The complete works of William Shakespeare

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Book \ \ \

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOB

All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the writer of the article to which they are appended. The interpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G. = Israel Gollancz, M.A. ; H. N. H.^ Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.: C. H. H.= C. H. Herford, Litt.D.

Preface

By Israel Gollancz, M.A.

THE EDITIONS

The earliest known edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor is a Quarto printed in 1602, with the following title-page : —

"A most pleasaunt and excellent conceited Comedie, of Sir lohn Falstaffe and the merrie Wiues of Windsor. Entermixed with sundrie variable and pleasing humors of Sir Hugh the Welch Knight, Justice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. By William Shakespeare. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines Seruants. Both before her Maiestie, and elsewhere. London Printed by T. C. for Arthur lohnson, and are to be sold at his shop in Powles Church-yard, at the signe of the Flower de Leuse and the Crowne" (reprinted in the Cambridge Shakespeare and in Hazlitt's Shakespeare'' s Library; a facsimile is included in Dr. Furnivall's Shakespeare Quartos, Quaritch). A second Quarto, a mere reprint of the first, appeared in 1619.

In the first Folio the play occupies pp. 39-60 ; its length there is more than double that of the Quartos, from which it differs to such an extent as to give the impression of being a revised and expanded version of a mere garbled and pirated sketch.

DATE OF COMPOSITION

The first Quarto was entered in the Stationers' Registers under date January 18 1602 ; the play was probably writ-

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ten after Henry V, i. e. after the middle of the year 1599. In the epilogue to 11 Henry IV a promise had been given to continue the story with Sir John in it ; this promise was not kept in Henry V; and The Merry Wives, according to a well authenticated tradition, was composed by command of the Queen, "who obliged Shakespeare to write a Play of Sir John FalstafF in Love, and which I am very well assured he performed in a fortnight : a prodigious thing when all is well contrived, and carried on without the least confusion" (Gildon, 1710; Dennis first mentions the tradition in 1702; cp. title-page of 1602 edition).

The date of the first composition of the play may with certainty be placed at about 1600 (probably Christmas 1599).^

An old tradition identifies Justice Shallow with Shakespeare's old enemy. Sir Thomas Lucy (of the deer-poaching story) ; Lucy died in July, 1600, and it is held by some that the poet would not have waited "till his butt was in the grave before he aimed his shafts at him." At the same time it is noteworthy that the "dozen white luces" is only found in the Folio, not in the Quarto editions.

THE RELATION OF THE QUARTO AND FOLIO VERSIONS

The question at issue, on which scholars are divided, is Avhether the Quarto represents a pirated edition of an early sketch of the play, revised and enlarged in the first Folio version, or whether both versions are to be referred back to the same original. In support of the former theory it is alleged that the substitution of "King" in the Folio (I, i, 119) for "council" of the Quarto, the possible reference to the cheapening of knighthood ("These knights

1 Shakespeare acted in Every Man in His Humour in 1598, and the two plays have much in common (cp. e. g. Ford and Kitely; Nym's reiteration of "humor," &c.).

In the "Return from Parnassus" acted at Cambridge, probably Christmas, 1601, the French Doctor is obviously an imitation of Dr. Caius,

vxii

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will hack," II, i, 55), and similar internal evidence, point to the reign of James I; these scholars therefore date the Folio version about 1605. On the other hand, Mr. Daniel (Introduction to his editions) maintains that "the character of the publishers of the Quarto, its proved omissions, its recomposed passages (i e. passages actually the work not of Shakespeare, but of the note-taker), its retention of (essential) passages omitted in the Folio, the complication in both of the time-plot lead almost inevitably to the conclusion that there was but one original for both Quarto and Folio." He points out further that the alleged internal evidence of later revision is of little real value, but it is somewhat difficult to get rid of these minutiae, and some slight revision after 1603 is not inconsistent with this latter theory.

