"The actor (who had performed a rather notable Shallow the previous year) was now playing in an Ibsen revival, of which Polly Duport was the star." 120
HSH #AnthonyPowellTogether #HenryIVpart2 #MerryWives_2025 Falstaff's old friend, the good justice Robert Shallow!
Hello, readers of #HenryVI_2025 , #MerryWives_2025 & #MuchAdo_2025 :
After we finish Part 3 of King Henry VI, we will take a comedic break with The Tempest (on an island!)
How's 6/18 to start #TheTempest_2025 ? reply if you need more time to pick up a copy.
Me: www.folger.edu/explore/shak...
Look what I found while writing a wiki for sculptor Eugenie Shonnard. A model of the old Globe she made 1923 (!) for a MA ladies club literary presentation. To think she put this much effort to it and that it has survived, at least in photo. #henryvi_2025 #HenryIV_part1 #merrywives_2025
“Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villainy;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine be out.”
#merrywives_2025
“O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast.”
#merrywives_2025
Falstaff
Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy,
Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! (77-78)
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. (114)
#MerryWives_2025
Act V, s5
MISTR. QUICKLY. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies. Sing a scornful rhyme,
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
Act V s.5 #MerryWives_2025
More from Falstaff:
1. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese.
2. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it...
3. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.
Act V s.5 #MerryWives_2025 #Falstaff
FALSTAFF Well, I am your theme. You have the start of me. I am dejected. I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will.
Act V s.5 #MerryWives_2025 #Falstaff
#MerryWives_2025 Day 20, 3/15- Act V s.5
FALSTAFF. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve. The minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me.
Thanks for reading together & hope to see y'all for #HenryVI_2025 on Mar. 17th ☘️
HONNT SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. C'est-d-dire honte à celui qui interprète malignement. Honnir et honter (couvrir de honte) étaient autrefois synonymes. La comtesse de Salisbury, dansant avec Edouard III, roi d'Angleterre, laissa tomber une de ses jarretières. Ce prince, en la ramassant, s'aperçut que les courtisans souriaient. Honni soit qui mal y pense, dit-il; tel qui s'en rit aujourd'hui, demain s'honorera de la porter; et il institua sur-le-champ l'ordre auquel ces paroles, brodées sur une jarretière bleue, servirent de devise. Les chevaliers la portaient au genou gauche.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
And Honi soit qui mal y pense write
In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee.
William Shakespeare
#MerryWives_2025
V,5 (70-73)
SHAL. That's good too: but what needs either your "mum" or her "budget"? the white will decipher her well enough.
Act V s.2 Windsor Park #MerryWives_2025 Love conquers all...?
Falstaff
Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.
#MerryWives_2025
Act V, s1 (9-11)
Émile-Alexandre Taskin (1853-1897) dans le rôle de Falstaff, opéra-comique d’Ambroise Thomas Le songe d’une nuit d’été, Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, 1886. Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
FALSTAFF
I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle.
William Shakespeare
#MerryWives_2025
V,1 (21-22)
#MerryWives_2025 Day 19, 3/14- Act V s.1, 2, 3, 4.
FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling: go. I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.
Host
Master Fenton, talk not to me : my mind is heavy.
#MerryWives_2025
Act IV, s6 ( 1 )
#MerryWives_2025 Day 18, 3/13- Act IV s.6
HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I will give over all.
Portrait of the actor John Braham, as Fenton in Shakespeare's 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'; half length, to the right, one hand on chest; wearing plumed hat and beaded doublet; in picture frame. © The Trustees of the British Museum
HOST
Well, husband your device. I’ll to the vicar.
Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
William Shakespeare
#MerryWives_2025
IV,6 (51-52)
#MerryWives_2025
Falstaff:
Well, if my
wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would
repent.
(IV.5.98-100)
“they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me; I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear”
#merrywives_2025
Falstaff
But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i’ th’ common stocks, for a witch.
#MerryWives_2025
Act IV, s5 (95-98)
#MerryWives_2025 Day 17, 3/12- Act IV s.5
HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? what, thickskin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
SIM. Marry, sir. I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.
“The Devil and Dr. Faustus Meet” by unknown artist
BARDOLPH
Run away with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
#MerryWives_2025
IV,5 (62-65)
Christopher Marlowe
Doctor Faustus
“we’ll dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands”
#merrywives_2025
#MerryWives_2025
Page:
Be not as extreme in submission
As in offence.
(IV.4.11/12)
More submission would have been good.
M. PAGE. ...Then let them all encircle him about,
...
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
M. FORD. And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
Act IV s.4 #Merrywives_2025
Page
But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport,
Appoint a meeting with this fat old fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
#MerryWives_2025
Act IV, s4 (12-15)
FORD. ...I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Then thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand.
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.
PAGE. 'T is well, 't is well; no more:
Be not as extreme in submission
As in offence.
Act IV s.4 #Merrywives_2025
