Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Gra. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?

Ner. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it, Unless he live until he be a man.

Bass. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow : When I am absent, then lie with my wife.

Ant. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living:

For here I read for certain that my ships

Are safely come to road.

Por.

How now, Lorenzo !

My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
Ner. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
There do I give to you and Jessica,

From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,

After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
Lor. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
Of starved people.

Por.
It is almost morning,
And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
Of these events at full. Let us go in ;
And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
And we will answer all things faithfully.

Gra. Let it be so: the first inter'gatory
That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
Or go to bed now, being two hours to day:
But were the day come, I should wish it dark,
That I were couching with the doctor's clerk.
Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.

[Exeunt.

290

300

298. inter gatories, a legal term; questions put to a sworn

witness.

THE

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

མ་

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.

FENTON, a gentleman.

SHALLOW, a country justice.
SLENDER, Cousin to Shallow.

FORD,
PAGE,

two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.
WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page.
SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson.
DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician.
Host of the Garter Inn.

BARDOLPH,

PISTOL,

NYM,

sharpers attending on Falstaff.

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, etc.

SCENE: Windsor, and the neighbourhood.

DURATION OF TIME

The confusion of time, due apparently to compression, is discussed in the Introduction. Mr. Daniel proposes the following arrangement as 'in accordance with the obvious intention of the author' :

Day 1. I. 1.-4.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

2. II. 1.-3., III. 1.-4., and the Quickly portion of 5. 3. The Ford portion of III. 5., IV., V.

INTRODUCTION

THE earliest text of the Merry Wives is a Quarto (Q1) bearing the following title :-A | Most pleasaunt and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr John Falstaffe, and the merrie Wiues of Windsor. | Entermixed with Sundrie variable and pleasing humors, of Syr Hugh | the Welch Knight, Iustice Shallow, and his | wise cousin M. Slender. | With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. | By William Shakespeare. | As it hath bene divers times Acted by the right Honorable | my Lord Chamberlaine's Seruants. Both before her | Maiestie, and elsewhere. London. | Printed by T. C. for Arthur Iohnson, and are to be sold at his shop in Powles Churchyard... On 18th January 1602 the play had been entered on the Stationers' Register by John Busby, a notorious pirate. He shortly after transferred it to Johnson. Johnson reprinted it with slight alterations in 1619 (Q). Four years later a widely different version of the play appeared in the Folio, and this was substantially reprinted in a third Quarto, 1630. The precise relation between the two versions cannot even yet be held to be completely determined, but the area of controversy is now comparatively narrow. It may be held to be made out (1) that the Quarto version, which is about half the

length of the Folio, and full of obvious blunders, is a garbled reproduction of the play as originally performed before the Queen. It was no doubt pirated from notes taken in the theatre.1 (2) That the Folio text approximately represents the original drama, slightly compressed and curtailed for performance. Some of the passages omitted in the Folio are retained in the Quarto. Thus, in i. 1. 128, Slender declares that he has matter in his head against the 'cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol'; but, in the Folio version, he is cut short by Bardolph before he has told what it is. Nevertheless the company know, and Falstaff asks Pistol: 'Did you pick Master Slender's pocket?' Clearly the original draft of Slender's speech must have contained something resembling the Quarto version of it, which adds: 'They carried me to the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards picked my pocket.' In this case an omission in the Folio has been luckily preserved in the Quarto; in other cases, however, it has vanished altogether. Thus the insuperable difficulties of the time-reckoning in iii. 5. (Falstaff's interviews with Mrs. Quickly and with Ford after the buck-basket escapade) can only be explained by a compression of two scenes occurring on successive days into one. And, as Mr. Daniel has pointed out, there are indications that we are meant to know much that we are not told of the relations between Caius and Evans and the Host after he has fooled

1 An interesting contribution to our criticism of the pirated texts of Shakespeare has been lately made by Curt Dewischeit (Jahrbuch, xxxiv. 170). He shows that a host of verbal variations between Quartos and Folios of Shakespeare can be explained on the hypothesis that the Quartos were printed from

texts obtained by the stenography of Bright (pub. 1588). But he appears to exaggerate the diffusion of the power to use it effectively. It is certain from internal evidence that the Quartos of the Merry Wives and of Hamlet, at least, were far from being an approach to verbatim reports.

« AnteriorContinuar »