COME AND TAKE THEM.  The reply of Leon’idas, king of Sparta, to the messengers of Xerxes, when commanded by the invader to deliver up his arms.

COM’EDY (The Father of), Aristoph’anes the Athenian (B.C. 444-380).

Comedy (Prince of Ancient), Aristoph’anes (B.C. 444-380).

Comedy (Prince of New), Menander (B.C. 342-291).

COMEDY OF ERRORS, by Shakespeare (1593), Aemilia, wife of AEgeon, had two sons at a birth, and named both of them Antipholus.  When grown to manhood, each of these sons had a slave named Dromio, also twin-brothers.  The brothers Antipholus had been shipwrecked in infancy, and being picked up by different vessels, were carried one to Syracuse and the other to Ephesus.  The play supposes that Antipholus of Syracuse goes in search of his brother, and coming to Ephesus with his slave, Dromio, a series of mistakes arises from the extraordinary likeness of the two brothers and their two slaves.  Adriana, the wife of the Ephesian, mistakes the Syracusan for her husband; but he behaves so strangely that her jealousy is aroused, and when her true husband arrives he is arrested as a mad man.  Soon after, the Syracusan brother being seen, the wife, supposing it to be her mad husband broken loose, sends to capture him; but he flees into a convent.  Adriana now lays her complaint before the duke, and the lady abbess comes into court.  So both brothers face each other, the mistakes are explained, and the abbess turns out to be Aemilia, the mother of the twin brothers.  Now, it so happened that AEgeon, searching for his son, also came to Ephesus, and was condemned to pay a fine or suffer death, because he, a Syracusan, had set foot in Ephesus.  The duke, however, hearing the story, pardoned him.  Thus AEgeon found his wife in the abbess, the parents their twin sons, and each son his long-lost brother.

[Illustration] The plot of this comedy is copied from the Menaechmi of Plautus.

COMHAL or COMBAL, son of Trathal, and father of Fingal.  His queen was Morna, daughter of Thaddu.  Comhal was slain in battle, fighting against the tribe of Morni, the very day that Fingal was born.—­Ossian.

  Fingal said to Aldo, “I was born in the battle.”

Ossian, The Battle of Lora.

COMINES [Cum’.in].  Philip des Comines, the favorite minister of Charles, “the Bold,” Duke of Burgundy, is introduced by Sir W. Scott, in Quentin Durward (time, Edward IV.).

COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL (Emir al Mumenin), a title assumed by Omar I., and retained by his successors in the caliphate (581, 634-644).

COMMINGES (2 syl.) (Count de), the hero of a novel so-called by Mde. de Tencin (1681-1749).