Thursday, October 4, 2007

 

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR by William Shakespeare

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
by William Shakespeare
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
FENTON, a young gentleman
SHALLOW, a country justice
SLENDER, cousin to Shallow
FORD, Gentleman dwelling at Windsor
PAGE, Gentleman dwelling at Windsor
WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page
SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson
DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician
HOST of the Garter Inn
BARDOLPH, PISTOL, NYM, Followers of Falstaff
ROBIN, page to Falstaff
SIMPLE, servant to Slender
RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius
MISTRESS FORD
MISTRESS PAGE
MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, her daughter, in love with Fenton
MISTRESS QUICKLY, servant to Doctor Caius
SERVANTS to Page, Ford, &c.
SCENE: Windsor; and the neighbourhood
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Windsor. Before PAGE'S house.
[Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
SHALLOW.
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.
SLENDER.
In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and
'coram.'
SHALLOW.
Ay, cousin Slender, and 'cust-alorum.'
SLENDER.
Ay, and 'rato-lorum 'too; and a gentleman born,
Master Parson, who writes himself 'armigero' in any bill,
warrant, quittance, or obligation--'armigero.'
SHALLOW.
Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three
hundred years.
SLENDER.
All his successors, gone before him, hath done't;
and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may
give the dozen white luces in their coat.
SHALLOW.
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.
SHALLOW.
The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old
coat.
SLENDER.
I may quarter, coz?
SHALLOW.
You may, by marrying.
EVANS.
It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
SHALLOW.
Not a whit.
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
compremises between you.
SHALLOW.
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
vizaments in that.
SHALLOW.
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 prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne
Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is
pretty virginity.
SLENDER.
Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and
speaks small like a woman.
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
leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage
between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.
SHALLOW.
Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
EVANS.
Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
SHALLOW.
I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.
EVANS.
Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.
SHALLOW.
Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?
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!
PAGE.
[Within.] Who's there?
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.
[Enter PAGE.]
PAGE.
I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for
my venison, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW.
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 thank you
always with my heart, la! with my heart.
PAGE.
Sir, I thank you.
SHALLOW.
Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.
PAGE.
I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
SLENDER.
How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say
he was outrun on Cotsall.
PAGE.
It could not be judged, sir.
SLENDER.
You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
SHALLOW.
That he will not: 'tis your fault; 'tis your fault.
'Tis a good dog.
PAGE.
A cur, sir.
SHALLOW.
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.
EVANS.
It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
SHALLOW.
He hath wronged me, Master Page.
PAGE.
Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
SHALLOW.
If it be confessed, it is not redressed: is not that
so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he hath;--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.]
FALSTAFF.
Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the King?
SHALLOW.
Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer,
and broke open my lodge.
FALSTAFF.
But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter?
SHALLOW.
Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.
FALSTAFF.
I will answer it straight: I have done all this.
That is now answered.
SHALLOW.
The Council shall know this.
FALSTAFF.
'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:
you'll be laughed at.
EVANS.
Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.
FALSTAFF.
Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your
head; what matter have you against me?
SLENDER.
Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;
and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym,
and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me
drunk, and afterwards picked my pocket.
BARDOLPH.
You Banbury cheese!
SLENDER.
Ay, it is no matter.
PISTOL.
How now, Mephostophilus!
SLENDER.
Ay, it is no matter.
NYM.
Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.
SLENDER.
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: 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 note-book;
and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great
discreetly as we can.
FALSTAFF.
Pistol!
PISTOL.
He hears with ears.
EVANS.
The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He hears
with ear'? Why, it is affectations.
FALSTAFF.
Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?
SLENDER.
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 that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece
of Yead Miller, by these gloves.
FALSTAFF.
Is this true, Pistol?
EVANS.
No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
PISTOL.
Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!--Sir John and master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
Word of denial in thy labras here!
Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.
SLENDER.
By these gloves, then, 'twas he.
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.
SLENDER.
By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for
though I cannot remember what I did when you made me
drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.
FALSTAFF.
What say you, Scarlet and John?
BARDOLPH.
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!
BARDOLPH.
And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd;
and so conclusions passed the careires.
SLENDER.
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, 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.
FALSTAFF.
You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you
hear it.
[Enter ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]
PAGE.
Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
[Exit ANNE PAGE.]
SLENDER.
O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
PAGE.
How now, Mistress Ford!
FALSTAFF.
Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well
met; by your leave, good mistress. [Kissing 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 but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS.]
SLENDER.
I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
Songs and Sonnets here.
