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165

THE

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

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ACT I.

I. 1 Scene I. Windsor. Before Page’s house.

Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans.

Shal. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.

Slen. In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace 5 and ‘Coram.’

Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and ‘Custalorum.’

Slen. Ay, and ‘Rato-lorum’ too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself ‘Armigero,’ in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, ‘Armigero.’

10 Shal. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

Slen. All his successors gone before him hath done’t; and all his ancestors that come after him may: they may 15 give the dozen white luces in their coat.

Shal. It is an old coat.

Evans. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

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Shal. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an 20 old coat.

Slen. I may quarter, coz.

Shal. You may, by marrying.

Evans. It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

Shal. Not a whit.

I. 1.
25 Evans. Yes, py’r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence to make atonements and 30 compremises between you.

Shal. The council shall hear it; it is a riot.

Evans. It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your 35 vizaments in that.

Shal. Ha! o’ my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it.

Evans. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another device in my prain, which peradventure 40 prings goot discretions with it:—there is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is pretty virginity.

Slen. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.

45 Evans. It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold and silver, is her grandsire upon his death’s-bed (Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years old: it were a goot motion if we 167 I. 1.
50 leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.

Slen. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

Evans. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.

Slen. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good 55 gifts.

Evans. Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.

Shal. Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?

60 Evans. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that is false, or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master Page. [Knocks] What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

65 Page. [Within] Who’s there?

Enter Page.

Evans. Here is Got’s plessing, and your friend, and Justice Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings.

70 Page. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.

Shal. Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it your good heart! I wished your venison better; it was ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page?—and I I. 1.
75 thank you always with my heart, la! with my heart.

Page. Sir, I thank you.

Shal. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.

Page. I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

168

Slen. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard 80 say he was outrun on Cotsall.

Page. It could not be judged, sir.

Slen. You’ll not confess, you’ll not confess.

Shal. That he will not. ’Tis your fault, ’tis your fault; ’tis a good dog.

85 Page. A cur, sir.

Shal. Sir, he’s a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be more said? he is good and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?

Page. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you.

90 Evans. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

Shal. He hath wronged me, Master Page.

Page. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.

Shal. If it be confessed, it is not redressed: is not that so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he hath; 95 at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert Shallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged.

Page. Here comes Sir John.

Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol.

Fal. Now, Master Shallow, you’ll complain of me to the king?

I. 1.
100 Shal. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.

Fal. But not kissed your keeper’s daughter?

Shal. Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

Shal. The council shall know this.

Fal. ’Twere better for you if it were known in counsel: you’ll be laughed at.

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Evans. Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.

110 Fal. Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your head: what matter have you against me?

Slen. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol.

115 Bard. You Banbury cheese!

Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Pist. How now, Mephostophilus!

Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Nym. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that’s my 120 humour.

Slen. Where’s Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?

Evans. Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand; I. 1.
125 that is, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.

Page. We three, to hear it and end it between them.

Evans. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my 130 note-book; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can.

Fal. Pistol!

Pist. He hears with ears.

Evans. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, ’He 135 hears with ear’? why, it is affectations.

Fal. Pistol, did you pick Master Slender’s purse?

Slen. Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else, of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, 140 that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

Fal. Is this true, Pistol?

170

Evans. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.

Slen. By these gloves, then, ’twas he.

I. 1.
150 Nym. Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say ‘marry trap’ with you, if you run the nuthook’s humour on me; that is the very note of it.

Slen. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me 155 drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

Fal. What say you, Scarlet and John?

Bard. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

Evans. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

160 Bard. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and so conclusions passed the careires.

Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but ’tis no matter: I’ll ne’er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, 165 I’ll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

Evans. So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

Fal. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter Anne Page, with wine; Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, following.

170 Page. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we’ll drink within.

Exit Anne Page.

171

Slen. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.

Page. How now, Mistress Ford!

Fal. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well I. 1.
175 met: by your leave, good mistress. Kisses her.

Page. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

Exeunt all except Shal., Slen., and Evans.

Slen. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book 180 of Songs and Sonnets here.

Enter Simple.

How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you, have you?

Sim. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to 185 Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

Shal. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as ’twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do 190 you understand me?

Slen. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

Shal. Nay, but understand me.

Slen. So I do, sir.

195 Evans. Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

Slen. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he’s a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

I. 1.
200 Evans. But that is not the question: the question is concerning your marriage.

Shal. Ay, there’s the point, sir.

Evans. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.

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205 Slen. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

Evans. But can you affection the ’oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. 210 Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

Shal. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

Slen. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

215 Evans. Nay, Got’s lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

Shal. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

220 Slen. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

Shal. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

Slen. I will marry her, sir, at your request: but if there I. 1.
225 be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another; I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt: but if you say, ‘Marry her,’ I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

230 Evans. It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in the ort ‘dissolutely:’ the ort is, according to our meaning, ‘resolutely:’ his meaning is good.

Shal. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

Slen. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

235 Shal. Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

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Re-enter Anne Page.

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

Anne. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships’ company.

Shal. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

240 Evans. Od’s plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

Exeunt Shallow and Evans.

Anne. Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?

Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

245 Anne. The dinner attends you, sir.

Slen. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow. [Exit Simple.] A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but I. 1.
250 three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

Anne. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.

Slen. I’ faith, I’ll eat nothing; I thank you as much as 255 though I did.

Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in.

Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th’ other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed 260 prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i’ the town?

Anne. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

Slen. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel 265 at it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?

Anne. Ay, indeed, sir.

Slen. That’s meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the 270 chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and 174 shrieked at it, that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot abide ’em; they are very ill-favoured rough things.

Re-enter Page.

Page. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

I. 1.
275 Slen. I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

Page. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

Slen. Nay, pray you, lead the way.

Page. Come on, sir.

280 Slen. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Anne. Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.

Slen. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do you that wrong.

Anne. I pray you, sir.

285 Slen. I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!

Exeunt.

I. 2 Scene II. The same.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple.

Evans. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius’ house which is the way: and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.

5 Sim. Well, sir.

Evans. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a ’oman that altogether’s acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master’s desires to Mistress Anne Page. I 10 pray you, be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there’s pippins and cheese to come.

Exeunt.

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I. 3 Scene III. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff, Host, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, and Robin.

Fal. Mine host of the Garter!

Host. What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.

Fal. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my 5 followers.

Host. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.

Fal. I sit at ten pounds a week.

Host. Thou’rt an emperor, Cæsar, Keisar, and Pheezar. 10 I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap: said I well, bully Hector?

Fal. Do so, good mine host.

Host. I have spoke; let him follow. [To Bard.] Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow. Exit.

15 Fal. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

Bard. It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.

Pist. O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot 20 wield?

Exit Bardolph.

Nym. He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?

Fal. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful I. 3.
25 singer; he kept not time.

Nym. The good humour is to steal at a minute’s rest.

Pist. ‘Convey,’ the wise it call. ‘Steal!’ foh! a fico for the phrase!

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Fal. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

30 Pist. Why, then, let kibes ensue.

Fal. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.

Pist. Young ravens must have food.

Fal. Which of you know Ford of this town?

35 Pist. I ken the wight: he is of substance good.

Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

Pist. Two yards, and more.

Fal. No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am 40 about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford’s wife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is, ‘I am Sir John Falstaff’s.’

45 Pist. He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English.

Nym. The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?

Fal. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband’s purse: he hath a legion of angels.

I. 3.
50 Pist. As many devils entertain; and ‘To her, boy,’ say I.

Nym. The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.

Fal. I have writ me here a letter to her: and here another to Page’s wife, who even now gave me good eyes 55 too, examined my parts with most judicious œillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

Pist. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

177

Nym. I thank thee for that humour.

60 Fal. O, she did so course o’er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here’s another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and 65 they shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

Nym. I will run no base humour: here, take the humour-letter: I will keep the haviour of reputation.

Exeunt Falstaff and Robin.

Nym. I have operations which be humours of revenge.

Pist. Wilt thou revenge?

85 Nym. By welkin and her star!

178

Pist. With wit or steel?

Nym. My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for 95 the revolt of mine is dangerous: that is my true humour.

Pist. Thou art the Mars of malecontents: I second thee; troop on.

Exeunt.

I. 4 Scene IV. A room in Doctor Caius’s house.

Enter Mistress Quickly, Simple, and Rugby.

Quick. What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement, and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i’ faith, and find any body in the house, here will be an old abusing of God’s 5 patience and the king’s English.

Rug. I’ll go watch.

Quick. Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire. [Exit Rugby.] An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come 10 in house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?

Sim. Ay, for fault of a better.

15 Quick. And Master Slender’s your master?

Sim. Ay, forsooth.

179

Quick. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover’s paring-knife?

Sim. No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with 20 a little yellow beard,—a Cain-coloured beard.

Quick. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?

Sim. Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a warrener.

I. 4.
25 Quick. How say you?—O, I should remember him: does he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

Sim. Yes, indeed, does he.

Quick. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can 30 for your master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish—

Re-enter Rugby.

Rug. Out, alas! here comes my master. 

Quick. We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; go into this closet: he will not stay long. [Shuts Simple in the closet.] What, John Rugby! John! 35 what, John, I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be not well, that he comes not home.

[Singing] And down, down, adown-a, &c.

Enter Doctor Caius.

Caius. Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert,—a box, 40 a green-a box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.

Quick. Ay, forsooth; I’ll fetch it you. [Aside] I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

Caius. Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je 45 m’en vais à la cour,—la grande affaire.

180

Quick. Is it this, sir?

Caius. Oui; mette le au mon pocket: dépêche, quickly. Vere is dat knave Rugby?

Quick. What, John Rugby! John!

I. 4.
50 Rug. Here, sir!

Caius. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.

Rug. ’Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

55 Caius. By my trot, I tarry too long. —Od’s me! Qu’ai-j’oublié! dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.

Quick. Ay me, he’ll find the young man there, and be mad!

60 Caius. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron! [Pulling Simple out.] Rugby, my rapier!

Quick. Good master, be content.

Caius. Wherefore shall I be content-a?

Quick. The young man is an honest man.

65 Caius. What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

Quick. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.

Caius. Vell.

70 Sim. Ay, forsooth; to desire her to—

Quick. Peace, I pray you.

Caius. Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.

Sim. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my I. 4.
75 master in the way of marriage.

Quick. This is all, indeed, la! but I’ll ne’er put my finger in the fire, and need not.

Caius. Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper. Tarry you a little-a while. Writes.

181

80 Quick. [Aside to Simple] I am glad he is so quiet: if he had been throughly moved, you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I’ll do you your master what good I can: and the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my master,—I 85 may call him my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all myself,—

Sim. [Aside to Quickly] ’Tis a great charge to come under one body’s hand.

90 Quick. [Aside to Simple] Are you avised o’ that? you shall find it a great charge: and to be up early and down late;—but notwithstanding,—to tell you in your ear; I would have no words of it,—my master himself is in love with Mistress Anne Page: but notwithstanding that, I know 95 Anne’s mind,—that’s neither here nor there.

Caius. You jack’nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in de park; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. —By I. 4.
100 gar, I will cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to throw at his dog.

Exit Simple.

Quick. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.

Caius. It is no matter-a ver dat:—do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne Page for myself?—By gar, I vill 105 kill de Jack priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to measure our weapon:—By gar, I will myself have Anne Page.

Quick. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!

110 Caius. Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door. Follow my heels, Rugby.

Exeunt Caius and Rugby.

182

Quick. You shall have An fool’s-head of your own. No, I know Anne’s mind for that: never a woman in 115 Windsor knows more of Anne’s mind than I do; nor can do more than I do with her, I thank heaven.

Fent. [Within] Who’s within there? ho!

Quick. Who’s there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray you.

Enter Fenton.

120 Fent. How now, good woman! how dost thou?

Quick. The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.

Fen. What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?

Quick. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and I. 4.
125 gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by the way; I praise heaven for it.

Fent. Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?

Quick. Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but notwithstanding, 130 Master Fenton, I’ll be sworn on a book, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?

Fent. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

Quick. Well, thereby hangs a tale:—good faith, it is such another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever 135 broke bread:—we had an hour’s talk of that wart. —I shall never laugh but in that maid’s company!—But, indeed, she is given too much to allicholy and musing: but for you—well, go to.

Fent. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there’s 140 money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her before me, commend me.

Quick. Will I? i’ faith, that we will; and I will tell your worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers.

145 Fent. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.

183

Quick. Farewell to your worship. [Exit Fenton.] Truly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne’s mind as well as another does. —Out upon’t! what have I forgot? Exit.

ACT II.

II. 1 Scene I. Before Page’s house.

Enter Mistress Page, with a letter.

Mrs Page. What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see. Reads:

‘Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason 5 for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there’s sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there’s more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,—at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,—that 10 I love thee. I will not say, pity me,—’tis not a soldier-like phrase; but I say, love me. By me,

What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour hath 20 this Flemish drunkard picked—with the devil’s name!—out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll exhibit a bill in the 184 II. 1.
25 parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

Enter Mistress Ford.

Mrs Ford. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.

30 Mrs Page. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.

Mrs Ford. Nay, I’ll ne’er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.

Mrs Page. Faith, but you do, in my mind.

35 Mrs Ford. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

Mrs Page. What’s the matter, woman?

Mrs Ford. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, 40 I could come to such honour!

Mrs Page. Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is it?—dispense with trifles;—what is it?

Mrs Ford. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.

45 Mrs Page. What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

Mrs Ford. We burn daylight:—here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of II. 1.
50 fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men’s liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women’s modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no 55 more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth 185 Psalm to the tune of ‘Green Sleeves.’ What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with 60 hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?

Mrs Page. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here’s the twin-brother of thy letter: 65 but let thine inherit first; for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names,—sure, more,—and these are of the second edition: he will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press, when he would 70 put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.

Mrs Ford. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very words. What doth he think of us?

II. 1.
75 Mrs Page. Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

80 Mrs Ford. ‘Boarding,’ call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.

Mrs Page. So will I: if he come under my hatches, I’ll never to sea again. Let’s be revenged on him: let’s appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in his 85 suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.

Mrs Ford. Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him, that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! it would give 90 eternal food to his jealousy.

186

Mrs Page. Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he’s as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.

95 Mrs Ford. You are the happier woman.

Mrs Page. Let’s consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither. They retire.

Enter Ford, with Pistol, and Page, with Nym.

Ford. Well, I hope it be not so.

Ford. Why, sir, my wife is not young.

105 Ford. Love my wife!

Ford. What name, sir?

115 Ford. [Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this.

Nym. [To Page] And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He 187 120 loves your wife; there’s the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch; ’tis true: my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese [and there’s the humour of it]. Adieu. Exit.

II. 1.
125 Page. ‘The humour of it,’ quoth ’a! here’s a fellow frights English out of his wits.

Ford. I will seek out Falstaff.

Page. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

Ford. If I do find it:—well.

130 Page. I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o’ the town commended him for a true man.

Ford. ’Twas a good sensible fellow:—well.

Page. How now, Meg!

Mrs Page and Mrs Ford come forward.

Mrs Page. Whither go you, George? Hark you.

135 Mrs Ford. How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

Mrs Ford. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy 140 head. Now, will you go, Mistress Page?

Mrs Page. Have with you. You’ll come to dinner, George? [Aside to Mrs Ford] Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.

Mrs Ford. [Aside to Mrs Page] Trust me, I thought on 145 her: she’ll fit it.

Enter Mistress Quickly.

Mrs Page. You are come to see my daughter Anne?

Quick. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

188

Mrs Page. Go in with us and see: we have an hour’s II. 1.
150 talk with you.

Exeunt Mrs Page, Mrs Ford, and Mrs Quickly.

Page. How now, Master Ford!

Ford. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?

Page. Yes: and you heard what the other told me?

Ford. Do you think there is truth in them?

155 Page. Hang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it: but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service.

Ford. Were they his men?

160 Page. Marry, were they.

Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?

Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and 165 what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.

Ford. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus 170 satisfied.

Page. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks so merrily.

Enter Host.

How now, mine host!

II. 1.
175 Host. How now, bully-rook! thou’rt a gentleman. Cavaleiro-justice, I say!

Enter Shallow.

Shal. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand.

189

180 Host. Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

Ford. Good mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you. Drawing him aside.

Host. What sayest thou, my bully-rook?

185 Shal. [To Page] Will you go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. They converse apart.

Host. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my 190 guest-cavaleire?

Ford. None, I protest: but I’ll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brook; only for a jest.

195 Host. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;—said I well?—and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?

Shal. Have with you, mine host.

Page. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in II. 1.
200 his rapier.

Shal. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: ’tis the heart, Master Page; ’tis here, ’tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword I would 205 have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

Host. Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?

Page. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.

Exeunt Host, Shal., and Page.

Ford. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so 210 firmly on his wife’s frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion 190 so easily: she was in his company at Page’s house; and what they made there, I know not. Well, I will look further into’t: and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 215 ’tis labour well bestowed. Exit.

II. 2 Scene II. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff and Pistol.

Fal. I will not lend thee a penny.

Fal. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you 5 should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were good soldiers and 10 tall fellows; and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took’t upon mine honour thou hadst it not.

Pist. Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?

Fal. Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I’ll endanger 15 my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go. A short knife and a throng!—To your manor of Pickt-hatch! Go. You’ll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you stand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as 20 I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce 191 your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice II. 2.
25 phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you!

Pist. I do relent: what would thou more of man?

Enter Robin.

Rob. Sir, here’s a woman would speak with you.

Fal. Let her approach.

Enter Mistress Quickly.

30 Quick. Give your worship good morrow.

Fal. Good morrow, good wife.

Quick. Not so, an’t please your worship.

Fal. Good maid, then.

Fal. I do believe the swearer. What with me?

Quick. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

Fal. Two thousand, fair woman: and I’ll vouchsafe thee the hearing.

40 Quick. There is one Mistress Ford, sir:—I pray, come a little nearer this ways:—I myself dwell with Master Doctor Caius,—

Fal. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,—

Quick. Your worship says very true:—I pray your 45 worship, come a little nearer this ways.

Fal. I warrant thee, nobody hears;—mine own people, mine own people.

Quick. Are they so? God bless them, and make them his servants!

II. 2.
50 Fal. Well, Mistress Ford;—what of her?

Quick. Why, sir, she’s a good creature. —Lord, Lord! 192 your worship’s a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all of us, I pray!

Fal. Mistress Ford;—come, Mistress Ford,—

55 Quick. Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have brought her into such a canaries as ’tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their 60 coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest, that would have won any woman’s heart; and, I 65 warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I defy all angels—in any such sort, as they say—but in the way of honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners; 70 but, I warrant you, all is one with her.

Fal. But what says she to me? be brief, my good she-Mercury.

Quick. Marry, she hath received your letter; for the II. 2.
75 which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you to notify, that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven.

Fal. Ten and eleven.

Quick. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see 80 the picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads an ill life with him! he’s a very jealousy man: she leads a very frampold life with him, good heart.

