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The Merry Wives of Windsor / The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] cover

The Merry Wives of Windsor / The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.]

Chapter 2: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
By William Shakespeare
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A lively five-act comedy set in Windsor follows a boastful, self-indulgent knight whose scheme to seduce two married women for money is thwarted when they conspire to trick and humiliate him with disguises, false letters, and staged encounters. A parallel plot concerns a young woman courted by several rivals and the domestic jealousy and misunderstandings that surround her marriage prospects. The play relies on farce, disguise, eavesdropping, and practical jokes to satirize vanity, social pretension, and the tensions of marriage, resolving social embarrassments through reconciliations and a festive marriage.

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Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor

Author: William Shakespeare

Editor: William George Clark

Cambridge librarian of Trinity College John Glover

Release date: November 23, 2007 [eBook #23044]
Most recently updated: September 27, 2025

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Louise Hope, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ***

These texts of The Merry Wives of Windsor are from Volume I of the nine-volume 1863 Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. The editors’ preface (e-text 23041) and the other plays from this volume are each available as separate e-texts.

General Notes are in their original location at the end of the Folio text, followed by the text-critical notes originally printed at the bottom of each page. All notes are hyperlinked in both directions. In dialogue, a link from a speaker’s name generally means that the note applies to the entire line or group of lines. The Quarto text is given separately, after all Notes.

Line numbers—shown in the right margin and used for all notes—are from the original text. In prose passages the exact line counts will depend on your browser settings, and will probably be different from the displayed numbers. Stage directions were not included in the line numbering.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Introduction
Standard Text (folios and later)
Text of First Quarto

THE WORKS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

EDITED BY

WILLIAM GEORGE CLARK, M.A.

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND PUBLIC ORATOR
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE;

and JOHN GLOVER, M.A.

LIBRARIAN OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
 
VOLUME I.
 
Cambridge and London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1863.
 

Introduction
 

The Merry Wives of Windsor
 
Dramatis Personæ
Act I Scene 1 Windsor. Before Page’s house.
Scene 2 The same.
Scene 3 A room in the Garter Inn.
Scene 4 A room in Doctor Caius’s house.
Act II Scene 1 Before Page’s house.
Scene 2 A room in the Garter Inn.
Scene 3 A field near Windsor.
Act III Scene 1 A field near Frogmore.
Scene 2 The street, in Windsor.
Scene 3 A room in Ford’s house.
Scene 4 A room in Page’s house.
Scene 5 A room in the Garter Inn.
Act IV Scene 1 A street.
Scene 2 A room in Ford’s house.
Scene 3 A room in the Garter Inn.
Scene 4 A room in Ford’s house.
Scene 5 A room in the Garter Inn.
Scene 6 The same. Another room in the Garter Inn.
Act V Scene 1 A room in the Garter Inn.
Scene 2 Windsor Park.
Scene 3 A street leading to the Park.
Scene 4 Windsor Park.
Scene 5 Another part of the Park.
 
Notes

Critical Apparatus (“Linenotes”) for main text
 

A Pleasant Conceited Comedy of Syr John Falstaffe, &c.
(The Merry Wives of Windsor, First Quarto text)
 

Critical Apparatus (“Linenotes”) for Quarto text
 

Texts Used (from general preface)
THE

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

 

Besides the copies of the Merry Wives of Windsor appearing in the folios and modern editions, a quarto, Q3, has been collated in these Notes, of which the following is the title:

The | Merry Wives | of Windsor. | with the humours of Sir John Falstaffe, | as also, The swaggering Vaine of Ancient | Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. |written by William Shake-speare. | Newly corrected. | London: | printed by T. H. for R. Meighen and are to be sold | at his Shop, next to the Middle-Temple Gate, and in | S. Dunstan’s Church-yard in Fleet Street. | 1630.

Q1 and Q2 are editions of an early sketch of the same play. The variations between the text of these quartos and the received text are so great that collation cannot be attempted. The text printed at the end of the play is taken literatim from Q1, the edition of 1602, of which a copy is preserved among Capell’s Shakespeariana, and this text is collated verbatim with Q2, the second quarto printed in 1619. Q1 was reprinted in 1842 for the Shakespeare Society by Mr J. O. Halliwell. This text, which differs in one or two places from Capell’s Q1, has also been collated. Q2 is given among Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare, edited by Steevens. Their titles are as follows:

(1) A | Most pleasaunt and | excellent conceited Co-|medie, of Syr John Falstaffe, and the | Merrie Wiues of Windsor. | Enter-mixed with sundrie | variable and pleasing humors of Syr 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 been diuers times Acted by the right Honorable | my Lord Chamberlaines seruants. Both before her | Maiestie, and else-where. | London. | Printed by T. C. for Arthur Johnson, and are to be sold at | his shop in Powles Church-yard, at the signe of the | Flower de Leuse and the Crowne. | 1602.

[This consists of 7 Quires of 4. In the Quire G one line, which we have included in brackets, has been cut away by the binder. We have supplied it from Halliwell’s edition and Q2.]

(2) A | Most pleasant and ex-|cellent Comedy, | of Sir John Falstaffe, and the | merry Wives of Windsor. | With the swaggering vaine of An|cient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. | Written by W. Shakespeare. | Printed for Arthur Johnson, 1619.

 

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.1

Sir John Falstaff.

Fenton, a gentleman.

Shallow, a country justice.

Slender, cousin to Shallow.

Ford, two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.
Page,

William Page, a boy, son to Page.

Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson.

Doctor Caius, a French physician.

Host of the Garter Inn.

Bardolph, sharpers attending on Falstaff.
Pistol,
Nym,

Robin, page to Falstaff.

Simple, servant to Slender.

Rugby, servant to Doctor Caius.

 

Mistress Ford.

Mistress Page.

Anne Page, her daughter.

Mistress Quickly, servant to Doctor Caius.

 

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

Scene—Windsor, and the neighbourhood.

1. Not in Qq Ff. Inserted by Rowe.