Skip to main content
The Merry Wives of Windsor

Overview

Gender
Female
Playing Age
Adult
Style
Comedic
Act/Scene
Act Five, Scene Five
Time & Place
Windsor Forest around Herne's Oak, England, at the stroke of midnight during a grand masquerade prank.
Length
Medium
Time Period
Classical
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

MISTRESS QUICKLY: About, about;

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:

That it may stand till the perpetual doom,

In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,

Worthy the owner, and the owner it.

The several chairs of order look you scour

With juice of balm and every precious flower:

Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,

With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!

And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:

The expressure that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;

And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;

Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,

Our dance of custom round about the oak

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merrywives/merrywives.5.5.html

Performance Tips

Emotional Beat Breakdown

Videos

Related Learning Modules

More Monologues

All monologues are the property and copyright of their owners.

Monologues are presented on StageAgent for educational purposes only.