Fal. Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; 85 I will not fail her.

Quick. Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you, too: and let me tell you in your 193 ear, she’s as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell 90 you, that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe’er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from home; but, she hopes, there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man: surely, I think you have 95 charms, la; yes, in truth.

Fal. Not I, I assure thee: setting the attraction of my good parts aside, I have no other charms.

Quick. Blessing on your heart for’t!

Fal. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford’s wife II. 2.
100 and Page’s wife acquainted each other how they love me?

Quick. That were a jest indeed! they have not so little grace, I hope: that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves: her husband has a marvellous infection to the 105 little page; and, truly, Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will: and, truly, she deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in 110 Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.

Fal. Why, I will.

Quick. Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and, in any case, have a 115 nay-word, that you may know one another’s mind, and the boy never need to understand any thing; for ’tis not good that children should know any wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.

Fal. Fare thee well: commend me to them both: 120 there’s my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with this woman. [Exeunt Mistress Quickly and Robin.] This news distracts me!

Fal. Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I’ll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let 130 them say ’tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.

Enter Bardolph.

Bard. Sir John, there’s one Master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning’s draught of sack.

Fal. Brook is his name?

135 Bard. Ay, sir.

Fal. Call him in. [Exit Bardolph.] Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o’erflow such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page have I encompassed you? go to; via!

Re-enter Bardolph, with Ford disguised.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

140 Fal. And you, sir! Would you speak with me?

Ford. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you.

Fal. You’re welcome. What’s your will?—Give us leave, drawer.

Exit Bardolph.

145 Ford. Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.

Fal. Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.

Ford. Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge II. 2.
150 you; for I must let you understand I think myself in better plight for a lender than you are: the which hath something emboldened me to this unseasoned intrusion; for they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open.

195

Fal. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.

155 Ford. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me: if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage.

Fal. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.

160 Ford. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.

Fal. Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be your servant.

Ford. Sir, I hear you are a scholar,—I will be brief with you,—and you have been a man long known to me, though 165 I had never so good means, as desire, to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine own imperfection: but, good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your 170 own; that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.

Fal. Very well, sir; proceed.

Ford. There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband’s name is Ford.

II. 2.
175 Fal. Well, sir.

Ford. I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee’d every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only 180 bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have 185 received none; unless experience be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to say this:

196

190 Fal. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?

Ford. Never.

Fal. Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

Ford. Never.

195 Fal. Of what quality was your love, then?

Ford. Like a fair house built on another man’s ground; so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it.

Fal. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

II. 2.
200 Ford. When I have told you that, I have told you all. Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent 205 breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person, generally allowed for your many war-like, court-like, and learned preparations.

Fal. O, sir!

Ford. Believe it, for you know it. There is money; 210 spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford’s wife: use your art of wooing; win her to consent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as any.

215 Fal. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.

Ford. O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul 220 dares not present itself: she is too bright to be looked against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves: I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand 197 II. 2.
225 other her defences, which now are too, too strongly embattled against me. What say you to’t, Sir John?

Fal. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford’s wife.

230 Ford. O good sir!

Fal. I say you shall.

Ford. Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.

Fal. Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her 235 own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me: I say I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave her husband will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed.

240 Ford.. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir?

Fal. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not: —yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife 245 seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue’s coffer; and there’s my harvest-home.

Ford. I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him, if you saw him.

Fal. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will II. 2.
250 stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o’er the cuckold’s horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. —Come to me soon at night. Ford’s a knave, and I will aggravate his 255 style; thou, Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come to me soon at night. Exit.

Ford. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is improvident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the hour 198 260 is fixed; the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him 265 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. Page is an ass, a secure ass: he will trust his wife; he will not 270 be jealous. I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in II. 2.
275 their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. God be praised for my jealousy!—Eleven o’clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too 280 late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! Exit.

II. 3 Scene III. A field near Windsor.

Enter Caius and Rugby.

Caius. Jack Rugby!

Rug. Sir?

Caius. Vat is de clock, Jack?

Rug. Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised 5 to meet.

Caius. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible well, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.

199

Rug. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would 10 kill him, if he came.

Caius. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.

Rug. Alas, sir, I cannot fence.

15 Caius. Villainy, take your rapier.

Rug. Forbear; here’s company.

Enter Host, Shallow, Slender, and Page.

Host. Bless thee, bully doctor!

Shal. Save you, Master Doctor Caius!

Page. Now, good master doctor!

20 Slen. Give you good morrow, sir.

Caius. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?

Host. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse; to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy II. 3.
25 montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my Æsculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully-stale? is he dead?

Caius. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he is not show his face.

30 Host. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!

Caius. I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

Shal. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a 35 curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true, Master Page?

Page. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace.

200

40 Shal. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one. Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page.

45 Page. ’Tis true, Master Shallow.

Shal. It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace: you have shewed yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh hath shewn himself a wise and patient II. 3.
50 churchman. You must go with me, master doctor.

Host. Pardon, guest-justice. —A word, Mounseur Mock-water.

Caius. Mock-vater! vat is dat?

Host. Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, 55 bully.

Caius. By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de Englishman. —Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me vill cut his ears.

Host. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

60 Caius. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?

Host. That is, he will make thee amends.

Caius. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for, by gar, me vill have it.

Host. And I will provoke him to’t, or let him wag.

65 Caius. Me tank you for dat.

Host. And, moreover, bully,—But first, master guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore. Aside to them.

Page. Sir Hugh is there, is he?

70 Host. He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

Shal. We will do it.

Page, Shal., and Slen. Adieu, good master doctor.

Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.

201

II. 3.
75 Caius. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page.

Host. Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, 80 at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well?

Caius. By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you; and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

85 Host. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne Page. Said I well?

Caius. By gar, ’tis good; vell said.

Host. Let us wag, then.

Caius. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

Exeunt.

ACT III.

III. 1 Scene I. A field near Frogmore.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple.

Evans. I pray you now, good Master Slender’s serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?

5 Sim. Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.

Evans. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that way.

Sim. I will, sir. Exit.

10 Evans. Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling of mind!—I shall be glad if he have deceived 202 me. —How melancholies I am!—I will knog his urinals about his knave’s costard when I have goot opportunities for the ork. —Pless my soul!— Sings.

20 Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry. Sings.

Re-enter Simple.

III. 1.
25 Sim. Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.

Evans. He’s welcome. — Sings.

