The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Written. 1599 (?)
Published, in a mutilated form, 1602; in a complete form, 1623.
Source of the Plot. A tale in Straparola's Notti (iv. 4). Tarleton's News out of Purgatorie. Giovanni Florentino's Il Pecorone. Kinde Kit of Kingston's Westward for Smelts.
The Fable. Falstaff makes love to Mistress Ford, the wife of a Windsor man. Mistress Ford, despising Falstaff, plots with her friend, Mrs. Page, to make him a mock. News of Falstaff's passion is brought to Ford, who, needlessly jealous, resolves to search the house for him.
Falstaff woos Mrs. Ford. She holds him in play till she hears that her husband is coming. Falstaff, alarmed at his approach, bundles into a clothes basket, is carried past the unsuspecting husband, and soused in the river.
He is gulled into the belief that Mrs. Ford expects him again. He goes, is nearly caught by Ford, but escapes, disguised as an old woman, at the cost of a cudgelling.
Still believing in Mrs. Ford's love for him, he keeps a third assignation, this time in Windsor Forest, in the disguise of Herne the hunter. On this occasion he is pinched and scorched by little children disguised as fairies. He learns that Mrs. Ford has tricked him, is mocked by all, and then forgiven.
The play is eked out by other actions. Chief of these is the wooing of Anne Page, Mrs. Page's daughter, by three men—a foreigner, Dr. Caius; an idiot, Master Slender; and the man of her heart, Fenton. There are also scenes between Falstaff, Nym, Bardolph and Pistol, and between Dr. Caius, Sir Hugh Evans, Shallow, Slender, the Host and Mrs. Quickly.
An old tradition says that this play was written in a fortnight by command of Queen Elizabeth. There can be no doubt (a) that it was written hurriedly, (b) that it nicely suited the Tudor sense of humour. It is the least interesting of the genuine plays. It is almost wholly the work of the abundant instinctive self working in the high spirits that so often come with the excitement of hurry. None of the characters has time for thought. The play is full of external energy. The people bustle and hurry with all their animal natures.