Mistress Page

Play

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Summary

Mistress Page is the more confident and outwardly cheerful of the two merry wives. She receives Falstaff's identical letter with amusement rather than alarm and immediately plots with Mistress Ford to teach him a lesson. She is the principal architect of Falstaff's three humiliations — the laundry basket, the beating as the old woman of Brentford, and the pinching in Windsor Forest. She also has a subplot role in trying to marry her daughter Anne to Slender (or Caius), against Anne's own inclination toward Fenton.

Notable Quotations

"What, have I 'scaped love-letters in the holiday time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see." *(2.1)*

"Wives may be merry, and yet honest too." *(4.2)*

Cross-references

• The Merry Wives of Windsor — the play
• Comedies
• character_mistress_ford — her co-conspirator
• character_falstaff — the target of her schemes
• character_ford — Mistress Ford's jealous husband
• character_slender — one of her daughter Anne's suitors