THE SOURCES

The comedy o^ contemporary manners probably owed very little to older plays or novels, but it contains incidents not uncommon in Italian and other stories. In the following tales a suspicious husband is baffled much in the same way as Master Ford: — (1) The tale from II Pecorone di Ser Giovanni Fiorentino; (2) The old English version of this story in The Fortunate, the Deceived, and the Unfortunate Lovers, 1632, reprinted in 1685; (3) The Tale in Straparola similar to that in II Pecorone; (4) The Tales of the Two Lovers of Pisa, from Tarlton's Newes out of Pergatorie, 1590; (5) The second tale from Straparola, in which the youth makes love to three ladies at once {cp. Hazlitt's Shakespeare's Library, Part I, vol. iii).

HERNE

It would seem that there existed in Shakespeare's day a tradition at Windsor that Heme was one of the keepers of the Park, who, having committed an offense for which he feared to be disgraced, hung himself upon an oak, which was ever afterwards haunted by his ghost.

Preface MERRY WIVES

The difference between the Quarto and Folio reference to the story is noteworthy ; the former reads : —

"Oft have you heard since Home the hunter dyed . . ."

The Folio makes the tale a more ancient one (cp. IV. iv. 37-39).

The earliest notice of "Heme's oak" is in a Plan of the Town and Castle of Windsor and Little Park (Eton, 1742) ; in the map a tree marked "Sir John FalstaiF's oak" is represented as being on the edge of a pit just on the outside of an avenue which was formed in the seventeenth century, and known as Queen Elizabeth's Walk. Halliwell first printed, in his edition of the Quarto, a set of verses Upon Heme's Oak being cut down in the spring of 1796. Antiquarian research has demonstrated the exactness of Shakespeare's knowledge of Old Windsor (cp. Tighe and Davis' Annals of Windsor, Vol. i, pp. 673- 686).

DURATION OF ACTION

As the play stands in the Quartos and Folios it is impossible to arrange the time consistently, owing to the confusion as regards Falstaff's interviews with the Merry Wives in Act III, sc. v ; the errors are probably due to compression of the play for stage purposes. The first part of the scene, according to Mr. Daniel (Translations of New Shakespeare Society, 1878-9), is inseparably connected with the day of Falstaff's first interview with Mrs. Ford ; the second part is as inseparably connected with the day of the second interview. The first part clearly shows us Falstaff in the afternoon, just escaped from his ducking in the Thames ; the second part as clearly shows him in the early morning about to keep his second appointment with Mrs. Ford. He proposes to make Ford's portion of the scene commence the 4th Act, changing good morrow into good even (Act III., v, 29) and this morning into to-morrow morning (Act III, v, 47). According to this arrangement the following time analysis

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would result: — Day 1, Act I, sc. i to iv; Day 2, Act II, sc. i to iii, Act III, sc. i to iv, and the Quickly portion of scene v ; Day 3, the Ford portion of Act III, sc. v, to end of the play.

If this suggestion is carried out, a further change is necessary in Act V, i, 14, where this morning should be read in place of yesterday.

TIME OF ACTION

Though the play was in all probability composed after Henry V, the action may be supposed to take place after the events recorded at the end of II Henry IV; the further degradation of the character of Falstaff in The Merry Wives belongs to the early years of "the madcap prince's" reign, when he had already renounced "the tutor and the feeder of his riot." The characters intimately associated with Falstaff were transferred with him from II Henry IV, with the exception of "Nym," who appears for the first time in Henry V; Shallow's "cousin," Slender, of The Merry Wives, takes the place of "Silence" of II Henry IV; Mistress Quickly is identical only in name witb the Hostess Quickly of Henry IV, and Henry V.

Introduction

By Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, as we have it. was first printed in the folio of 1623, w^here it occupies the third place in the list of Comedies. An imperfect and probably fraudulent edition, however, came out in 1602, and was reprinted in 1619. In this edition the play is but about half as long as in the authentic copy of 1623; the scenes following each other in the same order, except in one instance ; and some prose parts being printed in the manner of verse. ]\Iuch question has been made, whether the impression of 1602 were from a correct copy of an unfinished play, or from a report stolen at the theater and mangled in the stealing.

