The Merry Wives of Windsor – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Act 1, Scene 1 (602-08, Justice Shallow, his nephew Master Slender, and Sir Hugh the parson walk to the Page residence; Shallow accuses Sir John Falstaff of poaching his deer and other offenses; Slender, for his part, complains that Bardolph, Pistol, or Nim—he was too drunk to know which—robbed his purse; Falstaff brazenly defies Shallow, and his men defy Slender; Falstaff greets Mistress Ford and Mistress Page; Master Ford invites the men to dinner in hopes of reconciling them; Slender receives advice from Sir Hugh and Shallow on how to court Anne, but he proves inept.)

The play begins on an angry note, with Justice Shallow threatening to make his allegations against Sir John Falstaff a matter for the Star Chamber. [1] The Welshman Sir Hugh Evans, evidently a man of the Church, [2] offers his help in reconciling the two men, but that talk is interrupted by Evans’s mention of young Anne Page, whom he considers a catch for Shallow’s nephew, Master Slender. It seems that the girl’s grandfather left her 700 £, and her father is likely to leave her much more when he dies.

When the talk turns back to Shallow’s sense of outrage against Falstaff, the former soon gets his chance to air his grievances to Sir John’s face when the latter comes to greet the men. The charges? “Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, / and broke open my lodge” (604, 1.1.95-96). This is by no means a trivial accusation since poaching animals for hunting was a recognized offense. [3] Falstaff, however, is unfazed by it, and by the person who has leveled it against him, saying brazenly, “I have done all this. That / is now answered” (604, 1.1.99-100).

Slender was evidently one of the men whom Falstaff pummeled, and he advances his complaint against the knight as well as against his unsavory associates Bardolph, Nim, and Pistol. The complaint concerns his stolen purse, which contained some petty cash. The end of this complaint is that Slender vows never again to get drunk around men of low character. He is too cowardly to do more than natter angrily against his wrongers: “If I be drunk, I’ll be drunk / with those that have the fear of god, and not with drunken knaves” (606, 1.1.157-59).

When Mistress Ford and Mistress Page come out of the house with Anne, the men’s machinations on behalf of Slender begin in earnest. As for the comically inept and bashful young man himself, he feels exposed without his copy of love poetry to use as courtship fodder. He has forgotten to bring it along, for he says, “I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of / songs and sonnets here” (606, 1.1.171-72).

Slender soon reveals that he is far worse than inept: he is the most pathetic scarecrow of a man that a provincial woman might marry. [4] He is not interested in anything resembling true romance. For him, marriage is strictly a financial and class-based arrangement. As he says to his uncle Shallow “I will marry her, sir, at your request. But if there be / no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it / upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have / more occasion to know one another” (607, 1.1.214-17).

Even when we correct Slender’s ignorant substitution of “decrease” for “increase,” this is a remarkably barren, formal way for a young man to talk about his potentially impending marriage to a charming young woman. [5] Not surprisingly, Anne has the greatest difficulty even getting this “respectable,” dowry-dowsing nonentity to come into the Page residence for dinner.

Act 1, Scene 2 (608, Sir Hugh tells Slender’s man Simple to bring a letter to Dr. Caius’s servant Mistress Quickly requesting her assistance in Slender’s pursuit of Anne Page.)

Sir Hugh hurries Slender’s man Simple off with a letter for Mistress Quickly, servant of the Frenchman Dr. Caius, seeking her assistance in Slender’s wooing of Anne Page. The hope is that she will act as a go-between for the shy young man and his as-yet unsuspecting love interest. [6]

Act 1, Scene 3 (609-11, Falstaff’s sinking finances leads him to offload his servant Bardolph to the Host of the Garter Inn, who hires the old thief as his tapster; Falstaff reveals to Pistol and Nim his intention to seduce Mistresses Ford and Page and fleece their wealthy husbands; when Pistol and Nim take offense at being asked to serve as go-betweens, Falstaff angrily lets them go from his service; Pistol and Nim hit upon a way to get their revenge: they will “out” Falstaff to Masters Ford and Page.)

Falstaff, running low on money, first palms off Bardolph to the jolly Host of the Garter Inn, who hires the spent associate as a tapster. He then explains to his remaining hangers-on, Pistol and Nim, [7] the romantic con he plans to put into effect against the Pages and the Fords: the two ladies, he thinks, are easy marks, and they control the purse-strings in their homes.

Of Mistress Ford, Falstaff says in recollection of her manner while serving him and others dinner recently, “I spy enter- / tainment in her. She discourses, she carves, she gives the / leer of invitation” (609, 1.3.37-39). The trouble is, his solicitation of Pistol and Nim as bearers of the letters he has written to the two ladies offends both men, and at the conclusion of a brief argument about soldierly honor and independence, Falstaff turns them loose, too.

Much of what Falstaff says about Mistresses Ford and Page in this scene comes across as cold, even cruel. Of Mistress Page, for example, he says “She is a region in Guiana, all / gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they / shall be exchequers to me. They shall be my East and West / Indies, and I will trade to them both” (610, 1.3.58-61). Erotic imperialism, we might call such talk.

Here there is no hint of the warmth or humanity of the Falstaff in the Henry plays: this Sir John comes across as a hard, calculating man. His failing finances bring out the worst in him. His comments about a pair of friendly, respectable provincial women and their husbands betrays the sharp, pitiless observational powers of a predator. In this play, Falstaff’s words and conduct are alike alienating. [8]

Pistol and Nim certainly read Sir John’s words that way. Stung by Falstaff’s patronizing, almost contemptuous treatment of them, they hit upon a perfect way to achieve their revenge: Nim says he will expose Falstaff’s plan to Master Ford, while Pistol vows to out the wily knight to Master Page.

Act 1, Scene 4 (611-14, Peter Simple delivers Sir Hugh’s letter asking Mistress Quickly for help in Slender’s wooing of Anne Page, but the temperamental Dr. Caius almost immediately catches the concealed Simple in his house; Caius, who covets Anne for himself, becomes enraged with Sir Hugh and issues a written challenge to the meddling parson for helping Slender, and tasks Simple with delivering the challenge; the third of Anne’s suitors, Fenton, drops by and pays Mistress Quickly to help him win Anne’s heart.)

Dr. Caius’s housekeeper, Mistress Quickly, susses out what sort of fellow Master Slender might be since she now knows from Sir Hugh’s letter (as conveyed by Peter Simple) that Slender seeks assistance in wooing Anne Page. But the first order of the moment is to hide Simple when it becomes clear that the irascible Caius is about to enter. Even so, the Doctor soon discovers that Simple is in his home. The upshot is that Caius uses Simple to send back a challenge to Sir Hugh for daring to help another man pay suit to Anne, whom he (Caius) covets.

