Merry Wives of Windsor: Horny Falstaff. New Shakespeare Company,1984.
Falstaff here appears with his main attributes as horns. He is an icon for male animals, such as the stag in rut, which links him to fertility and identifies him with gods of lust and fertility, dating back to classical times and even earlier:
FALSTAFF:
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now the
hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for
thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that in some
respects, makes a beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You
were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love!
how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done
first in the form of a beast; O Jove, a beastly fault! and then
another fault in the semblance of a fowl: think on't, Jove, a foul
fault! When gods have hot backs what shall poor men do? For me,
I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest.
Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?
Who comes here? my doe? V.v.1-15
The Merry Wives of Windsor: New Shakespeare Company, June 1984. David Conville: director; Sarah Jane McClelland: designer; Ronald Fraser: Sir John Falstaff; Kate O'Mara: Mistress Alice Ford: Julia Swift; Mistress Anne Page; Donald Cooper: photographer; courtesy of AHDS Performing Arts, Designing Shakespeare Collection. Some data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).
