I'm not even kidding. This play is more violent than King Lear. True, nobody dies in it--after all, it is a comedy (although whether you find it funny or not is a different matter)--but it is violent nonetheless. You know that sick feeling that manifests itself in the pit of your stomach when watching scenes of domestic violence or otherwise abusive relationships in movies or on TV? Isn't it funny then how dormant that feeling seems to be when watching instead scenes of bloodbath-laden homicide a la Quentin Tarantino? Well, maybe it's just me, but that is what made this play so difficult for me to read. Not difficult in the sense that it's Shakespeare and Shakespearean language is difficult--it is difficult, but again, that's a different matter. I suppose in the end, I am just much less comfortable with people disrespectfully slapping each other around than I am with them thrusting swords into each other's breast plates. 
 This play actually started off great. I loved the frame story here: a drunkard being beguiled into believing, upon waking from his alcohol-induced doze, that he had been asleep for years. But the fun ended there. Never before has my estimation of a book plummeted as quickly as it did while reading this play. I guess in the early 1600s a performance showcasing Ike Turner's treatment of Tina would be super freaking hilarious, but I didn't find it very funny, nor was I entertained enough by the other parts of the play to compensate for its cruelty. 
 Now I must locate my wife so that I might bid her, no entreat her, no COMMAND her in her wifely duties to remove this play from my presence!