No sooner does Caius leave than Fenton, another of Anne’s suitors and of more impressive lineage than either Slender or Caius, shows up to ask for Mistress Quickly’s help with Anne. She promises to assist, but when Fenton departs, she admits that she doesn’t think much of his prospects: “Truly an honest gentleman. But Anne loves him not. For I / know Anne’s mind as well as another does” (614, 1.4.146-47). Whether that’s true or not, Mistress Quickly is a vital intelligencer and go-between in this play. [9]

ACT 2

Act 2, Scene 1 (614-19, Mistresses Page and Ford read through the identical love-letters sent to them by Falstaff, and vow to take revenge; Pistol and Nim tattle on Falstaff to Masters Ford and Page; the two women begin to shape their revenge-plot, and they choose Mistress Quickly as their assistant in the matter; the two husbands discuss how to process what they have learned, with Page expressing nonchalance and Ford giving reign to his characteristic jealousy—he will disguise himself and test Falstaff; the Host, Shallow, and Page go to look for the feuding Sir Hugh and Dr. Caius.)

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford have both received a scandalous love-letter from Sir John Falstaff, and what’s more scandalous still, when the two women sit down to compare the letters, both are the same. The lazy knight has sent them a form letter! Whatever the early modern equivalent for the figure “phoning it in” is, that would be the one to use for such a paltry effort. Mistress Page, even before meeting up with Mistress Ford, is determined to get her revenge on Falstaff “as sure as his guts are made of / puddings!” (615, 2.1.26-27)

Mistress Ford, for her part, is equally bemused and annoyed, saying hilariously to Mistress Page, “What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, / with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor?” [10] And she says further, “How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way / were to entertain him with hope till the wicked fire of lust / have melted him in his own grease” (615, 2.1.56-60)

A deal of sexual innuendo leavens the two women’s contempt for Falstaff, as when Mistress Page, half-questioning her own proper self-presentation to men because of the knight’s absurd brazenness in having “boarded” (616, 2.1.80) her, is answered by Mistress Ford’s quick response, “Boarding, call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck” (616, 2.1.81-82). But in truth, both women seem very secure in their reputations for perfect virtue or married chastity, and this security allows them to turn towards concrete plans for taking revenge on the fool who has dared to try to seduce them.

What is to be done? Mistress Page has it: “Let’s appoint / him a meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and / lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawned / his horses to mine Host of the Garter” (616, 2.1.84-87). This is not exactly what happens, but it gives us some indication of the two women’s thinking: the aim will be to expose and humiliate the arrogant form-letter scribbler and false suitor Falstaff. The knight will get his punishment, we can be sure, in a manner that Prince Hal himself would find entirely appropriate. [11]

Just as the Mistresses resolve on their revenge, up come Masters Ford and Page, respectively in conversation with Pistol and Nim. The latter two men separately tattle Falstaff’s wicked plan to the two husbands. While Page is incredulous and instantly distrusts the word-mangler Nim, Ford, who is apparently jealous by nature, is determined to get to the bottom of things. Pistol, we should add, is more skilled than his colleague as a sower of doubt, sprinkling literate barbs at Master Ford like the following: “Prevent— / Or go thou like Sir Actaeon, / He, with Ringwood at thy heels” (616, 2.1.106-08).

Upon seeing Mistress Quickly approach, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page both decide that she would be the best assistant in their plotting against Falstaff, or, as Mistress Page puts it, “our messenger to this paltry knight” (617, 2.1.142).

Meanwhile, Masters Page and Ford air their differences with respect to how to process jealousy. Page is nonchalant about it, and says of Falstaff, “If he should intend this voyage / toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him …,” and he is all but certain that the knight would get nothing but “sharp words” for his efforts (618, 2.1.163-65). Master Ford, by contrast, considers that while he has no reason to doubt his own wife, “A man may be too confident” (618, 2.1.167).

Shallow and the merry Host of the Garter Inn invite Page along with them to see the supposedly expected duel between Sir Hugh and Dr. Caius over Anne. They three march off dutifully, while Ford remains behind to sound his own thoughts.

When thus alone, Ford ponders the matter of Falstaff more deeply: his wife, he says, “was in his [Falstaff’s] company at Page’s house, and what they made / there, I know not. Well, I will look further into’t, and I have a / disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my / labor. If she be otherwise, ‘tis labor well bestowed” (619, 2.1.205-08). In due time, Master Ford may find that labor so expended can entail some unexpected consequences.

Act 2, Scene 2 (619-24, Falstaff argues with Pistol over the latter’s request for a loan; Mistress Quickly brings news that Mistresses Ford and Page have responded positively to his love-letters, and the first-mentioned has even offered him a meeting time; Master Ford, disguised as “Broom,” goes to visit Falstaff at his lodgings in the Garter and offers him money to seduce Mistress Ford, of whom he claims to be an unsuccessful suitor; alone, Ford is certain that his wife intends to cheat on him with Falstaff, so he plans to catch them in the act.)

Pistol and Falstaff quarrel bitterly over the latter’s refusal to lend Pistol a small sum, and indirectly over Pistol’s earlier refusal to deliver the knight’s love-letter. Falstaff betrays considerable anxiety about his straitened circumstances, [12] belting out, “it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my / honor precise. Ay, ay, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of / heaven on the left hand and hiding mine honor in my neces- / sity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch …” (619, 2.2.18-21). Pistol relents, but further damage has been done to their association.

In steps Mistress Quickly with news from Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, and though it takes her a while to get to the point, she tells Falstaff exactly what he wants to hear: as for Mistress Ford, she has allegedly had many high-class suitors, none of whom produced the profound effect that Sir John has had upon her. In short, the news is that “her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven” (620, 2.2.75-76). Mistress Page finds it a bit harder to meet with Falstaff, says Mistress Quickly, but she fervently hopes that a meeting can be arranged soon.

Mistress Quickly no doubt lays it on thickly with regard to the two women’s supposed otherworldly honesty and virtue (and their alleged failed suitors), the better to inflate Falstaff’s already ample ego and make him take still more pleasure in the piece of wickedness he has set in motion. She may not yet understand that in Falstaff’s case, the escapade he has planned has more to do with his urgent need for money than with even “the joy of sex,” leaving genuine romance quite aside. As we would say, for Sir John, “it’s all about the Benjamins.”

Pistol eggs Falstaff on, and Falstaff, seeming still a bit dubious of his success, verbally pats himself on the back for still being charming enough to pull off such a caper with two such attractive, respectable ladies. Just then, Bardolph announces that “one Master Broom” (621, 2.2.128) desires to make his acquaintance.

This Master Broom is, of course, Master Ford come to put Falstaff to the test. He offers Falstaff a round sum of money and lays out a tale claiming that he has long loved and pursued the wonderful Mistress Ford, buying her gifts galore and following her around endlessly. All he has for his efforts, he laments, is a sad (and slightly confusing) bit of wisdom: “Love like a shadow flies, when substance Love pursues, / Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues” (623, 2.2.185-86).

What’s the goal? If Sir John can successfully seduce Mistress Ford, this supposed Master Broom suggests, perhaps he himself will finally enjoy a victory over her once the lady has been deprived of her usual standing upon honor: as he says to Sir John, “I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, / her reputation, her marriage vow, and a thousand other her / defenses, which now are too strongly embattled against / me” (623, 2.2.220-23). Master Broom is essentially suggesting that if Falstaff can bed Mistress Ford, he, “Broom,” can blackmail or shame her into submitting to his desire.

Falstaff’s ego is flattered by all this, and he rashly promises Ford-as-Broom, “I shall be with her” (624, 2.2.232). When Ford-as-Broom asks him, “Do you know Ford, / sir?” Falstaff lets fly with an unflattering summation. He doesn’t really know the man, he says, but proclaims that the fellow is wealthy, and that only for that reason does he consider his wife attractive. “I will use her,” says Sir John, “as the key of the cuckoldly / rogue’s coffer, and there’s my harvest-home” (624, 2.2.243-44). It’s hard to miss the class-based contempt that Falstaff, a knight, betrays for this wealthy but ordinary citizen. [13]

Alone, Master Ford marvels at the cheekiness of this man Falstaff, this “epicurean rascal” (624, 2.2.255), [14] and this marveling leads him to a dark place: “My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the / match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the / hell of having a false woman!” (624, 2.2.257-59) Ford imagines plenty of bad things, but the worst thing is to be called “cuckold.” [15] What will he do? Says he, “I will prevent this, detect my wife, be / revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page …” (624, 2.2.274-75).

The overall tone of this scene is comic, of course, with Master Ford’s concluding words in it being, “Fie, fie, fie! Cuck- / old, cuckold, cuckold” (624, 2.2.276-77). It is a good thing that Master Ford is an ordinary bourgeois citizen who dwells in a comic universe, though, or we might detect just a hint of that obsessed romantic absolutist, Othello. But that kind of passion and imagination are beyond Master Ford, god be thanked. It is bad enough that he takes Falstaff’s perfidy as proof of his own wife’s dishonesty, but at least the worst doesn’t come of this error.

Act 2, Scene 3 (625-26, when Sir Hugh Evans doesn’t show up for the duel with Dr. Caius, the latter becomes enraged and has to be talked down by the Host of the Garter, who promises to lead him to his love interest, Anne Page.)

Dr. Caius is waiting in Windsor Park for Sir Hugh to arrive for their fateful duel, but the latter is a no-show, and the doctor is very angry about it. A lot of comical hyper-masculine rhetoric issues from his mouth, but none of it amounts to much. Even old Justice Shallow, it seems, claims he has a martial past to boast of. As he says, “Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, / Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us. We are / the sons of women, Master Page” (625, 2.3.41-43). [16]

With Caius still raging, the Host steps in and mercifully puts an end to the scene, promising him, “Go about the fields with me through Frogmore. / I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a farmhouse / a-feasting, and thou shalt woo her. Cried game!” (626, 2.3.75-77) That is good enough for Dr. Caius, and he agrees to go along.

ACT 3

Act 3, Scene 1 (626-29, Sir Hugh, though frightened, still expects to carry on with his duel against Dr. Caius, and he is accompanied by Page, Shallow, and Slender; the Host brings Sir Hugh and Caius together, and admits that he has kept them apart for their own safety; the two men reconcile, but their bond is a mutual determination to take revenge on the Host for tricking them.)

In Windsor Park, Sir Hugh, singing a song anachronistically based on a poem by Christopher Marlowe, [17] encounters several other characters, including his nemesis, Dr. Caius. The latter puts out noises about how determined he is to destroy Sir Hugh, who for his part seems frightened out of his wits. Shallow wants to bring Caius home, but the Host has a different, complementary plan: he brings the doctor and the parson together, flatters them, and admits that it is he who has been keeping them apart so they would not come to any harm.

After some comical puffery on their part, both Sir Hugh and Dr. Caius prove more than willing to reconcile, though in a way that doesn’t exactly flatter the Host’s Solon-like vision of his efforts. Whereas the Host puts great faith in his peacemaking skills, Sir Hugh and Dr. Caius actually bond over their antipathy towards the Host for deceiving them all this time: as Evans says, “let us knog our prains / together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging / companion, the Host of the Garter” (629, 3.1.102-04). Caius agrees, and that’s that.

Justice Shallow’s remarks before the Host steps in are instructive: Shallow sees some loss in Dr. Caius’s standing from this ridiculous quarrel. This kind of observation shows the operations of class-based ethical expectations. Such expectations of respectable behavior seem largely to set up a fence around potentially damaging and embarrassing conduct, thereby helping to maintain peaceful norms in provincial Windsor.

Act 3, Scene 2 (629-31, Ford meets Mistress Page on her way to visit Mistress Ford, and feels certain that both women are up to mischief, and just as certain that he will win praise for exposing them along with Falstaff; he invites several men to accompany him home, where he expects to catch his wife committing adultery with Falstaff; meanwhile, Master Page tells Shallow that he favors Slender as a husband for Anne, while his wife prefers Dr. Caius.)

Ford meets Mistress Page with Falstaff’s boy servant Robin on the way to the Ford residence to meet with Mistress Ford. Master Ford is jealous even of the two women’s friendship since he says, “I think if your husbands were dead, you two would / marry,” which the lady parries with, “Be sure of that—two other husbands” (629, 3.2.11-13).