Of course every reader of Shakespeare has heard the tradition that Queen Elizabeth, upon witnessing the performance of Henry IV, was so taken with Falstaif that she forthwith requested the Poet to represent him in the quality of a lover; in compliance with which request he wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor. Queen Elizabeth was indeed a great woman, and did some great things: but if it were certain that she was thus the occasion of this play, there are many who would not scruple to set it down as the best thing she had any agenc}^ in bringing to pass ; and another many who might regard it as the best but one. If this be wrong, there is no help for it ; for such, assuredly, will always be the case so long as men can "laugh and grow fat."

But there is much diversity of judgment touching the amount of credit due to this tradition. Mr. Collier says: "When traced to its source, it can be carried back no

JNIERRY WIVES Introduction

further than 1702.: John Dennis in that year printed his Comical Gallant, founded upon The Merry Wives of Windsor, and in the dedication he states that 'the comedy was written at the command of Queen Ehzabeth, and by her direction; and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days.' Dennis gives no authority for any part of this assertion : but because he knew Dryden, it is supposed to have come from him ; and because Dryden was acquainted with Davenant, it has been conjectured that the latter communicated it to the former. We own that we place little or no reliance on the story, especially recollecting that Dennis had to make out a case in favor of his alterations, by showing that Shakespeare had composed the comedy in an incredibly short period, and consequently that it was capable of improvement."

All which is clever and spirited enough, but strikes us as a rather too summary disposing of the matter ; the tradition not being incredible in itself, nor the immediate sources of it unentitled to confidence : for, granting that "Dennis had to make out a case in favor of his alterations," w^ould he not be more likely to avail himself of something generally received, than to get up so questionable a fabrication.? The date of his statement was but eighty-six years after the Poet's death ; — a time when much traditionary matter, handed down from the reign of Elizabeth, was doubtless in circulation, that had not yet got into print : Dennis moved more or less in the literary circle of which Dryden w^as the center ; and that circle, however degenerate, was the lineal successor of the glorious constellation gathered about Shakespeare. It is considerable that Dennis gave no reason for the Queen's alleged request ; which reason Rowe a few years later stated to be the pleasure she had from Falstaff in Henri/ IV; — a difference of statement that rather goes to accredit the substance of the tradition, because it looks as if both drew from a common source, not. one from the other; each using such and so much of the traditionary matter as would best serve his turn. Their account, or rather, perhaps, the general belief from which it was taken, was received by Pope, Theobald, and other contemporaries, — men who would not be very apt to let such a matter go unsifted, or help to give it currency unless they thought there was good ground for it.

An excellent and pleasant conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor was entered in the Registers of the Stationers' Company, Jan. 18, 1602. The title-page of the edition which came out soon after reads thus : A most pleasant and excellent conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor; intermixed with sundry variable and pleasing humours of Sir Hugh the Welch Knight, Justice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender; with the swaggering vein of Ancient Pistol, and Corporal Nym. By William Shakespeare. As it hath been divers times acted by the Right Honourable my Lord Chamberlain's servants; both before Her Majesty, and elsewhere. We may set it down, therefore, as tolerably certain that The Merry Wives of Windsor was performed before the Queen near the close of 1601, notwithstanding the opinion of Chalmers, that "she was then in no mood for such fooleries." And probably one reason for getting up the piratical edition of 1602 was, that the play had been "divers times acted, both before Her Majesty and elsewhere." Now, that Queen Elizabeth was capable of appreciating the genius of Falstaff, will hardly be questioned ; that she had been present at the performance of Henry IV, is quite probable, considering the great popularity of that play as evinced in that five editions of it were published between 1598 and 1613 ; that, having seen the irresistible Knight as there presented, she should desire to see more of him, was certainly natural enough: all which being granted, there appears nothing to hinder, either that she should request the Poet to continue the character through another play, or that he should hasten to comply with the request. Moreover, we learn from the Accounts of the Revels at Court, that The Merry Wives of Windsor was acted before King James, in November, 1604. May we not justly conclude, then, that this was probably one of the plays referred to by Ben Jonson in his noble poem, To the Memory of my beloved Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us?

"Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were.

To see thee in our waters j^et appear;

And make those flights upon tlie banks of Thames,

That so did take Eliza and our James !"

So that, upon the whole, we can by no means bring ourselves to regard the forecited tradition with the contempt which Mr. Collier seems to think it deserves. The only part of it that much troubles us to digest, is that concerning the time wherein it makes the play to have been written : this, we confess, staggers us somewhat : yet, supposing it to be false, it does not greatly invalidate the substance of the tradition ; and we are well assured that the play, as published in 1602, might well enough have been written by Shakespeare within the time alleged. The question, therefore, turns somewhat upon the point, whether that edition was from a correct copy of an imperfect and unfinished play, a sort of rough draught hastily gotten up for the occasion, or from a false and mutilated copy stolen from the actors' lips by incompetent reporters, to gratify the cupidity of unscrupulous publishers. This question we have not room to discuss; and, if we had, the long discussions, indulged in by former critics to little purpose, shuts us up from all hope of being able ever to determine it. We may remark, however, there can be little doubt that the edition of 1602 was fraudulent and surreptitious; though this need not infer but that it may have been from a faithful copy fraudulently obtained for the press. Yet there are some things in it, such as the printing of prose so as to look like verse, which go to show that it was partly taken down as spbken, and partly made up from memory; the pirates apparently having no ear to distinguish prose and verse, and so presuming it to be poetry, because written by a poet. That such frauds and piracies were practiced with some of Shakespeare^s plays, scarce admits of dispute. But, for aught appears. The Merry Wives of Windsor may have been at that time very imperfect and inferior to what it is now, and yet the first edition a stolen and mangled copy of the play as it then was. And, whether from a correct or from a mutilated transcript, that edition contains passages of which no traces are discoverable in the play as it now stands. Such is the following from the fifth act:

"Sir Hugh. Go you and see where brokers sleep, And fox-ey'd Serjeants, with their mace; Go lay the proctors in the street.

And pinch the lousy Serjeant's face: Spare none of these when they're a-bed. But such whose nose looks blue and red. Quickly. Away, begone; his mind fulfil.

And look that none of you stand still: Some do that thing, some do this.

All do something, none amiss."

There being no corresponding passage in the later edition strongly argues that the play, at least in this part, was entirely rewritten after the first copy was taken for the press ; for men, whether purloining a manuscript or reporting it as spoken, would obviously be much more apt to omit or alter words and sentences, than to make additions or put in quite other matter. On the other hand, the authentic edition has some passages that can hardly be explained but upon the supposal that the play was revised, and those passages inserted, after the accession of James in the spring of 1603. Such is the odd reason Mrs, Page gives Mrs. Ford for declining to share the honor of Knighthood with Sir John : "These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry:" which can scarce bear any other sense than as referring to the prodigality with which the King dispensed those honors in the first of his reign ; Knighthood being thereby in a way to grow so hackneyed that it would rather be an honor not to have been dubbed. And, indeed, perhaps it may as well be noted here, that many of Shakespeare's plays apparently underwent so many revisals and improvements between the first sketching and the last finishing of them, that any allusions they may contain to the events of his time afford a very uncertain clew to the date of their original composition.

