Part 9 (1/2)
He has a liking for knocks. Courage tempered by stupidity (as in the persons of Fluellen, etc.) is what he loves in a man. He, himself, has plenty of his favourite quality. His love of plainness and bluntness makes him condemn sentiment in his one profound speech--
”All other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up d.a.m.nation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd From glistering semblances of piety.”
The scenes between Nym and Pistol, and the account of Falstaff's death, are the last of the great English scenes. This (or the next) was Shakespeare's last English play, for Lear and Cymbeline are British, not English. When he laid down his pen after writing the epilogue to this play he had done more than any English writer to make England sacred in the imaginations of her sons.
_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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.signation, 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.
It is the only Shakespearean play which treats exclusively of English country society. As a picture of that society it is true and telling.
Country society alters very little. It is the enduring stem on which the cities graft fas.h.i.+ons. It is given to few to see English country society so much excited as it is in this play, but drama deals with excessive life. Shakespeare's people are always intensely excited or interested or pa.s.sionate. Each play tells of the great moments in half-a-dozen lives.
The method of this play is the same, though the lives chosen are lower and the interests stupider. Falstaff is interested in cuckoldry, Mrs.
Ford in mockery, Ford, Evans and Caius in jealousy and rivalry, Bardolph is going to be a tapster, the others are plying their suits. Even in this his most trivial play, Shakespeare's idea that punishment follows oath-breaking is expressed (whimsically enough) by Falstaff--
”I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero.”
His other idea, that obsession is a danger to life, is expressed later in the words--
”See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment.”
There is little poetry in the play. The most poetical pa.s.sage is the account of Herne the hunter--
”There is an old tale goes, that Herne the Hunter, Some time a keeper here in Windsor Forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle; And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner.”
Modern poets would describe Herne's dress and appearance. The creative poet describes his actions.
It is possible that when this play was written Shakespeare had thoughts of consecrating himself to the writing of purely English plays. There are signs that he had reached a point of achievement that is always a critical point to imaginative men. He had reached the point at which the personality is exhausted. He had worked out his natural instincts, the life known to him, his predilections, his reading. He had found a channel in which his thoughts could express themselves. Writing was no longer so pleasant to him as it had been. He had done an incredible amount of work in a few years. The personality was worn to a husk. It may be that a very little would have kept him on this side of the line, writing imitations of what he had already done. He was at the critical moment which separates the contemplative from the visionary, the good from the excellent, the great from the supreme. All writers, according to their power, come to this point. Very few have the fortune to get beyond it. Shakespeare's mind stood still for a moment, in this play and in the play that followed, before it went on triumphant to the supreme plays.