[Enter SIMPLE.]
How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on
myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,
have you?
SIMPLE.
Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice
Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore
Michaelmas?
SHALLOW.
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
you understand me?
SLENDER.
Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I
shall do that that is reason.
SHALLOW.
Nay, but understand me.
SLENDER.
So I do, sir.
EVANS.
Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will
description the matter to you, if you pe capacity of it.
SLENDER.
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.
EVANS.
But that is not the question; the question is
concerning your marriage.
SHALLOW.
Ay, there's the point, sir.
EVANS.
Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne
Page.
SLENDER.
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: therefore,
precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?
SHALLOW.
Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
SLENDER.
I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
would do reason.
EVANS.
Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,
if you can carry her your desires towards her.
SHALLOW.
That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?
SLENDER.
I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,
cousin, in any reason.
SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what
I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?
SLENDER.
I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
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.
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.
SHALLOW
Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
SLENDER.
Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!
SHALLOW.
Here comes fair Mistress Anne.
[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.
SHALLOW.
I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!
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?
SLENDER.
No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
ANNE.
The dinner attends you, sir.
SLENDER.
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 sometime may be beholding to his
friend for a man. I keep but 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.
SLENDER.
I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
though I did.
ANNE.
I pray you, sir, walk in.
SLENDER.
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
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.
SLENDER.
I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at
it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the
bear loose, are you not?
ANNE.
Ay, indeed, sir.
SLENDER.
That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen
Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the
chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and
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.
SLENDER.
I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
PAGE.
By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.
SLENDER.
Nay, pray you lead the way.
PAGE.
Come on, sir.
SLENDER.
Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
ANNE.
Not I, sir; pray you keep on.
SLENDER.
Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do
you that wrong.
ANNE.
I pray you, sir.
SLENDER.
I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You
do yourself wrong indeed, la!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. 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.
SIMPLE.
Well, sir.
EVANS.
Nay, it is better 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 pray you
be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins
and cheese to come.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 3. A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.]
FALSTAFF.
Mine host of the Garter!
HOST.
What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.
FALSTAFF.
Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.
HOST.
Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot, trot.
FALSTAFF.
I sit at ten pounds a week.
HOST.
Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I
will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I
well, bully Hector?
FALSTAFF.
Do so, good mine host.
HOST.
I have spoke; let him follow. [To BARDOLPH] Let me
see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF.
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.
BARDOLPH.
It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive.
PISTOL.
O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot wield?
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
NYM.
He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?
FALSTAFF.
I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his
thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful
singer--he kept not time.
NYM.
The good humour is to steal at a minim's rest.
PISTOL.
'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! A fico for the
phrase!
FALSTAFF.
Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
PISTOL.
Why, then, let kibes ensue.
FALSTAFF.
There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.
PISTOL.
Young ravens must have food.
FALSTAFF.
Which of you know Ford of this town?
PISTOL.
I ken the wight; he is of substance good.
FALSTAFF.
My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
PISTOL.
Two yards, and more.
FALSTAFF.
No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist
two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am 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.'
PISTOL.
He hath studied her well, and translated her will out
of honesty into English.
NYM.
The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?
FALSTAFF.
Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her
husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.
PISTOL.
As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.
NYM.
The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.
FALSTAFF.
I have writ me here a letter to her; and here
another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes
too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades;
sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my
portly belly.
PISTOL.
Then did the sun on dunghill shine.
NYM.
I thank thee for that humour.
FALSTAFF.
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 'cheator to them both, and 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.
PISTOL.
Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
And by my side wear steel? then Lucifer take all!
NYM.
I will run no base humour. Here, take the
humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.
FALSTAFF.
[To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters tightly;
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
Trudge, plod away o' hoof; seek shelter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the humour of this age;
French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.
[Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN.]
PISTOL.
Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds,
And high and low beguile the rich and poor;
Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!
NYM.
I have operations in my head which be humours of revenge.
PISTOL.
Wilt thou revenge?
NYM.
By welkin and her star!
PISTOL.
With wit or steel?
NYM.
With both the humours, I:
I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.
PISTOL.
And I to Ford shall eke unfold
How Falstaff, varlet vile,
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.
NYM.
My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to deal
with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for the
revolt of mine is dangerous: that is my true humour.
PISTOL.
Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee;
troop on.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4. A room in DOCTOR CAIUS'S house.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, and SIMPLE.]
QUICKLY.
What, John Rugby!
[Enter 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 anybody in the house, here will be an old abusing
of God's patience and the King's English.
RUGBY.
I'll go watch.
QUICKLY.
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 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?
SIMPLE.
Ay, for fault of a better.
QUICKLY.
And Master Slender's your master?
SIMPLE.
Ay, forsooth.
QUICKLY.
Does he not wear a great round beard, like a
glover's paring-knife?
SIMPLE.
No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a
little yellow beard--a cane-coloured beard.
QUICKLY.
A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
SIMPLE.
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.
QUICKLY.
How say you?--O! I should remember him. Does
he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?
SIMPLE.
Yes, indeed, does he.
QUICKLY.
Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune!
Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your
master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish--
[Re-enter RUGBY.]
RUGBY.
Out, alas! here comes my master.
QUICKLY.
We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young
man; go into this closet. [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet.] He
will not stay long. What, John Rugby! John! what, John,
I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be
not well that he comes not home.
[Exit Rugby.]
[Sings.] 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 une boitine verde--a box, a green-a
box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.
QUICKLY.
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 m'en vais a
la cour--la grande affaire.
QUICKLY.
Is it this, sir?
CAIUS.
Oui; mettez le au mon pocket: depechez, quickly.--Vere
is dat knave, Rugby?
QUICKLY.
What, John Rugby? John!
[Re-enter Rugby.]
RUGBY. Here, sir.
CAIUS.
You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby: come,
take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to de court.
RUGBY. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.
CAIUS.
By my trot, I tarry too long.--Od's me! Qu'ay j'oublie?
Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the
varld I shall leave behind.
QUICKLY.
[Aside.[ Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be
mad!
CAIUS.
O diable, diable! vat is in my closet?--Villainy! larron!
[Pulling SIMPLE out.] Rugby, my rapier!
QUICKLY.
Good master, be content.
CAIUS.
Verefore shall I be content-a?
QUICKLY.
The young man is an honest man.
CAIUS.
What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is
no honest man dat shall come in my closet.
QUICKLY.
I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the
truth of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.
CAIUS.
Vell.
SIMPLE.
Ay, forsooth, to desire her to--
QUICKLY.
Peace, I pray you.
CAIUS.
Peace-a your tongue!--Speak-a your tale.
SIMPLE.
To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to
speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master,
in the way of marriage.
QUICKLY.
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, baillez me some paper: tarry
you a little-a while. [Writes.]
QUICKLY.
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 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--
SIMPLE.
'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand.
QUICKLY.
Are you avis'd 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 Anne's mind, that's neither
here nor there.
CAIUS.
You jack'nape; give-a dis 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 gar, I will
cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone
to throw at his dog.
[Exit SIMPLE.]
QUICKLY.
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 kill de Jack
priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jartiere to
measure our weapon. By gar, I vill myself have Anne Page.
QUICKLY.
Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We
must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!
CAIUS.
Rugby, come to the court vit 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.]
QUICKLY.
You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No,
I know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor
knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more
than I do with her, I thank heaven.
FENTON.
[Within.] Who's within there? ho!
QUICKLY.
Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray you.
[Enter FENTON.]
FENTON.
How now, good woman! how dost thou?
QUICKLY.
The better, that it pleases your good worship to ask.
FENTON.
What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?
QUICKLY.
In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by
the way; I praise heaven for it.
FENTON.
Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? Shall I not lose
my suit?
QUICKLY.
Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but
notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book
she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?
FENTON.
Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
QUICKLY.
Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such
another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever 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.
FENTON.
Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money
for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest
her before me, commend me.
QUICKLY.
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.
FENTON.
Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
QUICKLY.
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.
SCENE 1. 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.
'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use
Reason for his precisian, 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 I love
thee. I will not say, pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase;
but I say, Love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might,
For thee to fight,
JOHN FALSTAFF.'
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 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 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.
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.
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,
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.
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 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
more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth
Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' 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 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; 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 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?
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.
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 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 villainy against
him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,
that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food
to his jealousy.
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.
MRS. FORD.
You are the happier woman.
MRS. PAGE.
Let's consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.
[They retire.]
[Enter FORD, PISTOL, and PAGE and NYM.]
FORD.
Well, I hope it be not so.
PISTOL.
Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.
FORD.
Why, sir, my wife is not young.
PISTOL.
He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
FORD.
Love my wife!
PISTOL.
With liver burning hot: prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.--
O! odious is the name!
FORD.
What name, sir?
PISTOL.
The horn, I say. Farewell:
Take heed; have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;
Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.