There remains a question of some interest as to the time when The Merry Wives was first written ; whether before or after Henry IV ; for, if before, this at once upsets that part of the tradition which assigns the huge delight the Queen had at seeing Falstaff in wit and war, as the cause of her requesting to see him in love. Knight and Halliwell, taking the edition of 1602 as a faithful, though perhaps surreptitious, copy of the play as then written, date "the original sketch" as far back as 1592 or 1593. In proof of this they urge what passes between Sir Hugh Evans, "mine Host de Jarterre," and Dr. Caius, respecting "a duke de Jarmany" ; because in 1592 a German duke actually did travel in England, with such special privileges and accommodations as are indicated in the play. Mr. Knight's argument runs thus: "Now, if we knew that a real German duke had visited Windsor, (a rare occurrence in the days of Elizabeth,) we should have the date of the comedy pretty exactly fixed. The circumstance would be one of those local and temporary allusions which Shakespeare seized upon to arrest the attention of his audience. We have before us a narrative, printed in the old German language, of the journey to England of the Duke of Wurtemburg in 1592 ; which narrative, drawn up by his secretary, contains a daily journal of his proceedings. He was accompanied by a considerable retinue, and traveled under the name of "The Count Mombeliard."

From the resemblance of this name to Garmomble, an apparent anagram of Mumpelgart, which occurs in the copy of 1602, Mr. Knight justly infers the identity of the person. Yet the force of his reasoning is not altogether apparent, as it proceeds by a very uncertain measure between the date of an event alluded to and the date of the allusion itself. Surely, in proportion to the rareness of an occurrence and the sensation it caused, it would naturally be remembered and remarked upon afterwards: nor is it easy to see how so rare and remarkable a thing as Mr. Halliwell represents this to have been, was "a matter to be forgotten in 1601." Shakespeare's "local and temporary allusions," be it observed, were not merely for novelty and popularity, or used as ear-catchers to his audience ; but for whatsoever matter he saw in them that could be made to serve the general purposes of art: and that the thing in question would not so soon be spoilt for his use, appears in the interest it has for us ; and would have, even if we had never heard of any such event occurring in his time.

In further proof of his point Mr. Knight alleges several passages from the finished play, which are not found in the "original sketch," and Avhich apparently refer to things occurring after the supposed date of that sketch. But all such arguments are at once nonsuited by the supposition, which, to say the least, is a probable one, that the edition of 1602 was not from a faithful transcript, however obtained, of an unfinished play, but from a copy fraudulently taken down and made up by unskillful reporters.

There appears no good reason, therefore, but that The Merry Wives of Windsor may have been written after Henry IV, the First Part of which was first published in 1598, and probably written the year before: that it was written earlier than 1596, nobody pretends. And that The Merry Wives had not been heard of in 1598, is further probable from its not being mentioned by Meres in his Wifs Treasury, which came out that year; for, his purpose being to approve Shakespeare "the most excellent among the English in both" comedy and tragedy, it seems rather unlikely that he would have passed by so apt a document of comic power, had it been known.

A deal of perplexity has been gotten up as to the time of the action in this play ; that is, in what period of his life Falstaff undertook the adventure at Windsor, whether before or after his exploits represented in Henry IV, or at some intermediate time: questions scarce worth the discussing or even the raising, but that it would hardly do to ignore a thing about which there has been so much ado. Much of this perplexity seems to have risen from confounding the order in which the several plays Avere made, with the order of the events described in them. Now, at the close of Henry IV Falstaff and his companions are banished the neighborhood of the Court, "till their conversations appear more wise and modest to the world" ; and near the opening of Henry V, which follows hard upon the close of the former play, we have an account of Falstaff's death. And because The Merry Wives of Windsor was probably written after both those plays, therefore the Poet has been thought by some to have ventured upon the questionable experiment of bringing Sir John and two of his followers upon the stage after their death; just as though one could not write the latter part of a man's life, and tell the story of his last hours, and then go back and give the history of his boyhood and youth, without breaking the sacred peace of the grave. That the exploits at Windsor were before those at Gadshill, Eastcheap, and Shrewsbury, in the order of time, is shown by Mrs. Quickly's progress ; who in the Merry Wives is a maiden and the housekeeper of Dr.

