The conspiracy
Conspiracy is when someone uses dramatic irony against someone else. In other words, the planning happens without the knowledge of the person being conspired against. In this story, the cause for conspiracy is mainly jealousy and indignance. The town is indignant that the most beautiful woman in the entire region has selected a mate based on love instead of stature. They felt it was unfair that they did not get to win the woman as an object, like a trophy. Therefore, they conspire to ruin the marriage—which is unfortunately rather fragile.
Jealousy and the shadow
By suggesting to Chaeras that his wife is cheating, the community drags Chaeras from the luxury of truly love and paradise into the hells of agony and betrayal. While plagued by intense negative emotion, he starts to witness an aspect of his character which is deeply ironic; the heroic husband becomes an abusive tyrant, weakened by intense feelings of jealousy. This effect shows something ironic about Chaeras, which is that although he had the confidence to win over the girl he wanted, he does not have the confidence to rest easily in that marriage.
Callihroe "resurrection"
Callihroe is ironically killed by her husband—an ironic thing for a husband to do, to be sure—but the murder is more ironic for two reasons other than her relationship to the murderer. The first irony is synchronicity; Callihroe ends up in a tomb, alive. The grave robbers come to steal from her immortal wealth by robbing her tomb, but instead, they free her. The second irony is that when they open the casket, they expect a fetid corpse, but instead, they find the most beautiful woman imaginable.
The secret marriage
The action from the first act of the play is hidden from Dionysius when he marries Callihroe. She keeps it a secret that she is already married, and she uses the new marriage to Dionysius as an opportunity to make her pregnancy a secret. To Dionysius, the child is obviously his, but ironically, it is Chaeras's son. When Artaxerxes finally hears about this philandering, he interjects his authority into the situation, but even he—the very prince of Persia—considers just stealing the beautiful wife for himself.
The involvement of gods
At the end of the play, Chaeras and Callihroe worship the goddess of love for weaving this beautiful story into the fabric of their marriage. They come to the conclusion that the gods were at play when they discover that their stories were so filled with insane coincidence that it became apparent to the humans that their fate was being dramatized by the gods for artistic purposes. Callihroe prays to Aphrodite, explaining that she believes Aphrodite has been secretly arranging her fate the whole time.
