In William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, the abbess and long-lost mother is Aemilia. She is the wife of Aegeon and the mother of the twin Antipholuses.
Aemilia became separated from her family after a shipwreck. Each parent escaped in a different boat, taking one Antipholus twin and one of the twin servants, Dromios. Years later, the surviving family members unknowingly converge in Ephesus, creating the play’s chain of mistaken identities.
Aemilia appears at the climax as the abbess who gives sanctuary to the confused Syracusan twins. Her revelation explains the family mystery and reunites the two sets of twins. Modern editions often spell her name Emilia, but Aemilia is an established form used in editions and character listings. She is not Adriana, who is the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus.