or held in suspicion by: "What is he of our bloode that wold not be sory to heare our names with vile fame so detected." Detected must have the same meaning here, for Falstaff was not discovered, but suspected by the jealous Ford. Some modern editors have unwarrantably substituted by for with. ACT FOURTH. Scene I. 4. courageous:-As Hudson conjectures, outrageous. Scene II. 198. cry out thus upon no trail:-Terms of the chase. Trail is the scent left by the game. To cry out is to open, or bark, as the dogs do when they find the trail. 211, 212. in fee-simple, with fine and recovery:-Ritson remarks upon this passage: Fee-simple is the largest estate, and fine and recovery the strongest assurance known to English law." So that the passage means, "If Falstaff be not, to all intents and purposes, the devil's," etc. Commentators have wondered how Mrs. Page came to know so much of legal terms. But is it not equally strange that Shakespeare's average characters, in their ordinary talk, should speak greater poetry than any other poet has written? 212, 213. he will never, I think, etc. :-Hudson says that this "is another legal phrase, meaning, 'he will never again attempt to ruin us, or to lay waste our good name.' Scene IV. 33. takes the cattle-Take, meaning to strike with disease, is frequent in Shakespeare. So in King Lear, II. iv.: “Strike her young bones, you taking airs, with lameness." "A horse that is bereft of his feeling, moving, or stirring," says Markham (1595), "is said to be taken, and in sooth so he is, in that he is arrested by so villainous a disease: yet some farriers, not well understanding the ground of the disease, conster the word taken to be stricken by some planet, or evil spirit, which is false." 7, 8. painted about tapestries," says Hudson, Scene V. MERRY WIVES the Prodigal:-" Bed-curtains and were often embroidered with figures from Scripture subjects, such as the Prodigal Son, Lazarus, and others. Shakespeare has divers allusions to them." 10. Anthropophaginian:-Man-eater or cannibal. uses these fustian words to astonish Simple. Mine Host 70. Doctor Faustuses:-Dr. Faustus, the German magician, had acquired a new celebrity through Marlowe's play. Scene VI. 41. quaint in green :-Quaint here means neat, tasteful, graceful, with the idea of being, not fantastic, but elegantly fancied or conceived. ACT FIFTH. Scene I. 25. life is a shuttle:-An allusion to Job, vii. 6: “My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." Scene V. 15-17. Send me a cool . . . tallow:-This is technical. It is explained by aid of Turberville's Book of Hunting, 1575: “ During the time of their rut the harts live with small sustenance.-The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pysse their greace, they are then so vehement in heat." 20-24. Let the sky rain potatoes, etc.:-The sweet potato was used in England as a delicacy long before the introduction of the common potato in 1586. It was supposed, as also was the eringo, to be an aphrodisiac. 28. the fellow of this walk:-The keeper of this park or portion of the forest. The shoulders of the buck were among his perquisites. 43. quality:-Profession, or function. 47, 49. Where fires thou find'st unraked, etc.:-This office of the ancient fairies appears to have been quite a favourite theme with poets. Thus in Drayton's Nymphidia: "These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe, The house for cleanly sweeping." So also in an old ballad entitled The Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow, sometimes attributed to Ben Jonson: "When house and harth doth sluttish lye, I pinch the maidens black and blue; And again in the ancient song of the Fairy Queen:- With platter, dish, or bowl, And find the sluts asleep: There we pinch their arms and thighes; But if the house be swept, And from uncleanness kept, For we use before we goe To drop a tester in her shoe." 54. Raise up the organs of her fantasy:-Fantasy, according to Hudson, "here stands for sensual desire, the sinful fantasy' reproved afterwards in the Fairies' Song.” Clarke gives a different explanation, making the passage mean, "exalt her imagination by pleasant dreams." 56. But those as sleep:-As and that were, in the time of Shakespeare, used interchangeably. 65. With juice of balm, etc.:-It was a practice with people of luxury to rub furniture with aromatic herbs, in order to give it a sweet smell. Pliny informs us that the Romans did so to drive away evil spirits. "Perhaps," adds Hudson, “they found that penny-royal would keep off mosquitoes." 83. middle-earth:-Johnson says that "spirits are supposed to inhabit the ethereal regions, and fairies to dwell underground; men therefore are in a middle station." Often used in this sense by old writers. 173. affliction:-After this speech the following, in accordance with Theobald's decision, usually has been added from the Quarto: Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends; 204. postmaster's boy:-Here too, following Steevens, many have inserted the following from the Quarto: Evans. Jeshu! master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys? Page. O, I am vex'd at heart! What shall I do? 232. evitate:-Avoid. 243. When night-dogs run, etc. :-Here again we commonly have a line added from the Quarto: "Evans. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding." Malone says that Falstaff alludes to Fenton's having just run down Anne Page. "Falstaff," says Clarke, "here takes a final chuckle over those who have defeated his pursuit of the dear merry wives, by showing them that their dear daughter has been caught by the man who was not their choice, but hers." Questions on The Merry Wives of Windsor. 1. At whose request is this play said to have come into existence? 2. What relation in time do the events here depicted bear to those of Henry IV.? ACT FIRST. 3. With what note does the play open? 4. With what trait uppermost is Slender first presented? 5. What is first said of Anne Page? Of Master Page? 6. Mention some of Sir Hugh Evans's verbal peculiarities. Compare him with Fluellen in Henry V. 7. What contemporary of Shakespeare is supposed to be satirized in this Act? 8. How do Falstaff and his companions meet the charges of Shallow and Slender? 9. What dramatic purpose is effected by the short scene with the three women? 10. Who proposes the match between Slender and Anne Page? Why does he wish to foster it? II. What subtle observation of nature does Shakespeare show in the scene between Anne Page and Slender? Is it a great art to make a dull person interesting? 12. What new stage in the subordinate intrigue does Sc. ii. introduce? What new character is presented and how described? 13. Why was Falstaff glad to be rid of Bardolph? To what extent was Falstaff not averse to stealing? 14. What is the intrigue which Falstaff proposes, and what is the counter-action? What motive is established for this counteraction? Why, at the close of Sc. iii., do Nym and Pistol speak in verse? |