When he is out of earshot, Ford airs his certainty that both his wife and Mistress Page are up to no good. His aim now , he says, is to expose the lot of them: “Well, I will take him [Falstaff], then / torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from / the so-seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a / secure and willful Actaeon, and to these violent proceed- / ings all my neighbors shall cry aim” (630, 3.2.34-38). Above all, Ford is sure that his stock in the community will rise, not sink, when he turns his almost violent fantasies into reality. [18]

Master Ford is so eager to carry out his plan that he can hardly wait. When Page, Shallow, Slender, the Host, Evans, Caius, and Rugby greet him (as he seems to have arranged), he invites them to follow him home, where of course he expects to find his wife and Falstaff, to borrow a line from Hamlet, “honeying and making love / Over the nasty stye.” [19]

Meantime, when Master Page is asked by Justice Shallow whether he favors Slender as a suitor to his daughter Anne, he receives the positive answer he wants, along with the less welcome report that his wife prefers Dr. Caius. The Host of the Garter Inn asks Page what he thinks of Fenton, and Page says the young man is not to his liking. Why? Well, says Page, he has no property and too high a rank and sense of courtliness; worse yet, “he kept company with the wild prince and Poins” (630, 3.2.64). [20]

Master Page ends the scene by inviting specifically Dr. Caius, Master Page, and Sir Hugh to his home. Shallow and Slender do not plan to accompany him.

Act 3, Scene 3 (631-35, Mistresses Ford and Page set their plans in motion; Robin announces Falstaff’s presence at the Ford residence, and Mistress Page says she has spied Master Ford on his way home with friends; Falstaff panics and jumps into the laundry basket the women have prepared; he lies in dirty laundry while the Ford servants carry him to a ditch alongside the Thames; Ford and his companions launch a futile search while the women plan further revenge; the search completed, Ford is crestfallen, invites his associates to dinner so he can explain, and asks everyone for pardon.)

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford set everything up in advance of Falstaff’s visit: Robin, Falstaff’s servant, hasn’t informed his master that Mistress Page is lurking in the Ford residence. Likewise, the Ford servants are ready with the big laundry-basket that will be used to hide Falstaff and then to dump him in a “muddy ditch” (631, 3.3.13) beside the Thames.

Falstaff makes his entrance through the residence’s back door, and he promptly makes a class-based appeal to Mistress Ford’s vanity: “I would make / thee my lady” (632, 3.3.42-43). A little more of this talk ensues, when in rushes Mistress Page, duly announced by Robin, and pretending to be extremely flustered. She gasps at her friend that all is undone, her reputation is ruined, and so forth, adding, “Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with / all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he / says is here now in the house …” (633, 3.3.89-91).

Mistress Ford issues a mock confession to Mistress Page, and together, the two of them put on a scene that might as well be a farcical lazzo (slapstick skit) straight out of the Italian commedia dell’arte: their chaotic running around and talking frightens the cowardly Falstaff out of his wits. Into the foul-smelling, nearly full laundry basket he goes, and the women give the servants orders to carry the basket all the way to Datchet Mead. [21]

Just then, in comes Master Ford and his little entourage expecting the thrills of an Elizabethan proto-reality show. He is supremely confident, and tells his wife, “If I suspect / without cause, why then make sport at me …” (633, 3.3.126-27). The great big basket arouses suspicion, but not enough to foil the women’s plot, and with the basket gone, a thorough (and thoroughly ridiculous) search of the premises is made, of course to no effect. Mistress Ford is enjoying the whole affair: “I know not which pleases me better,” she says, “that my / husband is deceived, or Sir John” (634, 3.3.149-50).

Indeed, Master Ford is at his wits’ end and cuts a most ridiculous figure, and the rogue Sir John has a date with a muddy ditch next to the Thames, tumbled out with the Fords’ dirty laundry. Well done, ladies! Then it occurs to Mistress Ford that they might as well humiliate Sir John yet a second time: they’ll send Mistress Quickly to him with an excuse for his dreadful first experience, and a generous offer for another assignation with Mistress Ford.

Master Ford is deeply embarrassed, and his friends Sir Hugh and Caius only make him feel worse. Ford asks pardon of all, and invites the men to dinner in a while, when, he says, he will explain why he was so confident in finding his wife unchaste. Sir Hugh and Caius, when they have a moment alone, note that their plan to take revenge against the Host is still on.

Act 3, Scene 4 (635-37, Fenton returns to woo Anne Page, but is interrupted first by Slender with his uncle, Justice Shallow, and then by Master Page, who tries to run him off the premises; finally, Fenton tries to sweet-talk Mistress Page and win her favor, but the latter promises only—probably just to placate him—to remain neutral until she questions Anne on the matter; Mistress Quickly is engaged to help all three of Anne’s suitors, aside from her work as go-between for Mistresses Ford and Page with Falstaff.)

Fenton, again wooing Anne, admits that at first it was her father’s wealth that drew his attention to her, but swears that now things are otherwise, saying, “I found thee of more value / Than stamps in gold or sums in sealèd bags, / And ‘tis the very riches of thyself / That now I aim at” (635, 3.4.15-18). Anne encourages her most ardent suitor to keep seeking her father’s approval, which he has already tried, but failed, to win.

Next up is Slender, with Shallow at his side, at first doing all the work for him. Anne’s distaste for this fellow is evident from her words: “Oh, what a world of vile ill-favored faults / Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!” (636, 3.4.32-33) Equally evident is Slender’s indifference to marriage in general. He confesses as much to Anne: “Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing / with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions” (636, 3.4.59-60). There is no risk that Slender will ever be confused with Romeo.

Next, Fenton, again rebuffed by Master Page, tries his luck in winning the favor of Mistress Page. Sounding like a Tudor sonneteer, he declares, “I must advance the colors of my love / And not retire” (637, 3.4.78-79). [22] Mistress Page prefers Dr. Caius, over whom Anne is approximately as excited as she is over Slender: “I had rather,” she says, “be set quick i’th’ earth / And bowled to death with turnips!” (637, 3.4.83-84) Mistress Page claims that she will remain neutral toward Fenton, and she promises to question her daughter about her affection for him, which she considers the most important thing.

Mistress Quickly ends the scene by pointing out to the audience that she is engaged to help all three of Anne Page’s suitors. Quickly seems to prefer Fenton, though her malapropism “speciously” for “especially” makes discerning her preference difficult. Now she is off on another embassy from Mistresses Ford and Page to Sir John Falstaff.

Act 3, Scene 5 (638-40, Falstaff complains bitterly about the mishap he has suffered during his attempted seduction of Mistress Ford, but promptly accepts another date with the lady; he informs Master Ford—as “Broom”—in detail how badly his first attempt went, and of the new attempt he will make on his behalf. This time, Ford is determined to catch his wife and Falstaff at the residence.)

Falstaff bellyaches to Bardolph about the indignity he has suffered: “Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow of / butcher’s offal? And to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I / be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and / buttered, and give them to a dog for a New Year’s gift” (638, 3.5.4-7). This sounds considerably worse than, say, being hit in the face with a pie.

