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Summary
Justice Shallow enters a city street with Master Slender and Sir Hugh Evans. Shallow is angry at Sir John Falstaff and says he will bring him before the court. Evans, a man of the church, misunderstands and thinks he can help bring the knight Sir John Falstaff before a church council. As they arrive at Master Page’s house, Evans suggests that they focus their attention on trying to arrange a marriage between Slender and Anne Page.
Page then enters and thanks Shallow for his gift of venison. Shallow asks if Falstaff is at Page’s house, and Page says he is. Shallow complains about Falstaff, and Page reports that the knight has acknowledged his wrongdoing. Falstaff then enters with his entourage of Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. Shallow accuses Falstaff of having beaten his men and killed his deer. Falstaff admits it. Slender says Falstaff beat him, and Evans adds that Slender’s wallet was stolen and that he believes Falstaff’s men took it. The men deny it, saying Slender was too drunk to know what happened to his wallet. Slender says he’ll never again drink with such dishonest men.
Anne Page enters to serve the men wine, but Page says they’ll all go inside. Mistress Page and Mistress Ford enter, greet Falstaff, and go inside with the others to dine. Slender sits alone, wishing for his book of love poems. His servant Simple enters, and Slender asks him where his book is. Shallow and Evans emerge from Page’s house, and Evans suggests he has made a marriage proposal in Slender’s name to Page, asking for Anne’s hand. Shallow asks if Slender can love her and if he would be willing to marry her, to which Slender replies positively. Even if there’s no great love at the beginning, he says, it will grow once they get to know each other.
Anne enters to call the men to dinner. The others go in, but Slender hesitates. Anne says the others await him, but he insists he’s not hungry and won’t go in. He tries to make conversation with her, but his attempts are awkward. Page enters and encourages Slender to come inside. Slender repeats that he isn’t hungry, but eventually, after a debate about who should enter the door first, he goes inside.
Evans exits dinner with Simple. He sends Simple to Doctor Caius’s house to ask for Mistress Quickly, Caius’s servant. He gives Simple a letter for Mistress Quickly, asking for her help in convincing Anne Page to marry Slender.
Analysis
This play’s mostly middle-class characters are introduced in their small-town milieu, and immediately we are presented with the main struggles of this comedy. The main thrust of Elizabethan comedy is usually related to marriage, and the possible marriage of Anne Page and Slender is the early goal of Shallow and Evans. But the relationship between couples who are already married is also a focus—namely, the pairs of Ford and Page and their wives.
Meanwhile, Falstaff and his mischievous drinking buddies make their entrance, having already been up to no good before this scene. Falstaff is a knight, thus of a higher rank than most of Windsor’s citizens, and he takes advantage of his position to torment the locals. Falstaff appeared first in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, and his sidekicks continue on into Henry V. This scene-stealing drunken jokester, pal of the young Prince Harry, is said to have so delighted Queen Elizabeth that she asked Shakespeare to write another play for Falstaff, which resulted in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though there is no real evidence to support this story, it nonetheless reflects Falstaff’s beloved status in Shakespeare’s canon. Just as in the history plays, Falstaff is the subject of much mockery in this comedy. He is a ridiculous yet lovable rogue who, though perennially the butt of the joke, always responds to his humiliations with a comic panache that has led many critics and viewers to see him as the hero of this play.
In addition to Falstaff, Shakespeare presents several other easily mockable comic figures in these opening scenes. Evans, for instance, is a Welsh clergyman who he speaks with an accent that the other English characters frequently make fun of. For instance, when Evans commends Falstaff for his eloquent economy of words, which he mispronounces as “worts,” Falstaff dismisses him with amusing abruptness: “Good worts? Good cabbage!” (1.1.120). Falstaff’s companion, Pistol, also makes an ass of himself by mispronouncing words and speaking in an odd collage of misremembered lines of poetry and ancient languages. Nym, another companion, speaks of his “humor” so frequently and indiscriminately as to make the word virtually meaningless. Slender, meanwhile, is an inexperienced youth who often misspeaks and makes an awkward show of trying to engage Anne Page in conversation. And for his part, Justice Shallow is not the most competent man of the law. With such a rich cast of amusing incompetents, the action to follow is sure to reach absurd heights.
