The Merry Wives of Windsor (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

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Sir John Falstaff (FOHL-staf), the jovial, rotund friend of Prince Hal in Henry IV, who comes with his hangers-on to Windsor and amuses himself by wooing the respectable ladies of two merchants. Twice gulled by the “merry wives,” beaten and dumped into the Thames from a laundry basket, he tries a third time to succeed in his amorous designs and plans a rendezvous in the woods. He is discovered there by his friends wearing a buck’s head and lying face down for fear of the fairies and elves who have been pinching him. He accepts this last...

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