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THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

If this Comedy was written, as tradition reports at the bidding of Queen Elizabeth in order to show Falstaffe in love, it is interesting to see that Shakespeare confines his love-making to mercenary motives, and by causing him to make love to two at once renders him as a lover merely a cheat.

So keeping the word of promise to the ear, he obeys by breaking it to the sense. To show Falstaffe as a lover amounts to showing him as no lover at all.

In this sense, the Play might be called a courteous satire upon the Queen's request.

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