Shakespeare --- Third Play, Summarized

In a fanciful version of Ancient Greece of the Christian Era, in which the nations of France, Ireland, Scotland, and Poland exist, an old man, under ban of war and penalty of death, enters a city, with little money, as part of a long search of his lost wife and son, estranged to him many years by sea accident.

The man is discovered by local authorities and commended to die at the end of the day by the city's ruler, unless he can produce an enormous ransom. Having heard the old man's tale, the local ruler is sad to have to exact this sentence, but he himself cannot deviate from the law.

His lost son is one of two pairs of identical twins, one of whom was rescued with the old man after the sea accident and raised with him. Unbeknownst to the old man, this son has also just made his way to the city, in search of his lost brother, but has done so clandestinely in regard to his origin, so as to avoid the penalty of death.

This son is also carrying a large amount of money, sufficient for the ransom, but is unaware that his father is in the city, and is under a death sentence.

This son, who is a bachelor, is moreover traveling with his lifelong servant, who himself is one of two identical twins, and who was also split from his brother in the same sea accident years ago.

Unbeknownst to all of them, it happens that the other surviving son long ago made his home in the very city in which all are present. He is married, with established household, but philanders with many local mistresses, to the dismay of his patient wife, who happens to have an unmarried sister of surpassing beauty and virtue. His lifelong servant is, not surprisingly, the other twin to the lifelong servant of his brother.

By a weird quirk, because of the sea accident, both twin sons of the old man have wound up with the same name, and likewise both servant brothers have wound up with the same name. Both sets of twins have a habit of dressing in the same manner with their respective twin brother.

As the foreign brother his servant enter the city, their presence triggers of series of encounters in which one twin son or servant is mistaken for the other, first by each other, and then by other people, including the wife and sister of the local son. This latter encounter triggers a romantic attachment between the bachelor foreign son and the local son's wife's sister, who believes the man who is making love to her is actually her brother-in-law, and thus does her best to resist his advances while remaining respectful to him and in the highest state of virtue.

The mistaken identity situations compound into a situation in which the local son is held by authorities for non-payment of debt, which due to misapprehension, he had believed he had paid. The local authorities are called in, just as the local ruler and the old man are passing, on their way to the execution site.

Due to the presence of all parties, the truth of everyone's identity is finally revealed, to their joyful satisfaction of all, including all the various merchant parties who played a part in the dispute over the paid but unpaid debt. It is also revealed the old man's wife, the mother of the local son, is alive and has been living as an abbess.

The local ruler is so enthralled by this revelation, that without payment of the legal ransom. he pardons the old man and forebears charges against the bachelor foreign son for the same wartime offense, allowing this son to marry his brother's wife's sister, who is overjoyed to discover that he was not in fact her sister's husband.