In Plautus, only one of the twin heroes is attended by his slave, and there is no suggestion of the delightful absurdity of a second pair of identical twins, attendant upon the first.
Of more importance than these differences in treatment are certain significant additions to the rather simple plot, which appear in The Comedy of Errors, broadening the humor and making the comedy a richer play than the Menaechmi. As Robert Dudley French elaborates in the Yale edition of the play: Of course, it is Shakespeare's additions and embellishments that make The Comedy of Errors so memorable.
Shakespeare keeps the Menaechmi, Mulier, Messenio, Erotium, and Medicus, and renames them Antipholi, Adriana, Dromio, the Courtesan, Dr. In The Comedy of Errors, the main plot is very similar to the work of Plautus, but Shakespeare deviates from his source by adding a second set of twins, and excluding three of the main characters. But these comparisons are so weak that they in no way prove that Shakespeare had access to the translated copy. Some theorize that a copy of the translated text by William Warner was in circulation before its actual publication date, and some try to make comparisons between Warner's work and Shakespeare's. At the time of writing the play (earlier than 1594), Shakespeare did not have access to a translated copy of The Menaechmi - the first being published in 1595, so he probably read the text in its original Latin. The plot of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was taken from the play The Menaechmi, written by the ancient Roman dramatist, Plautus. Shakespeare's Sources for The Comedy of Errors
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