Cabot House these days is a bit like a Shakespearean play.

In the Bard's A Comedy of Errors, one set of twins serves another set of twins on the island of Ephesus. At the beginning of the play, however, the city's people do not realize that there are two identical master-servant pairs, for one long-lost pair has just arrived on the island.

Predictable mishaps ensue: One of the servant twins mislays a bag of gold he never received and is nearly killed because of it; one of the master twins does not appear for dinner and nearly loses his wife. Luckily, at the end of the play, the twins realize their mistakes and all ends well.

In Cabot House, the stakes are not so high as in the Shakespearean comedy. There is no gold to be carried and there are no marriages to be destroyed. But there are two pairs of female identical twins in the house, each pair with the same major, and both in each pair living next door to each other.

The twins say that sometimes people confuse them for each other, which may have comic results. But all four make sure to emphasize one thing: no matter how much they may look like their sisters, they are very different people.

Nyala and Nyasha

Nyala S. Ward '96 and Nyasha A. Ward '96 live side-by-side in the Cabot E entryway, in rooms 303 and 302, and both sisters concentrate in statistics. The two say they were housed in separate dorms their first year at Harvard, but not by choice.

According to Nyasha, the two requested that they live together in the Yard. Unbeknownst to them, however, their mother also contacted the Freshman Dean's Office with a request--that the twins not live together. But the separate housing worked out fine, says Nyasha.

"[Nyala] was always in Canaday with me anyway," Nyasha says. They blocked together and ended up in Cabot.

When Nyala is asked how much time she and Nyasha spend together, she laughs. "How much time do we spend together? A lot."

They basically have the same circle of friends, Nyala says, eat breakfast together and take the same concentration classes.

But although they live a stone's throw from each other and spend many hours together, both emphasize that they are not at all the same person.

"We're so different," Nyala says. "It's not like our friends say, 'I just talked to Nyasha, [so] I don't have to talk to Nyala now."

Nyasha agrees: "We're together a lot, but we have very distinct personalities."

"I'm older [by eight minutes], but she tends to be the more motherly figure," Nyasha observes. "I'm more out-going than she is...In a group of people, I'll be the one talking."