Caius ; but in the other plays she has become a wife, though still Quickly ; then she dwells awhile in widowhood, until, the sweetness of her former marriage having taught her better than to live out of wedlock, "she taketh to herself another mate." And the same thing is further shown in Falstaff's fearing lest the noise of his shames should come to the ears of the Court ; which fear could hardly be, but that he still have something there to lose : for he seems not to be aware how completely his genius in other exigencies will triumph over his failures in love-making. Nevertheless, it must be owned that the Poet, probably because the subject never occurred to him, or because he sometimes lost the historical order of things in an overmastering sense of art, did not in all cases take care to shun such anachronisms as criticism hath delighted to find in his plays. Perhaps It should be observed in this connection, that the two parts of Henry IV cover a period of ten and a half years, from the battle of Homildon, September, 1402, to the death of the King, March, 1413; in which time Falstaff doubtless had intervals of leisure for such adventures as those at Windsor. So that the action of the Comedy, supposing it Avere not before, might well enough have taken place some time during, the action of the History. And if the former seems too early a date for the mention of "the wild Prince and Poins" ; it would be considered that the Poet represents the Prince as already noted for his loose and idle courses, his connection with the rioters of Eastcheap having begun even before his father reached the throne.

For the plot and matter of The Merry Wives, Shakespeare was apparently little indebted to any thing but his own invention. The Two Lovers of Pisa, a tale borrowed from the novels of Straparola, and published in Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590, is thought to have suggested some of the incidents ; and the notion seems probable enough. In that Tale a young gallant falls in love with a jealous old doctor's wife, who is also young, and really encourages the unlawful passion. The gallant, not knowing the doctor, takes him for confidant and counselor in the prosecution of his suit, and is thus thwarted in all his plans. The naughty wife conceals her lover first in a basket of feathers, then between the ceilings of a room, and again in a box of deeds and valuable papers. If the Poet had any other obligations, they have not been traced clearly enough to be worth the mentioning.

As a specimen of pure comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor by general concession stands unrivaled ; the play being not only replete with the most ludicrous situations and predicaments, but surpassingly rich both in quality and variety of comic characterization. To say nothing of FalstafF, who is an inexhaustible store-house of laughter-moving preparations, there is comic matter enough in the other persons to keep the world in perpetual laughter. Though historically connected with the reign of Henry IV, the play is otherwise a delineation of the manners and humors of the Poet's time : in which view we need but compare it with Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, great as is the latter, to see "how much easier it was to vanquish the rest of Europe than to contend with Shakespeare."

The action of this play proceeds throughout by intrigue ; meaning thereby such a complication of cross-purposes and conflicting aims, wherein the several persons strive to outwit and circumvent one another. And the stratagems all have the appropriate merit of causing a grateful surprise, and a perplexity that interests because it stops short of confusion ; while the awkward and grotesque predicaments, into which the persons throw each other by their cross-plottings and counter-plottings, are often a source of exquisite diversion. The play finely illustrates, moreover, though in its own peculiar line, the general order and method of Shakespeare's art ; the surrounding parts falling in with the central one, and the subordinate plots drawing, as by a hidden impulse, into harmony with the leading one: if Falstaif be doomed to repeated collapses from a hero into a butt, that others may laugh at him instead of with him, the Welch Parson and French Doctor are also defeated of their revenge, just as they are getting over the preliminary pains and vexations, and while pluming themselves with forthcoming honors are suddenly deplumed into "vlouting-stogs" ; Page and his wife no sooner begin to exult in their success than they are taken down by the thrift of a counter-stratagem, and left to the double shame of ignobly failing in a disreputable undertaking; and Ford's jealousy is made to scourge him with the very whip he has twisted for the scourging of its object. Thus all the more prominent characters have to chew the ashes of disappointment in turn, their plans being thwarted, and themselves made ridiculous, just as they are on the point of grasping their several fruitions. But Falstaff is the only one of them that rises by falling and extracts grace out of his very disgraces. For in him the grotesque and ludicrous is evermore laughing and chuckling over itself: he makes comedies extempore out of his own shames and infirmities ; and is himself the most delighted spectator of the sideshaking scenes where himself figures as chief actor.