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Sir John Falstaff, short of money in the town of Windsor, sends identical love letters to two respectable married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page…
Sir John Falstaff, short of money in the town of Windsor, sends identical love letters to two respectable married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, hoping to get at their husbands' money. The two wives compare letters and decide to punish him: he is hidden in a basket of dirty laundry and tipped into the Thames, disguised as an old woman and beaten, and finally lured to Windsor Forest at midnight, while the jealous Master Ford, in disguise, tries to catch his wife out.
Context and significance
Tradition says Shakespeare wrote the comedy around 1597 because Queen Elizabeth wished to see Falstaff in love. It is his only comedy set in the England of his own day, and Verdi made it into his last opera, Falstaff. The First Folio text of 1623, used here, is much fuller than the short version printed in 1602. Read Henry IV, Part 1.
About the author
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), born in Stratford-upon-Avon, actor, playwright and shareholder of a London company, wrote about thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets.