Understanding Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

Or if his blood grow hot, suppose he offer Beyond this, do not you stay till it cool, But meet his ardor; if a couch be near,

Sit down on’t, and invite him. (III, ii: 123-26)

Margaret, naturally, finds the idea abhorrent and suggests that she would be no better than a whore and her father a pimp.

Overreach’s most blatant speech occurs in the fourth act when he attempts to bribe Lovell into marrying his daughter. Overreach boasts of his financial conquests and of how he has seized property and ruined many a family. Lovell is shocked and asks Overreach about the moral implications of his actions:

LOVELL Are you not frighted with the imprecations And curses of whole families made wretched By your sinister practices?

OVERREACH Yes, as rocks are

When foamy billows split themselves against Their flinty ribs … (IV, i: 110-14)

Lovell’s reaction after Overreach has left indicates the lack of sympathy that the character receives:

He’s gone. I wonder how the earth can bear Such a portent!11 I, that have lived a soldier,

And stood the enemy’s violent charge undaunted, To hear this blasphemous beast am bathed all over In a cold sweat. Yet, like a mountain, he,