The Merry Wives of Windsor (30 page)

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
.

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)