But seriously, the passage as a whole has a darker side, with Sir John imagining himself as rotting meat and a water-logged, swollen corpse. There is a real sense of diminution and decay in this iteration of Falstaff: he is altogether a meaner and more desperate version of the cheerful, bawdy, dynamic “Plump Jack” we may know from the Henry IV and V plays. [23] It is not hard to imagine the downhill trajectory from here in The Merry Wives of Windsor to Sir John’s sad end in Henry V, when, as the Hostess tells her companions, the broken man at last turned “cold as any stone.” [24]

Mistress Quickly soon brings Falstaff around, and he agrees to a second assignation: “Well, I will visit her,” says he, “Tell her so, and bid her think / what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then judge of / my merit” (638, 3.5.42-44).

Next, it’s time for Falstaff to meet Ford again as “Broom,” and he is tasked with explaining to him how badly his initial “date” with Mistress Ford has gone. In so doing, he makes Ford/Broom realize how close he came actually to catching his mark at the residence: if only he had known about that laundry-basket trick! Sir John describes the whole series of events in nauseating, nostril-offending detail. But in the end, he promises “Broom,” the plot will succeed: “You shall have her, Master Broom. / Master Broom, you shall cuckold Ford” (640, 3.5.117-18).

This is all a revelation to Master Ford, who, we know, already feared the worst. He all but slaps himself in the face: “Hum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? / … There’s a hole / made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ‘tis to be married …” (640, 3.5.119-21). He is indeed awake, though deluded with regard to the virtuous Mistress Ford, and he is determined to catch her and the rascal Falstaff in flagrante delicto, or at least the guilty Falstaff in a laundry basket.

ACT 4

Act 4, Scene 1 (640-42, at Mistress Page’s request, William, her grammar-school-aged son, is subjected to a pop quiz on his Latin, with an assist of sorts from Mistress Quickly; then it’s off with Mistress Page to the Ford residence.)

Before going off to Mistress Ford’s home for another bout with Falstaff, Mistress Page asks Sir Hugh to put little William (her son) through his paces as a Latin scholar. She has heard he is a bit slow at his studies, but with help from the supremely ignorant Mistress Quickly and the Welshman Sir Hugh with his heavy accent, the boy does well enough to impress his mother, who, we may presume, knows no Latin. Writing this scene must have greatly amused Shakespeare the onetime schoolboy at Stratford’s William IV Grammar School.

Act 4, Scene 2 (642-46, Mistresses Ford and Page carry out the second round of Falstaff’s punishment: this time, an attempt is made to smuggle him out of the Ford residence dressed as “the fat woman of Brentford”; Ford hates this woman, so he beats her when she is hustled downstairs by Mistress Page, and the beating continues even after he chases her off the premises; the women congratulate themselves on a plan well executed, decide to tell their husbands about it, and agree that Falstaff’s humiliations must be capped by public exposure and communal mockery.)

The second episode of Falstaff’s punishment takes much the same form as the first, with the only differences lying in the manner of disguise and the more violent abuse to which the knight is subjected. Mistress Page duly arrives at the Ford residence, making it known that the irascible Master Ford is yet again on the march home to search out and destroy his supposedly unfaithful wife and her lover. She describes the state of misogynistic madness that seems to have consumed the jealous husband Ford, who now “rails / against all married mankind” and “curses all Eve’s daughters …” (642, 4.2.19-20).

But what is to be done now that disaster is upon the faithless pair? Master Ford is already on to the laundry basket trick, so that won’t do. All the women profess themselves able to think of is to dress Sir John up in the clothing left at the home by one local character, “the fat woman of Brentford,” since that’s the only clothing in the house that will fit the rotund knight. Ford hates this woman, and, says Mistress Ford, he “swears she’s a witch” and has forbidden her to visit the premises ever again, on pain of a beating. (644, 4.2.75; see 73-76)

Mistress Page is obviously looking forward to the latter stages of this second chastising of Sir John, as she chortles, “Wives may be merry and yet honest too. / We do not act that often jest and laugh …” (644, 4.2.92-93). It’s the quiet ladies, she suggests, that end up doing most of the “cuckolding.”

Master Ford enters, and he is in an ugly mood, taunting his wife with, “I suspect / without cause, mistress, do I?” (644, 4.2.114-15) He orders the laundry basket opened, but has no luck there, so he prepares to search the premises, once again inviting everyone present to take him for a byword and a laughingstock if their efforts should fail.

Just then, down comes Mistress Page with “the fat woman of Brentford” (aka Sir John Falstaff), and an enraged Ford begins to rail at and beat the figure before him, shouting, “Out / of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runion, out, out! I’ll conjure you! I’ll fortune tell you!” (645, 4.2.161-63) Those are the words Falstaff hears as Ford and the other men (Sir Hugh, Page, Caius, and Shallow) chase him out of doors.

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford are delighted at what has just happened—it’s quite a victory for them and a well-deserved punishment for the duplicitous, greedy Falstaff. The question is, says Mistress Ford, “Shall we tell our husbands how we have / served him?” (646, 4.3.188-89) The answer is a definite “yes.” One more consideration remains: says Mistress Ford, “methinks there would be no period to the jest should / he not be publicly shamed” (646, 4.3.195-96).

Mistress Page makes an interesting remark at the scene’s end: “Come, to the forge with it, then shape it! I would not have things cool” (646, 4.2.197-98). This suggests the empowerment felt by both Mistress Page and Mistress Ford: they take ownership of what they call the “jest” they have played against both Falstaff and Ford, both of whom are guilty of seriously disrespecting and abusing them, the one for reasons of his own (lust and financial distress), and the other based on a long misogynist tradition of distrusting female “nature.”

Act 4, Scene 3 (646, supposedly, a group of Germans want to hire the Host of the Garter’s horses as part of a trick against the Host for misleading Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh.)

Some German guests at the Garter, Bardolph informs the Host, would like to hire his horses. As the Norton footnote #2 on 647 points out, this is part of a trick that, in some longer version of Merry Wives, would see Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh getting revenge on the Host for his earlier deception of them regarding their whereabouts while they were feuding. As it is, although the Host does lose his horses, this subplot is not fully developed. [25]

Act 4, Scene 4 (647-48, Ford apologizes to his wife, for she and Mistress Page have by now acquainted their husbands with their joke on Falstaff; the couples discuss how best to expose and publicly mock Falstaff, and they develop a plan to send him in expectation to Herne the Hunter’s haunted oak in Windsor Forest, and there torment him until he confesses; Master and Mistress Page also work in a bit of personal subterfuge: both separately plan for their favorite suitors—Slender and Caius—to make away with Anne in disguise and marry her.)

