^[1] The play was not published until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623.