QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT/SCENE:
SPEAKER: Mistress Page
CONTEXT:
MISTRESS PAGE
I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.
MISTRESS FORD
What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?
MISTRESS PAGE
The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.

DUTCH:
De geest van dartelheid is denkelijk wel bij hem uitgebannen; als hij zich niet met lijf en ziel, zonder kans
op boete en rouwkoop, aan den duivel verkocht heeft,
zal hij nimmermeer, denk ik, ons trachten te verleiden.

MORE:
Fine and recovery. In old English law, “fine” meant “an amicable composition or agreement of astute, either actual or fictitious, by leave of the King or his justices”. Fines and Recoveries were used to circumvent the Statute of Entail, which tended to restrict the free transfer of land, by “suffering a feigned recovery” or “levying a fine”.

Hallowed=Consecrated
Warrant=Justification; authorisation
Waste=Damage
Compleat:
Hallowed=Geheyligd, gewyd
Warrant=Volmagtiging
I’ll warrant you=Ik verzeker ‘t u, ik staa ‘er borg voor, ik sta er voor in
To waste=Verwoesten, verquisten, verteeren, vernielen, doorbrengen

Topics: law/legal|remedy|conscience