Ford is abashed after having heard his wife and Mistress Page’s explanation of how they virtuously cozened the cozener Falstaff, and promises to amend his ways. From now on, he tells her, “do what thou wilt. / I rather will suspect the sun with cold / Than thee with wantonness” (647, 4.4.5-7). This seems a bit much even to easygoing Master Page, but Ford is cured of his ill opinion of his wife, and that’s what matters.

Round three of Falstaff’s punishment, by agreement, is to be planned carefully: the men will devise how to “use” Sir John when they’ve captured him, and the women will take care of the more intellectual side of the joke: they will plan how to get him to the appointed place. That place is borrowed from a frightening legend about Herne the Hunter, “sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest” (647, 4.4.26), a horned spirit who blasts an ancient oak tree and bewitches the cattle nearby every midnight during the wintertime. One can hear the chain affixed to him rattling in the darkness. [26]

Herne’s oak, then, will be the place of assignation for the Mistresses and their would-be seducer, Falstaff. As he arrives, he will be greeted by children dressed as fairies, goblins, and elves, who will challenge him on why he has come there so late at night. Further, says Ford, “till he tell the truth, / Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound / And burn him with their tapers” (648, 4.4.57-59).

The women now in part take over the function of devising what to do with the captured knight, and it’s a fine plan: when Falstaff finally spills the truth, says Mistress Page, “We’ll all present ourselves, dishorn the spirit, / And mock him home to Windsor” (648, 4.4.59-61). The miserable knight, it seems, will be an object of mirth for the entire community of Windsor.

The last order of business in this scene belongs to a separate interest of Master and Mistress Page: they both mean to help the suitor of their choice spirit their daughter Anne away to an immediate marriage, and put an end to the strain of having this important domestic task still confronting them. As we know, and are again told, Master Page prefers the wealthy but none-too-confident Slender, while his wife’s choice for Anne is the rich and well-connected Dr. Caius—in neither of whom is Anne in the least interested.

Act 4, Scene 5 (648-51, Bardolph, Sir Hugh, and Caius inform the Host to his extreme discomfort that his supposed German guests have stolen three of his horses; Simple comes in search of “the wise woman of Brentford” and on a mission from Slender; Mistress Quickly enters with yet another proffer to a demoralized Falstaff, this time a meeting with both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page; Falstaff and Quickly take their conversation upstairs.)

Peter Simple has come to the Garter because he has seen Falstaff in disguise as the “wise woman of Brentford” entering the place, and he now wants to question her about the chain he believes Nim stole from him. Approached in his chambers, Falstaff equivocates, saying that indeed that very woman had just been visiting with him, but is now gone. Simple also seeks confirmation that his employer, Slender, will find favor with Anne, which Falstaff wrongly affirms.

Bardolph enters yelling something about how Germans made off with the three horses and left him behind in the mud. Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh arrive and confirm that these “Germans” were nothing but crooks, and they have stolen the Host’s horses. The Host, as we can imagine, is beside himself at the loss of these valuable animals.

Falstaff, alone for a time, sounds thoroughly humiliated and downcast. He worries about his current reputation with the royal court: “If it should come to the ear of / the court how I have been transformed … / … they would melt / me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots / with me” (650, 4.5.78-82). He would be the subject of no end of mockery, and the thought of it almost makes him want to repent: as he says, “Well, if my wind were / but long enough, I would repent” (650, 4.5.84-85).

Mistress Quickly stops by to invite the disillusioned Falstaff to take a third bite at the apple. She claims that Mistress Ford has been severely beaten for her alleged transgression, and offers further explanation of the situation designed to convince the knight to give seduction one more go—this time, he will be presented with both ladies. Falstaff invites Mistress Quickly to his chamber, where the conversation continues.

Act 4, Scene 6 (651-52, Fenton contracts with the Host of the Garter to have a vicar waiting at the inn to perform his marriage rites with Anne: she will first deceive her parents by pretending to agree to a marriage with both Slender and Caius, but will instead run away with Fenton during the thick of the nighttime Windsor Forest gathering.)

The Host is in a terrible mood, having lost his horses to “Germans,” but Fenton offers him a hundred pounds’ worth of gold to set up his wedding to Anne that night. He has thought of everything: Anne has promised both her father and mother that she will assent to marry their chosen suitor, and she agrees to wear the white and green dresses, respectively, by which each suitor shall know her. But she will instead run away with Fenton to the Garter Inn, where the Host will have a Vicar waiting there to marry the happy couple.

ACT 5

Act 5, Scene 1 (652, Falstaff agrees with Mistress Quickly to rendezvous with Mistress Ford, but this time also with Mistress Page; when Ford enters as “Broom,” Falstaff promises him a wonderful sight at Herne’s oak that evening.)

In Scene 1, Falstaff finally agrees to make one last attempt at seduction, this time with both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Mistress Quickly will provide the knight with a “Herne the Hunter” costume, replete with a nice set of horns, with obvious reference to cuckoldry.

Master Ford soon enters, this time knowing exactly what’s on the menu, and Falstaff invites him to a fateful, fantastic meeting at Herne’s oak this very evening. It’s clear that the knight has added revenge against Ford as a special delicacy, in addition to satisfying his desires for the two ladies. All in all, he promises Broom, “you shall see wonders” (652, 5.1.11).

Act 5, Scene 2 (653, Page and Slender discuss their plans for the latter’s elopement with Anne.)

Page and Slender, his intended suitor for Anne, work on their plans for the evening. Slender, though generally not the brightest man in the room, has even come up with a verbal password by which he and Anne can recognize each other, but Page shoots the idea down, saying that after all, the girl will be wearing white. It’s now ten o’clock at night, so the game is on.

Act 5, Scene 3 (653, Dr. Caius affirms to Mistress Page that he is ready to elope with Anne tonight in Windsor Forest; Mistresses Page and Ford carry on with their plot to humiliate Falstaff in the same place.)

Mistress Page and Dr. Caius briefly go over their plans for his elopement with Anne. When he leaves, she tells us why she is so insistent on this choice: “Better a little chiding than a great deal of / heartbreak” (653, 5.5.9-10). In other words, she’ll put up with a bit of anger from Master Page rather than see her daughter married to someone who lacks Caius’s advantages.

Mistresses Page and Ford confer on the exposure of Falstaff to come, enjoying the certainty that whether or not they manage to scare Falstaff out of his wits, he will be roundly mocked by everyone present. The principle that reigns in Windsor Forest tonight, to put it in Mistress Page’s words, is that “Against such lewdsters and their lechery, / Those that betray them do no treachery” (653, 5.5.20-21). If there is any magic in this miniature “green world,” perhaps that ethical principle or sententia describes it: it’s acceptable, even laudable, to deceive a deceiver.