To shallow rivers, to whose falls—

Heaven prosper the right!—What weapons is he?

Sim. No weapons, sir. There comes my master, 30 Master Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way.

Evans. Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms.

Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender.

Shal. How now, master parson! Good morrow, good 35 Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful.

Slen. [Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!

Page. Save you, good Sir Hugh!

Evans. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!

203

40 Shal. What, the sword and the word! do you study them both, master parson?

Page. And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this raw rheumatic day!

Evans. There is reasons and causes for it.

45 Page. We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.

Evans. Fery well: what is it?

Page. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having received wrong by some person, is at most odds III. 1.
50 with his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.

Shal. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of his own respect.

Evans. What is he?

55 Page. I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French physician.

Evans. Got’s will, and his passion of my heart! I had as lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.

Page. Why?

60 Evans. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,—and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you would desires to be acquainted withal.

Page. I warrant you, he’s the man should fight with him.

65 Slen. [Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

Shal. It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder: here comes Doctor Caius.

Enter Host, Caius, and Rugby.

Page. Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.

Shal. So do you, good master doctor.

70 Host. Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep their limbs whole, and hack our English.

Caius. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear. Verefore vill you not meet-a me?

204

Evans. [Aside to Caius] Pray you, use your patience: III. 1.
75 in good time.

Caius. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.

Evans. [Aside to Caius] Pray you, let us not be laughing-stocks to other men’s humours; I desire you in friendship, 80 and I will one way or other make you amends. [Aloud] I will knog your urinals about your knave’s cogscomb [for missing your meetings and appointments].

Caius. Diable!—Jack Rugby,—mine host de Jarteer,—have I not stay for him to kill him? have I not, at de 85 place I did appoint?

Evans. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the place appointed: I’ll be judgement by mine host of the Garter.

Host. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and 90 Welsh, soul-curer and body-curer!

Caius. Ay, dat is very good; excellent.

Host. Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions and the motions. 95 Shall I lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? no; he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs. [Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so.] Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have deceived you both; I have directed you to wrong places: your hearts are mighty, your skins III. 1.
100 are whole, and let burnt sack be the issue. Come, lay their 205 swords to pawn. Follow me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.

Shal. Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.

105 Slen. [Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

Exeunt Shal., Slen., Page, and Host.

Caius. Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of us, ha, ha?

Evans. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. —I desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our 110 prains together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of the Garter.

Caius. By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.

Evans. Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, 115 follow.

Exeunt.

III. 2 Scene II. The street, in Windsor.

Enter Mistress Page and Robin.

Mrs Page. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master’s heels?

Rob. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man 5 than follow him like a dwarf.

Mrs Page. O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you’ll be a courtier.

Enter Ford.

Ford. Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

Mrs Page. Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?

10 Ford. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.

Mrs Page. Be sure of that,—two other husbands.

206

Ford. Where had you this pretty weathercock?

15 Mrs Page. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is husband had him of. —What do you call your knight’s name, sirrah?

Rob. Sir John Falstaff.

Ford. Sir John Falstaff!

20 Mrs Page. He, he; I can never hit on’s name. There is such a league between my good man and he!—Is your wife at home indeed?

Ford. Indeed she is.

Mrs Page. By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.

Exeunt Mrs Page and Robin.

III. 2.
25 Ford. Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wife’s inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage: 30 and now she’s going to my wife, and Falstaff’s boy with her. A man may hear this shower sing in the wind. And Falstaff’s boy with her! Good plots, they are laid; and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed 35 veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actæon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall cry aim. [Clock heard.] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be rather 40 praised for this than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there: I will go.

Enter Page, Shallow, Slender, Host, Sir Hugh Evans, Caius, and Rugby.

Shal., Page, &c. Well met, Master Ford.

Ford. Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home; and I pray you all go with me.

207

45 Shal. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.

Slen. And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I’ll speak of.

Shal. We have lingered about a match between Anne III. 2.
50 Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

Slen. I hope I have your good will, father Page.

Page. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you:—but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

55 Caius. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

Host. What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May: he will 60 carry’t, he will carry’t; ’tis in his buttons; he will carry’t.

Page. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild prince and Poins; he is of too high a region; he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with 65 the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

Ford. I beseech you heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; 70 I will show you a monster. Master doctor, you shall go; so shall you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.

Shal. Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing at Master Page’s.

Exeunt Shal. and Slen.

Caius. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

Exit Rugby.

III. 2.
75 Host. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. Exit.

Ford. [Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I’ll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

All. Have with you to see this monster.

Exeunt.

208

III. 3 Scene III. A room in Ford’s house.

Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.

Mrs Ford. What, John! What, Robert!

Mrs Page. Quickly, quickly!—is the buck-basket—

Mrs Ford. I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

Enter Servants with a basket.

Mrs Page. Come, come, come.

5 Mrs Ford. Here, set it down.

Mrs Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mrs Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and, without any 10 pause or staggering, take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

Mrs Page. You will do it?

15 Mrs Ford. I ha’ told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.

Exeunt Servants.

Mrs Page. Here comes little Robin.

Enter Robin.

Mrs Ford. How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?

20 Rob. My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

Mrs Page. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?

Rob. Ay, I’ll be sworn. My master knows not of your III. 3.
25 being here, and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for he swears he’ll turn me away.

209

Mrs Page. Thou’rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I ’ll go hide me.

30 Mrs Ford. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone. [Exit Robin.] Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

Mrs Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. Exit.

Mrs Ford. Go to, then: we’ll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion; we’ll teach him to 35 know turtles from jays.

Enter Falstaff.

Fal. ‘Have I caught’ thee, ‘my heavenly jewel?’ Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!

Mrs Ford. O sweet Sir John!

40 Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead: I’ll speak it before the best lord; I would make thee my lady.

Mrs Ford. I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a 45 pitiful lady!

Fal. Let the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.

III. 3.
50 Mrs Ford. A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

Fal. By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled 210 55 farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

Mrs Ford. Believe me, there’s no such thing in me.

Fal. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot 60 cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men’s apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it.

Mrs Ford. Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love 65 Mistress Page.

Fal. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.

Mrs Ford. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and 70 you shall one day find it.

Fal. Keep in that mind; I’ll deserve it.

Mrs Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind.

Rob. [Within] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here’s III. 3.
75 Mistress Page at the door, sweating, and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

Fal. She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras.

Mrs Ford. Pray you, do so: she’s a very tattling 80 woman.

Falstaff hides himself.

Re-enter Mistress Page and Robin.