[Exit.]
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 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 Nym.]
PAGE.
[Aside.] '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.
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.
Whither go you, George?--Hark you.
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 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
her: she'll fit it.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
MRS. PAGE.
You are come to see my daughter Anne?
QUICKLY.
Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
MRS. PAGE.
Go in with us and see; we'd have an hour's talk with you.
[Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS 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?
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?
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 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 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 and SHALLOW.]
How now, mine host!
HOST.
How now, bully-rook! Thou'rt a gentleman.
Cavaliero-justice, I say!
SHALLOW.
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.
HOST.
Tell him, cavaliero-justice; tell him, bully-rook.
SHALLOW.
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.
HOST.
What say'st thou, my bully-rook?
[They go aside.]
SHALLOW.
[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 guest-cavaliero.
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.
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, mynheers?
SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.
PAGE.
I have heard, the Frenchman hath good skill in his
rapier.
SHALLOW.
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
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, SHALLOW, and PAGE.]
FORD.
Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on
his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion 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, 'tis labour
well bestowed.
[Exit.]
SCENE 2. A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL.]
FALSTAFF.
I will not lend thee a penny.
PISTOL.
Why then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
I will retort the sum in equipage.
FALSTAFF.
Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you 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 tall fellows;
and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan,
I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not.
PISTOL.
Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?
FALSTAFF.
Reason, you rogue, reason. Thinkest thou I'll
endanger 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 Picht-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 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 your rags,
your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and
your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour!
You will not do it, you!
PISTOL.
I do relent; what wouldst thou more of man?
[Enter ROBIN.]
ROBIN.
Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.
FALSTAFF.
Let her approach.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY.
Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF.
Good morrow, good wife.
QUICKLY.
Not so, an't please your worship.
FALSTAFF.
Good maid, then.
QUICKLY.
I'll be sworn;
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
FALSTAFF.
I do believe the swearer. What with me?
QUICKLY.
Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
FALSTAFF.
Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe
thee the hearing.
QUICKLY.
There is one Mistress Ford, sir,--I pray, come a little
nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with Master Doctor
Caius.
FALSTAFF.
Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,--
QUICKLY.
Your worship says very true;--I pray your worship
come a little nearer this ways.
FALSTAFF.
I warrant thee nobody hears--mine own people,
mine own people.
QUICKLY.
Are they so? God bless them, and make them his servants!
FALSTAFF.
Well: Mistress Ford, what of her?
QUICKLY.
Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord! your
worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of
us, I pray.
FALSTAFF.
Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford--
QUICKLY.
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 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
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; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
FALSTAFF.
But what says she to me? be brief, my good she-Mercury.
QUICKLY.
Marry, she hath received your letter; for the
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.
FALSTAFF.
Ten and eleven?
QUICKLY.
Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see
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.
FALSTAFF.
Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I
will not fail her.
QUICKLY.
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 ear, she's as
fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell 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 charms, la! yes,
in truth.
FALSTAFF.
Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my
good parts aside, I have no other charms.
QUICKLY.
Blessing on your heart for 't!
FALSTAFF.
But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and
Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?
QUICKLY.
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 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 Windsor, she
is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.
FALSTAFF.
Why, I will.
QUICKLY.
Nay, but do so then; and, look you, he may come
and go between you both; and in any case have a
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.
FALSTAFF.
Fare thee well; commend me to them both.
There's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with
this woman.--
[Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN.]
This news distracts me.
PISTOL.
This punk is one of Cupid's carriers;
Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;
Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF.
Say'st 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 them say
'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.
[Enter BARDOLPH, with a cup of sack.]
BARDOLPH.
Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would
fain speak with you and be acquainted with you: and hath
sent your worship a moming's draught of sack.
FALSTAFF.
Brook is his name?
BARDOLPH.
Ay, sir.
FALSTAFF.
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!
FALSTAFF.
And you, sir; would you speak with me?
FORD.
I make bold to press with so little preparation upon
you.
FALSTAFF.
You're welcome. What's your will?--Give us leave,
drawer.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
FORD.
Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much: my name
is Brook.
FALSTAFF.
Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance
of you.
FORD.
Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you; for I
must let you understand I think myself in better plight for
a lender than you are: the which hath something
embold'ned me to this unseasoned intrusion; for they say, if
money go before, all ways do lie open.
FALSTAFF.
Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.
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.
FALSTAFF.
Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.
FORD.
I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.
FALSTAFF.
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 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
own, that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you
yourself know how easy is it to be such an offender.
