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You, jack’-nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh. By gar, it is a shallenge. I will cut his throat in de park, and I will teach a scurvy jackanape priest to meddle or make. You may be gone. It is not good you tarry here.—By gar, I will cut all his two stones. By gar, he shall not have a stone to throw at his dog. (1.4.112–18)
Doctor Caius says these lines to Simple as he hands the young man a letter to deliver to Sir Hugh Evans. Caius is in love with Anne Page, and he is angry that Evans has sent Simple to ask Mistress Quickly to put in a good word with Anne about Slender. Caius is also upset with Mistress Quickly, since she is his servant and has already pledged to help him win Anne’s hand in marriage. The exchange is already comic due to the mess of people who are all somehow involved in securing an engagement with Anne. Shakespeare adds a further element of humor with Caius’s heavily accented French, which gets funnier the angrier he becomes.
A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne, or I would Master Slender had her, or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised and I’ll be as good as my word—but speciously for Master Fenton. (3.4.105–111)
Mistress Quickly says these lines to herself after speaking with the young gentleman Master Fenton. She has made agreements with all three of the suitors who are pursuing Anne, pledging to help them each win her hand. Of course, in playing all three sides, she effectively helps none of them. And though she insists that she’ll make a special case for Fenton, Shakespeare invites our suspicion through the malapropism she substitutes for “specially” in the final clause: the word speciously actually means “falsely.” In the end, then Mistress Quickly does little more than help make a comic mess of Anne’s engagement.
I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ th’ church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! And ’tis a post-master’s boy. (5.5.191–96)
Slender makes this report to Master Page after he’s mistakenly eloped with a young boy. Page had orchestrated a scheme in which Slender was supposed to find Anne in the chaos of the fairy masque, identifying her by her white gown and slipping off with her. However, Anne, refusing to marry Slender, gave a boy the gown and thereby turned him into a decoy. Apparently, Slender didn’t realize his mistake until they were inside the church, where he had to restrain his impulse to strike the “great lubberly boy.” A similar situation befalls Caius, who comes in shortly after and delivers his own report. Amid this confusion and misdirection, Anne manages to steal away with her true love, Master Fenton.
