Read The Merry Wives of Windsor Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
Preparation of “
The Merry Wives
in Performance” was assisted by a generous grant from the CAPITAL Centre (Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning) of the University of Warwick for research in the RSC archive at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Thanks as always to our indefatigable and eagle-eyed copy editor Tracey Day and to Ray Addicott for overseeing the production process with rigor and calmness.
Picture research by Michelle Morton. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for assistance with picture research (special thanks to Helen Hargest) and reproduction fees.
Images of RSC productions are supplied by the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive, Stratford-upon-Avon. This library, maintained by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, holds the most important collection of Shakespeare material in the UK, including the Royal Shakespeare Company’s official archive. It is open to the public free of charge.
For more information see
www.shakespeare.org.uk
.
1.
Directed by Augustin Daly (1886) Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
2.
Directed by Glen Byam Shaw (1955) Angus McBean © Royal Shakespeare Company
3.
Directed by Terry Hands (1968) Tom Holte © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
4.
Directed by Trevor Nunn (1979) Joe Cocks Studio Collection © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
5.
Directed by David Thacker (1992) Malcolm Davies © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
6.
Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh (2002) Manuel Harlan © Royal Shakespeare Company
7.
Directed by Bill Alexander (1985) Joe Cocks Studio Collection © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
8.
Directed by Gregory Doran (2006) Stewart Hemley © Royal Shakespeare Company
9.
Reconstructed Elizabethan Playhouse © Charcoalblue
Maya Angelou
•
A. S. Byatt
•
Caleb Carr
•
Christopher Cerf
•
Harold Evans
•
Charles Frazier
•
Vartan Gregorian
•
Jessica Hagedorn
•
Richard Howard
•
Charles Johnson
•
Jon Krakauer
•
Edmund Morris
•
Azar Nafisi
•
Joyce Carol Oates
•
Elaine Pagels
•
John Richardson
•
Salman Rushdie
•
Oliver Sacks
•
Carolyn See
•
Gore Vidal
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1.1
Location: the entire play is set in Windsor (twenty-five miles west of London), moving between the streets, the homes of Page and Ford, the Garter Inn, a field outside the town and, in the fifth act, the Great Park near Windsor Castle
1.1
Sir
the usual title for a clergyman
1
persuade
urge/argue with
1
Star Chamber
court consisting of most of the King’s Privy Council, which met in a chamber with stars painted on its ceiling
5
Coram
corruption of “quorum,” a group of judges whose presence was required at a trial
6
cousin
kinsman
6
Custalorum
corruption of “custos rotulorum,” the keeper of the shire records and a justice of the peace
7
Rato-lorum
i.e. “rotulorum”
8
writes himself
Armigero
i.e. signs himself
armiger
, Latin for “esquire” (one entitled to bear arms/a gentleman)
8
bill
legal document/document requiring the payment of debts
9
warrant
document authorizing a judicial sentence/the payment of debts between two parties
9
quittance
document certifying release from a debt or obligation
9
obligation
contract binding a person to an action or payment
14
give
display (in a coat of arms)
14
luces
pikes (freshwater fish)
coat
coat of arms (Evans’s
louses
—lice—plays on the sense of “garment”)
16
become
suit
17
passant
(heraldic term for) walking/surpassingly
17
familiar
well-known/overly intimate
19
coat
Shallow plays on Evans’s Welsh pronunciation of
coat
as “cod”
20
quarter
add the arms of another family to one’s coat of arms (Evans understands “cut into four”)
20
coz
cousin (i.e. kinsman)
24
py’r lady
by Our Lady (i.e. the Virgin Mary); Evans often substitutes “p” for “b”
25
skirts
separate sections forming the lower part of a coat
28
do my benevolence
lend my help
28
atonements
agreement/reconciliation (Evans often makes singular words into plurals)
28
compromises
joint agreement/settlement made by an arbitrator
30
Council
King’s Privy Council, which often heard cases of riot; Evans seems to think Shallow is referring to a church council
31
meet
fitting
32
Got
God (Evans often substitutes “t” for “d”)
33
Take … that
take that into consideration
33
vizaments
advisements
36
friends … sword
i.e. friendship is substituted for violence
37
device
plan
37
peradventure
perhaps/most likely
38
discretions
judgment
39
Thomas
later named as George (presumably Shakespeare’s memory slip)
41
small
in a high-pitched/light/quiet voice
42
fery
very (Evans often substitutes “f” for “v”)
42
’orld
world
42
just
exact/exactly
44
is
has
45
give
given (her)
46
motion
suggestion
47
pribbles and prabbles
petty squabbles
50
is … penny
will give her more besides
51
SLENDER
most editors reassign to
Shallow
, since Slender has already said he knows Anne
51
gifts
qualities (Evans takes the word literally)
52
possibilities
financial prospects
54
honest
respectable/upright/sincere
58
well-willers
well-wishers
63
tell … tale
have something else to say to you
67
ill
clumsily/poorly/illegally (by Falstaff)
69
la
an intensifier equivalent to “indeed”
71
by … no
a very mild oath
73
fallow
light brown
74
Cotsall
the Cotswold hills, in central England
75
judged
decided conclusively
78
’Tis your fault
you (Slender) are to blame for teasing Page
79
cur
dog (may or may not be contemptuous)
82
would
wish office service
86
in some sort
partly/to some extent
88
at
in
91
Pistol
pronounced to sound like “pizzle” (“penis”)
95
lodge
hunting lodge/gamekeeper’s cottage
96
keeper’s
gamekeeper’s
97
pin
i.e. a trifle
97
answered
accounted for/responded to as a legal charge (Falstaff plays on the sense of “replied to”)
98
straight
straight away
101
in counsel
in secret (puns on
Council
)
103
Pauca verba
Latin for “few words”
104
worts
plants of the cabbage family (a joke on Evans’s pronunciation of “words”)
104
broke
wounded
105
matter
cause of complaint (Slender shifts the sense to “matter of significance,” while playing on the sense of “pus from a wound”)
107
cony-catching
cheating (literally “rabbit-catching”)
109
Banbury cheese
the Oxfordshire town was known for its thin cheeses; Slender is being mocked for being pale and slight
110
matter
importance (plays on sense of “substance”)
111
Mephostophilus
a devil, well-known from Christopher Marlowe’s play
Doctor Faustus
113
slice
i.e. gash him with a sword/slice him up like a cheese
113
Pauca
i.e. briefly (from
pauca verba
)
113
humour
inclination/frame of mind
117
fidelicet
Evans means
videlicet
(Latin for “namely”)
118
three
third
119
host
innkeeper Garter perhaps a reference to the Garter Inn in Windsor
121
prief
brief/summary
122
’ork
work
123
discreetly
discretion
126
tevil … tam
devil and his dam (i.e. mother)