Act 5, Scene 4 (653, Sir Hugh positions the children dressed as goblins and fairies in a pit specially prepared to hide them until they run out to frighten and torment Falstaff.)

Sir Hugh conducts several children dressed as goblins and fairies to the pit that will conceal them until they sally forth to scare the dickens out of Sir John Falstaff and torment him until he confesses his knavery.

Act 5, Scene 5 (653-59, Falstaff prays to Jove to bless his efforts as a seducer; Mistresses Ford and Page arrive and sit down on each side of Falstaff, but then run away when horns signal the beginning of the fairy-attack; the fairies and goblins rush in, pinching and tormenting the frightened Falstaff with candle flames; Caius and Slender each make away with the fairy they think is Anne Page, and Fenton runs away with the real Anne; the fairies exit at the sound of hunting, and the Ford and Page couples enter, with Ford mocking the “cuckoldly” knight. (SYNOPSIS CONTINUES …)

It’s midnight, and Falstaff sends forth a prayer for success to that arch-seducer Jove (Zeus), pursuer of Europa, Leda, and countless other fair maidens. Thanks to the women who have set him up, he comes dressed in the form of “a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I / think, i’th’ forest” (654, 5.5.11-12). Mistresses Page and Ford soon join him, and he is in all his glory just for a moment, with an attractive lady at each side: “Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch” (654, 5.5.21), he tells the women.

Just then, horns begin to sound, and Falstaff becomes alarmed. The Mistresses run away in feigned fright, and in rush the whole crew of goblins and fairies (among the latter is Anne Page), with Mistress Quickly as Queen of the Fairies and Sir Hugh as a satyr. The fairies gather to dance around the Herne oak, and throughout the whole spectacle, Falstaff, whose mind is as full of medieval fairy-lore as anyone, is terrified. The fairies, say the stage directions, burn the tips of Falstaff’s fingers with candle-light, and they also pinch him all over his body.

As the fairies sing a song condemning “sinful fantasy” and “lust and luxury” (656, 5.5.91), Dr. Caius picks out the fairy he believes is Anne, while Slender chooses another, and off they go. Both men are mistaken, though, and Fenton runs away with Anne, whom he knows to be wearing red—not white or green, as the other suitors think.

Next, the stage directions tell us that “a noise of hunting” strikes up, and all the fairies run away. Falstaff takes off his buck’s head, and gets up as the Ford and Page couples arrive along with Justice Shallow. Mistress Page tells her husband not to draw out the jest farther, presumably because Falstaff is embarrassed and scared enough. Master Ford mocks Falstaff, referring to himself as “Master Broom” and saying, “Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master / Broom, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave. / Here are his / horns …” (656, 5.5.104-06). [27]

Falstaff now does something that may surprise us: he admits his culpability. To the assembled party, he says he intuited that the fairies were not real, but guilt kept the realization from becoming actualized: “I was three or four times / in the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of / my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the / grossness of the foppery into a received belief …” (657, 5.5.115-18). Sir John is not what today we would call a sociopath—he has a conscience and cannot perfectly control its movements within him.

Falstaff realizes at last that he has been seen through. As the excellent Norton footnote #2 on 657 explains, this realization is figured by Sir John’s answer to the Welshman Sir Hugh: “You have the start of me. I / am dejected. I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. / Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will” (657, 5.5.149-51).

The Norton note informs us that the word “plummet” is connected as a pun to “plumbet,” which means “woolen fabric” and is hence a reference to the ignorant fellow Sir Hugh as a kind of “Welsh flannel” covering over Falstaff, who now knows that “even the ignorant Evans can plumb [… his] depths, can see his true motives.”

Master Page is in fine fettle, and invites the thoroughly exposed and contrite Falstaff home to dinner, even promising that he’ll get to laugh at Mistress Page because he has secretly married off her daughter to Slender. Mistress Page, in her turn, thinks she will have the last laugh because she believes she has married off Anne to Dr. Caius. But they’re all mistaken, of course, as becomes apparent when both of these men arrive and declare their outrage at having made away not with Anne but with boys in fairy disguise.

Fenton settles the upset when he defends his new wife Anne’s decision to elope with him instead of her other two suitors. The deception that has been practiced, he insists, is no act of sinfulness or disobedience, “Since therein she doth evitate and shun / A thousand irreligious cursèd hours / Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her” (204-06). In other words, deception practiced in the service of marital harmony is fully justified, and in no way blamable.

There is no effective argument for Master and Mistress Ford to make against Fenton’s powerful rejection of arranged marriage, which was common in Shakespeare’s time. Presented with a fait accompli, both assent to the choice that Anne and Fenton have made for themselves.

Page accedes readily enough, saying graciously, “Fenton, heaven give thee joy. What / cannot be eschewed must be embraced” (659, 5.5.212-13). Falstaff chalks it up to the power of the night, and completes a rhyme with Page’s line: “When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased” (659, 5.5.214). Norton footnote 4 on 659 glosses this as a joke at the expense of the suitors Caius and Slender, which sounds right. We might add to this the implication that love itself is wild, and therefore not easy to control, even by a loving set of parents.

Final Reflections on The Merry Wives of Windsor

The comic essence of this play consists in its following the actions and decisions of two respectable married women joining together in a provincial community to expose and mock a lustful, selfish, and greedy knight, Sir John Falstaff, for his multiple attempts on their virtue and his intention to take their husbands’ money. In true comic spirit, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page accomplish their revenge in a civil way. They follow Hamlet’s advice, “Use every man / after his desert and who shall scape whipping?” [28]

In the end, Falstaff is welcome at the feast after he has been exposed and mocked for his unwanted advances. The malefactor admits his guilt, and is invited back into the Windsor community, which swallows up the admitted wrongdoing, laundering it in the Thames like Mistress Ford’s soiled linens in the basket that carried Falstaff to his first punishment. From the goings-on in middle-class Windsor, we get a sense of timelessness and contentment. Windsor is pleasant, and the provincials hold steady in the face of assault by high-handed rogues like Falstaff, to which we must add that ever-present destroyer of marriages and perhaps even of broader communities, jealousy, in the person of Master Ford.

The subplot in which Anne Page ends up with the man of her choice, Fenton, adds a deeper romantic touch to the farcical main plot involving Falstaff, the Fords, and the Pages. We don’t know whether Fenton will turn out to be a paragon of high moral seriousness, but he does seem serious about Anne. In, say, Romeo & Juliet’s tragic universe, what Fenton and Anne do would certainly prove lethal, but here in the comic universe of Windsor, their romantic elopement allows them to wrest from parental demands a fine marriage that satisfies both them and a society in which, as always, “the world must be peopled.” [29]

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6.

