1. The usual derivation given for ‘comedy’ (cf., for instance, Skeat, Etymological Dictionary of the English Language) is from the old Greek , a banquet, a jovial festivity, a festal procession. But even Aristotle in the Poetics had difficulty in determining whether the original derivation was from , to revel, or from , the country word for a village.

2. Paul Turner, introduction to Daphnis and Chloe (Penguin Classics edition). Despite the familiar overall shape of the plot, the ‘moving accidents’ which kept the hero and heroine apart in these novels might have seemed a far cry from the more mundane misadventures which had hitherto been the stuff of stage comedies, consisting as they did mainly of a series of violent and sensational ‘thrilling escapes from death’. In Anthia and Habrocomes by Xenophon of Ephesus, for instance, the heroine ‘is captured by pirates, captured by brigands, nearly raped, nearly made a human sacrifice, buried alive after she has drugged herself ... to avoid a distasteful marriage and buried in a pit with two fierce dogs’; while the hero, her lover, is ‘shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt, captured by shepherds, sold into slavery, falsely accused of murdering his master, crucified on a rock overlooking the Nile, swept by a gale into the river, fished out again and condemned to be burned at the stake. Happily the Nile overflows and puts out the flames ... ’ (op. cit.). It is only after yet further improbable adventures that hero and heroine are at last reunited to live happily ever after.

3. The happy ending for Claudio and Hero is, of course, coupled with that of the sub-plot, the chequered relationship of Beatrice and Benedict who, after bickering their way so entertainingly through the play, finally recognise with disbelieving delight that they are actually meant for each other. This is a classic instance of two characters realising their own true identity through finally recognising their love for the ‘other half’ they have earlier dismissed or rejected (cf. also Pride and Prejudice).

4. The only exception to this in the later plays is Pericles, where the two comparatively minor characters Cleon and Dionyza are punished off-stage.