What’s the matter? how now!

Mrs Page. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever!

Mrs Ford. What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

211

85 Mrs Page. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

Mrs Ford. What cause of suspicion?

Mrs Page. What cause of suspicion! Out upon you! 90 how am I mistook in you!

Mrs Ford. Why, alas, what’s the matter?

Mrs Page. Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house, by your consent, to 95 take an ill advantage of his absence: you are undone.

Mrs Ford. ’Tis not so, I hope.

Mrs Page. Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here! but ’tis most certain your husband’s coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. III. 3.
100 I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.

105 Mrs Ford. What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.

Mrs Page. For shame! never stand ‘you had rather’ 110 and ‘you had rather:’ your husband’s here at hand; bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going 115 to bucking: or,—it is whiting-time,—send him by your two men to Datchet-mead.

Mrs Ford. He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?

Fal. [Coming forward] Let me see’t, let me see’t, 120 O, let me see’t!—I’ll in, I’ll in. —Follow your friend’s counsel. —I’ll in.

212

Mrs Page. What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?

Fal. I love thee. —Help me away. —Let me creep in III. 3.
125 here. —I’ll never— Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen.

Mrs Page. Help to cover your master, boy. —Call your men, Mistress Ford. —You dissembling knight!

Mrs Ford. What, John! Robert! John!

Exit Robin.

Re-enter Servants.

Go take up these clothes here quickly. —Where’s the cowl-staff? 130 look, how you drumble!—Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-mead; quickly, come.

Enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.

Ford. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. —How now! whither bear you this?

135 Serv. To the laundress, forsooth.

Mrs Ford. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing.

Ford. Buck!—I would I could wash myself of the buck!—Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and 140 of the season too, it shall appear. [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I’ll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out: I’ll warrant we’ll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first. [Locking the door.] So, 145 now uncape.

Page. Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.

Ford. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen; you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. Exit.

213

III. 3.
150 Evans. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

Caius. By gar, ’tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.

Page. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.

Exeunt Page, Caius, and Evans.

155 Mrs Page. Is there not a double excellency in this?

Mrs Ford. I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.

Mrs Page. What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket!

160 Mrs Ford. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

Mrs Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

Mrs Ford. I think my husband hath some special suspicion 165 of Falstaff’s being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now.

Mrs Page. I will lay a plot to try that; and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.

170 Mrs Ford. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

Mrs Page. We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow, III. 3.
175 eight o’clock, to have amends.

Re-enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.

Ford. I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass.

Mrs Page. [Aside to Mrs Ford] Heard you that?

Mrs Ford. You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

180 Ford. Ay, I do so.

214

Mrs Ford. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Ford. Amen!

Mrs Page. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

185 Ford. Ay, ay; I must bear it.

Evans. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgement!

Caius. By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies.

190 Page. Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha’ your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

Ford. ’Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.

195 Evans. You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a ’omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

Caius. By gar, I see ’tis an honest woman.

Ford. Well, I promised you a dinner. —Come, come, III. 3.
200 walk in the Park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. —Come, wife; come, Mistress Page. —I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily pardon me.

Page. Let’s go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we’ll 205 mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast: after, we’ll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

Ford. Any thing.

210 Evans. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

Caius. If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd. 

Ford. Pray you, go, Master Page.

Evans. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy knave, mine host.

215 Caius. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart!

Evans. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!

Exeunt.

215

III. 4 Scene IV. A room in Page’s house.

Enter Fenton and Anne Page.

Anne. Alas, how then?

Anne. May be he tells you true.

They converse apart.

Enter Shallow, Slender, and Mistress Quickly.

Shal. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.

Sle. I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on’t: ’slid, ’tis but III. 4.
25 venturing.

Shal. Be not dismayed.

216

Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard.

Quick. Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word 30 with you.

Quick. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, 35 a word with you.

Shal. She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

Slen. I had a father, Mistress Anne;—my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress 40 Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

45 Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.

Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

III. 4.
50 Anne. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I’ll leave you.

Anne. Now, Master Slender,—

Slen. Now, good Mistress Anne,—

55 Anne. What is your will?

Slen. My will! od’s heartlings, that’s a pretty jest indeed! I ne’er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

Anne. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with 60 me?

Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions: 217 if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can: you may 65 ask your father; here he comes.

Enter Page and Mistress Page.

70 Fent. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

Mrs Page. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

Page. She is no match for you.

Fent. Sir, will you hear me?

Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.

Quick. Speak to Mistress Page.

Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

Mrs Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

Quick. That’s my master, master doctor.

218

Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.

Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne.

Quick. This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you 95 cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton:’ this is my doing.

Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit III. 4.
100 Fenton.] A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her: I will do what I can for them all three; 105 for so I have promised, and I’ll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! Exit.

III. 5 Scene V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

Fal. Bardolph, I say,—

Bard. Here, sir.

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t. [Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow 5 of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, 10 fifteen i’ the litter: and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,—a death that 219 I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing 15 should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter Bardolph with sack.

Bard. Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls 20 for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bard. Come in, woman!

Enter Mistress Quickly.

Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle III. 5.
25 of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit Bardolph.] How now!

Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress 30 Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.

Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook 35 their erection.

Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.

Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning 40 a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine: I must carry her word quickly: she’ll make you amends, I warrant you.

Fal. Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then 45 judge of my merit.

220

Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

III. 5.
50 Quick. Peace be with you, sir. Exit.

Fal. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. —O, here he comes.

Enter Ford.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

55 Fal. Now, Master Brook,—you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?

Ford. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me.

60 Ford. And sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.

Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

Fal. No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of 65 jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s 70 love.

Ford. What, while you were there?

Fal. While I was there.

Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?

III. 5.
75 Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.

221

Ford. A buck-basket!

80 Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket!—rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?

85 Fal. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their 90 shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well: on went he for a search, and 95 away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; III. 5.
100 and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,—a man of my kidney,—think of that,—that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in 105 the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,—hissing hot,—think of that, Master Brook.

Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake 110 you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her 222 husband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received 115 from her another embassy of meeting; ’twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.

Ford. ’Tis past eight already, sir.

Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you 120 shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. Exit.

Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake! awake, Master Ford! there’s III. 5.
125 a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ’tis to be married! this ’tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot ’scape me; ’tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny 130 purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me,—I’ll be horn-mad. Exit.

ACT IV.

IV. 1 Scene I. A street.

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Quickly, and William.

Mrs Page. Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?

