The Merry Wives of Windsor (30 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

BOOK: The Merry Wives of Windsor
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND
PICTURE CREDITS

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

T
HE
M
ODERN
L
IBRARY
E
DITORIAL
B
OARD

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

M
ODERN
L
IBRARY IS ONLINE AT
WWW.MODERNLIBRARY.COM

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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)

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