ENDNOTES

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.

[1] Shallow’s reference to the Star Chamber is anachronistic since that judicial entity wasn’t created until 1487, the year in which the Wars of the Roses ended, whereas Henry V died in 1422. See Britannica.com’s article “Star Chamber.” Accessed 10/3/2024.

[2] Catholic Church since the play is set during the reign of Henry IV or V, though the actual setting is more like Shakespeare’s own time than late medieval England.

[3] The penalty for poaching deer and other game in England varied, but could be severe. See “Sports, Games & Entertainment in the Elizabethan Era.” World History Encyclopedia. Accessed 10/3/2024.

[4] Walter Cohen, in his Norton Comedies introduction to Merry Wives (591-98), points out that this play is “Shakespeare’s most middle-class play in subject matter, setting, and outlook. It is also his most farcical …” (591).

[5] Master Slender is another of Shakespeare’s word-manglers, like Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, Mistress Quickly in the present play, and Lancelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, among others. Such characters are usually trying (and failing hilariously) to imitate the speech of their social superiors.

[6] See the Folger Shakespeare Library’s article “Wooing and Wedding: Courtship and Marriage in Early Modern England.” By Karen Lyon, June 8, 2018. Folger.edu. Accessed 10/3/2024.

[7] As the Norton footnote #2 for 605 says, Nim keeps seems to use the word “humor” in a way that has little to do with its basic definition. It was a versatile word in Shakespeare’s time, what with the widely believed “theory of the four humors” (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) that supposedly regulated human temperament. Still, Nim takes this word to places one would never expect it to go.

[8] See Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Riverhead Books, 1998. Essay on The Merry Wives of Windsor, 315-18. Bloom describes Falstaff in this play as “a nameless impostor masquerading as the great Sir John Falstaff” (315). Falstaff in Wives certainly falls short of the character we know from the Henry IV-V plays. Windsor Falstaff isn’t Prince Hal’s playful, interiority-rich foil. Moreover, he is surrounded not by loyal underlings but by associates whom he has alienated, and by respectable provincial folk who expose his worst tendencies and even welcome him into their community.

[9] Mistress Quickly will be recognizable to Shakespeare’s audiences from the Henry IV-V series, where she is the hostess at Falstaff’s favorite place, the Boar’s Head Tavern in central London’s Eastcheap Street.

[10] Windsor is around 30 miles west of London, on the south bank of the Thames River.

[11] See Shakespeare, William. The History of Henry the Fourth. Aka The First Part of Henry the Fourth. (The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 629-95.) The Gads Hill robbery episode in Act 2, Scenes 1-2 and its aftermath in Act 2, Scene 4 is the high point of the Falstaff story in Shakespeare. See also Dr. Michael Delahoyd’s notes, Washington SU. Accessed 10/3/2024.

[12] Falstaff’s complaint may place the play’s action early in the reign of Henry V, since the new and reformed King wants nothing to do with his old friend. See Shakespeare, William. The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Continuing to His Death, and Coronation of Henry the Fifth. Quarto. (The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 710-78.) In that play, Henry V accords Falstaff only an allowance for “competence of life” (basic needs) so he will have no excuse to commit further crimes. Henry’s line “I know thee not, old man” (776, 5.5.45) proves devastating to Sir John’s soul, and he never fully recovers.

[13] As a knight, Falstaff is a member of the gentry, while an ordinary citizen is not.

[14] On Epicureanism, see “Epicurus.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (https://iep.utm.edu/.) In Shakespeare’s era, the word “Epicurean” and its derivatives was sometimes used derogatively, as in the present play, to mean “irresponsible pleasure-seeker.”

[15] It’s hard to miss Shakespearean comedy’s light-hearted treatment of cuckolds and cuckoldry. “Cuckoldry” is defined by Wiktionary.org as either “An act of adultery committed by a married woman against her husband” or “The state of being a cuckold.” Accessed 10/3/2024. In the tragedies, of course, even the suspicion of adultery can, as in Othello, have dire consequences, but in the comedies, it’s generally seen as the result of human frailty or “fallenness”: people often fail to exercise control over their passions, so they fall into marital dishonesty. A favorably disposed comic universe is sufficient to allow characters to deal productively with this problem—it is not a marriage “dealbreaker.”

[16] Justice Shallow’s nostalgia transcends the present play. When Falstaff says to him in II Henry IV, “We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow” (747, 3.2.193-94), Shallow responds, “That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, / Sir John, we have” (747, 3.2.195-96). The two seem to be recalling their youthful days of drinking and visiting houses of prostitution at night.

[17] See Marlowe, Christopher. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” or “Come live with me and be my love.” poetryfoundation.org. Accessed 10/3/2024.

[18] With regard to the often public nature of criminal penalties during the Tudor Period, see Lucy Soaft’s article “Crime and Punishment in the Tudor Period.” thecollector.com Accessed 10/3/2024.

[19] Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. (The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447.) 412, 3.4.93-94.

[20] This reference to Fenton’s friendship with Poins in wilder times is another suggestive line that may place the play’s action slightly after the reign of Henry IV, since Prince Hal gave up his wild ways upon becoming Henry V.

[21] For examples of these farcical skits from the Italian commedia dell’arte, see sites.google.com, “Lazzi.” Accessed 10/3/2024.

[22] See, for example, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey’s “Love, that doth reign and live within my heart” for this extended conceit of love as a soldier. Allpoetry.com. Accessed 10/2/2024.

[23] See Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Riverhead Books, 1998. Essay on The Merry Wives of Windsor, 315-18.

[24] Shakespeare, William. The Life of Henry the Fifth. Folio. (The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 790-857.) See 808, 2.3.21-22.

[25] See Helen Ostovich’s “Textual Introduction” (Norton Comedies 599-600) regarding the history of Merry Wives as a printed text.

[26] On the legend of Herne the Hunter, see the RSC website’s article “Herne the Hunter and the Wild Hunt.” Rsc.org.uk. Accessed 10/2/2024.

[27] Cuckold here seems to mean “fool” in a general sense. Cuckoldly can mean “Contemptible, foolish, inept.” En.wiktionary.org. Accessed 10/2/2024.

[28] Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447. See 393, 2.2.450-51.

[29] See Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 534-90. Benedict’s (or Benedick’s) fuller remark is, “No, the world must be peopled. When I said / I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were / married” (556, 2.3.213-15).

Commentaries onShakespeare’s Comedies

ACT 1

ACT 2

ACT 3

ACT 4

ACT 5

ENDNOTES

Commentaries on
Shakespeare’s Comedies