Quick. Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but, truly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing into 5 the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.

Mrs Page. I’ll be with her by and by; I’ll but bring 223 my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; ’tis a playing-day, I see.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans.

How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?

10 Evans. No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.

Quick. Blessing of his heart!

Mrs Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him 15 some questions in his accidence.

Evans. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.

Mrs Page. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid.

Evans. William, how many numbers is in nouns?

20 Will. Two.

Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ‘Od’s nouns.’

Evans. Peace your tattlings! What is ‘fair,’ William?

Will. Pulcher.

IV. 1.
25 Quick. Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

Evans. You are a very simplicity ’oman: I pray you, peace. —What is ‘lapis,’ William?

Will. A stone.

30 Evans. And what is ‘a stone,’ William?

Will. A pebble.

Evans. No, it is ‘lapis:’ I pray you, remember in your prain.

Will. Lapis.

35 Evans. That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?

Will. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc.

Evans. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: 40 genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?

224

Will. Accusativo, hinc.

Evans. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; accusativo, hung, hang, hog.

Quick. ‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

45 Evans. Leave your prabbles, ’oman. —What is the focative case, William?

Will. O,—vocativo, O.

Evans. Remember, William; focative is caret.

Quick. And that’s a good root.

IV. 1.
50 Evans. ’Oman, forbear.

Mrs Page. Peace!

Evans. What is your genitive case plural, William?

Will. Genitive case!

Evans. Ay.

55 Will. Genitive,—horum, harum, horum.

Quick. Vengeance of Jenny’s case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore.

Evans. For shame, ’oman.

Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words:—he 60 teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘horum’:—fie upon you!

Evans. ’Oman, art thou lunaties? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? 65 Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs Page. Prithee, hold thy peace.

Evans. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

70 Evans. It is qui, quæ, quod: if you forget your ‘quies,’ your ‘quæs,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.

Mrs Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

225

IV. 1.
75 Evans. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

Mrs Page. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

Exit Sir Hugh.

Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.

Exeunt.

IV. 2 Scene II. A room in Ford’s house.

Enter Falstaff and Mistress Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, 5 complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

Mrs Ford. He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

Mrs Page. [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

Mrs Ford. Step into the chamber, Sir John.

Exit Falstaff.

Enter Mistress Page.

10 Mrs Page. How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?

Mrs Ford. Why, none but mine own people.

Mrs Page. Indeed!

Mrs Ford. No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder.

15 Mrs Page. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

Mrs Ford. Why?

Mrs Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s 20 daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, ‘Peer out, peer out!’ that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here.

226

IV. 2.
25 Mrs Ford. Why, does he talk of him?

Mrs Page. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make 30 another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

Mrs Ford. How near is he, Mistress Page?

Mrs Page. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

Mrs Ford. I am undone!—the knight is here.

35 Mrs Page. Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you!—Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder.

Mrs Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter Falstaff.

40 Fal. No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?

Mrs Page. Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you 45 here?

Fal. What shall I do?—I’ll creep up into the chimney.

Mrs Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

Fal. Where is it?

IV. 2.
50 Mrs Ford. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.

Fal. I’ll go out, then.

55 Mrs Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,—

227

Mrs Ford. How might we disguise him?

Mrs Page. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put 60 on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.

Fal. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief.

Mrs Ford. My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

65 Mrs Page. On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is: and there’s her thrummed hat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.

Mrs Ford. Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.

70 Mrs Page. Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. Exit Falstaff.

Mrs Ford. I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she’s a witch; forbade her my house, and hath IV. 2.
75 threatened to beat her.

Mrs Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

Mrs Ford. But is my husband coming?

Mrs Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of 80 the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

Mrs Ford. We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.

Mrs Page. Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go 85 dress him like the witch of Brentford.

Mrs Ford. I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight. Exit.

Re-enter Mistress Ford with two Servants.

Mrs Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your 95 shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch. Exit.

First Serv. Come, come, take it up.

Sec. Serv. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

First Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.

IV. 2.
100 Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket!—O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. —What, 105 wife, I say!—Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!

Page. Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

Evans. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad 110 dog!

Shal. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

Ford. So say I too, sir.

Re-enter Mistress Ford.

Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the 115 jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

229

Mrs Ford. Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

Ford. Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, 120 sirrah! Pulling clothes out of the basket.

Page. This passes!

Mrs Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

Ford. I shall find you anon.

Evans. ’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your IV. 2.
125 wife’s clothes? Come away.

Ford. Empty the basket, I say!

Mrs Ford. Why, man, why?

Ford. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may 130 not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.

Mrs Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.

135 Page. Here’s no man.

Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.

Evans. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.

140 Ford. Well, he’s not here I seek for.

Page. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

Ford. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, ‘As 145 jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.

Mrs Ford. What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Ford. Old woman! what old woman’s that?

IV. 2.
150 Mrs Ford. Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works 155 by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as 230 this is, beyond our element: we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say!

Mrs Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

Re-enter Falstaff in woman’s clothes, and Mistress Page.

160 Mrs Page. Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

Ford. I’ll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

Exit Falstaff.

165 Mrs Page. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

Mrs Ford. Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.

Ford. Hang her, witch!

170 Evans. By yea and no, I think the ’oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a ’oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under his muffler.

Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus IV. 2.
175 upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

Page. Let’s obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen.

Exeunt Ford, Page, Shal., Caius, and Evans.

Mrs Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

Mrs Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat 180 him most unpitifully methought.

Mrs Page. I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

Mrs Ford. What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue 185 him with any further revenge?

231

Mrs 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.

190 Mrs Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

Mrs Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any 195 further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

Mrs Ford. I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed: and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

Mrs Page. Come, to the forge with it, then; shape it: IV. 2.
200 I would not have things cool.

Exeunt.

IV. 3 Scene III. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Bardolph.

Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

Host. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I 5 hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English?

Bard. Ay, sir; I’ll call them to you.

Host. They shall have my horses; but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them: they have had my house a week at 10 command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I’ll sauce them. Come.

Exeunt.

232

IV. 4 Scene IV. A room in Ford’s house.

Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans.

Evans. ’Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon.

Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

5 Mrs Page. Within a quarter of an hour.

Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of.

Page. How? to send him word they’ll meet him in the Park at midnight? Fie, fie! he’ll never come.

20 Evans. You say he has been thrown in the rivers, and has been grievously peaten, as an old ’oman: methinks there should be terrors in him that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.

Page. So think I too.

233

65 Evans. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

Ford. That will be excellent. I’ll go and buy them vizards.

