"The Adoption of Abominable Terms": The Insults That Shape Windsor's Middle Class

Rosemary Kegl, University of Rochester

I

I take the title of this essay from Francis Ford's first soliloquy in The Merry Wives of Windsor.¹ Misconstruing his wife's merriment as unfaithfulness, the distracted Ford laments:

See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus'd, my coffers ransack'd, my reputation gnawn at, and I shall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends; but Cuckold! Wittol!—Cuckold! the devil himself hath not such a name.

I will prevent this, detect my wife, be reveng'd on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie!...

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