Evans. Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and 80 fery honest knaveries.

Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans.

IV. 5 Scene V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Simple.

Host. What wouldst thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.

5 Host. There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed; ’tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go knock and call; he’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say.

10 Sim. There’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber: I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed.

Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I’ll call. —Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from thy 15 lungs military: art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.

Fal. [Above] How now, mine host!

Host. Here’s a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her 20 descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy? fie!

Enter Falstaff.

Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she’s gone.

Sim. Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brentford?

IV. 5.
25 Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell: what would you with her?

236

Sim. My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

30 Fal. I spake with the old woman about it.

Sim. And what says she, I pray, sir?

Fal. Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.

Sim. I would I could have spoken with the woman 35 herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too from him.

Fal. What are they? let us know.

Host. Ay, come; quick.

Sim. I may not conceal them, sir.

40 Host. Conceal them, or thou diest.

Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page; to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.

Fal. ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.

45 Sim. What, sir?

Fal. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.

Sim. May I be bold to say so, sir?

Fal. Ay, sir; like who more bold.

IV. 5.
50 Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. Exit.

Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?

Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath 55 taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.

237

Enter Bardolph.

Bard. Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!

Host. Where be my horses? speak well of them, 60 varletto.

Bard. Run away with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

65 Host. They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans.

Evans. Where is mine host?

Host. What is the matter, sir?

Evans. Have a care of your entertainments: there is a 70 friend of mine come to town, tells me there is three cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you: you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not convenient you should be IV. 5.
75 cozened. Fare you well. Exit.

Enter Doctor Caius.

Caius. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat 80 you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. Exit.

Host. Hue and cry, villain, go!—Assist me, knight. —I am undone!—Fly, run, hue and cry, villain!—I am 85 undone!

Exeunt Host and Bard.

Fal. I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to 238 the ear of the court, how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they 90 would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me: I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough [to say my prayers,] I 95 would repent.

Enter Mistress Quickly.

Now, whence come you?

Quick. From the two parties, forsooth.

Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other! and so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more IV. 5.
100 for their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.

Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot 105 about her.

Fal. What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the 110 action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i’ the stocks, i’ the common stocks, for a witch.

Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. 115 Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.

Fal. Come up into my chamber.

Exeunt.

239

IV. 6 Scene VI. The same. Another room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Fenton and Host.

Host. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I will give over all.

Host. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the least keep your counsel.

Host. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?

Exeunt.

ACT V.

V. 1 Scene I. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff and Mistress Quickly.

Fal. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away! go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!

241

5 Quick. I’ll provide you a chain; and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

Fal. Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince.

Exit Mrs Quickly.

Enter Ford.

How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will 10 be known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.

Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?

Fal. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a 15 poor old man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you:—he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of 20 man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me: I’ll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what ’twas to be beaten till lately. Follow V. 1.
25 me: I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.

Exeunt.

V. 2 Scene II. Windsor Park.

Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender.

Page. Come, come; we’ll couch i’ the castle-ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.

Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we 5 have a nay-word how to know one another: I come to her 242 in white, and cry, ‘mum;’ she cries ‘budget;’ and by that we know one another.

Shal. That’s good too: but what needs either your ‘mum’ or her ‘budget?’ the white will decipher her well 10 enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.

Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away; follow me.

Exeunt.

V. 3 Scene III. A street leading to the Park.

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Doctor Caius.

Mrs Page. Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park: we two must go together.

5 Caius. I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

Mrs Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit Caius.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor’s marrying my daughter: but ’tis no matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of 10 heart-break.

Mrs Ford. Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh?

Mrs Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne’s oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant 15 of Falstaff’s and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

Mrs Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him.

Mrs Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

20 Mrs Ford. We’ll betray him finely.

243

Mrs Page. Against such lewdsters and their lechery Those that betray them do no treachery.

Mrs Ford. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!

Exeunt.

V. 4 Scene IV. Windsor Park.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans disguised, with others as Fairies.

Evans. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-’ords, do as I pid you: come, come; trib, trib.

Exeunt.

V. 5 Scene V. Another part of the Park.

Enter Falstaff disguised as Horne.

Fal. 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, 5 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 10 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?

Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.

15 Mrs Ford. Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

244

Fal. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest 20 of provocation, I will shelter me here.

Mrs Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

Fal. Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. V. 5.
25 Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!

Noise within.

Mrs Page. Alas, what noise?

Mrs Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!

30 Fal. What should this be?

Fal. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans, disguised as before; Pistol, as Hobgoblin; Mistress Quickly, Anne Page, and others, as Fairies, with tapers.

245

45 Fal. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. Lies down upon his face.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he 80 transform me to a piece of cheese!

Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.

Pist. A trial, come.

Evans.

Come, will this wood take fire?

They burn him with their tapers.

Fal. Oh, Oh, Oh!

Song.

During this song they pinch Falstaff. Doctor Caius comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; Slender another way, and takes off a boy in white; and Fenton comes, and 247 steals away Mrs Anne Page. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head, and rises.

Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford.

Ford. Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing 110 of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.

Mrs Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but 115 I will always count you my deer.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

Ford. Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the 120 guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when ’tis upon ill employment!

V. 5.
125 Evans. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

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Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.

Evans. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art 130 able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this?

Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? Tis time I were choked with a piece of 135 toasted cheese.

Evans. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

Fal. ‘Seese’ and ’putter’! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough 140 to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.

Mrs Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

145 Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

Mrs Page. A puffed man?

Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

Page. And as poor as Job?

V. 5.
150 Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of 155 me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me: use me as you will.

Ford. Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom 160 you should have been a pander: over and above that you 249 have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. 

Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at 165 my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.

Mrs Page. [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.

Enter Slender.

Slen. Whoa, ho! ho, father Page!

170 Page. Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

Slen. Dispatched!—I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else!

Page. Of what, son?

V. 5.
175 Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!—and ’tis a postmaster’s boy.

180 Page. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you 185 how you should know my daughter by her garments?

Slen. I went to her in white, and cried ‘mum,’ and she cried ‘budget,’ as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

Mrs Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of 250 190 your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.

Enter Caius.

Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha’ married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it 195 is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

Mrs Page. Why, did you take her in green?

Caius. Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor. Exit.

Ford. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

V. 5.
200 Page. My heart misgives me:—here comes Master Fenton.

Enter Fenton and Anne Page.

How now, Master Fenton!

Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

Page. Now, mistress, how chance you went not with 205 Master Slender?

Mrs Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

Fal. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

Exeunt.