FALSTAFF.
Very well, sir; proceed.
FORD.
There is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband's
name is Ford.
FALSTAFF.
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 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 received none, unless experience be a jewel;
that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath
taught me to say this,
Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.
FALSTAFF.
Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?
FORD.
Never.
FALSTAFF.
Have you importuned her to such a purpose?
FORD.
Never.
FALSTAFF.
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
erected it.
FALSTAFF.
To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?
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
breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in
your place and person, generally allowed for your many
war-like, court-like, and learned preparations.
FALSTAFF.
O, sir!
FORD.
Believe it, for you know it. There is money; 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.
FALSTAFF.
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 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 other her
defences, which now are too too strongly embattled against
me. What say you to't, Sir John?
FALSTAFF.
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.
FORD.
O good sir!
FALSTAFF.
I say you shall.
FORD.
Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.
FALSTAFF.
Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall
want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her 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.
FORD.
I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir?
FALSTAFF.
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 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.
FALSTAFF.
Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will
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 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 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 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 be jealous; I will rather trust a Fleming
with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my
cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae 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 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 late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!
[Exit.]
SCENE 3. A field near Windsor.
[Enter CAIUS and RUGBY.]
CAIUS.
Jack Rugby!
RUGBY.
Sir?
CAIUS.
Vat is de clock, Jack?
RUGBY.
'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to
meet.
CAIUS.
By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has
pray his Pible vell dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby,
he is dead already, if he be come.
RUGBY.
He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would 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.
RUGBY.
Alas, sir1 I cannot fence!
CAIUS.
Villany, take your rapier.
RUGBY.
Forbear; here's company.
[Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE.]
HOST.
Bless thee, bully doctor!
SHALLOW.
Save you, Master Doctor Caius!
PAGE.
Now, good Master Doctor!
SLENDER.
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 montant.
Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha,
bully! What says my Aesculapius? 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 world; he is
not show his face.
HOST.
Thou art a Castalion King Urinal! Hector of Greece,
my boy!
CAIUS.
I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or
seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.
SHALLOW.
He is the wiser man, Master doctor: he is a 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.
SHALLOW.
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.
PAGE.
'Tis true, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW.
It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor
Caius, I come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace;
you have showed yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh
hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You
must go with me, Master Doctor.
HOST.
Pardon, guest-justice.--A word, Monsieur Mockwater.
CAIUS.
Mock-vater! Vat is dat?
HOST.
Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
CAIUS.
By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.--
Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.
HOST.
He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
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.
CAIUS.
Me tank you for dat.
HOST.
And, moreover, bully--but first: Master guest, and Master
Page, and eke Cavaliero Slender, go you through the town to
Frogmore.
[Aside to them.]
PAGE.
Sir Hugh is there, is he?
HOST.
He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will bring the
doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?
SHALLOW.
We will do it.
PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.
Adieu, good Master Doctor.
[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
CAIUS.
By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jackan-
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, at a
farm-house a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried I aim! Said
I well?
CAIUS.
By gar, me tank 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.
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
SCENE 1. 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?
SIMPLE.
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.
SIMPLE.
I will, Sir.
[Exit.]
EVANS.
Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling
of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived 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]
To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sings madrigals;
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
To shallow--
Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.
[Sings.]
Melodious birds sing madrigals,--
Whenas I sat in Pabylon,--
And a thousand vagram posies.
To shallow,--
[Re-enter SIMPLE.]
SIMPLE.
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?
SIMPLE.
No weapons, sir. There comes my master, 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. [Reads in a book.]
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
SHALLOW.
How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good
Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student
from his book, and it is wonderful.
SLENDER.
[Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!
PAGE.
Save you, good Sir Hugh!
EVANS.
Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
SHALLOW.
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.
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 with
his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.
SHALLOW.
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?
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?
EVANS.
He has no more knowledge in Hibbocrates and
Galen,--and he is a knave besides; cowardly knave as you
would desires to be acquainted withal.
PAGE.
I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.
SLENDER.
[Aside] O, sweet Anne Page!
SHALLOW.
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.
SHALLOW.
So do you, good Master Doctor.
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 will you not meet-a me?
EVANS.
[Aside to CAIUS.] Pray you use your patience; 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-stogs to other men's humours; I desire you in
friendship, 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 Jarretiere,--have I
not stay for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did
appoint?
EVANS.
As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the
place appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the
Garter.
HOST.
Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaullia; French and 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. 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 are whole, and let burnt
sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow
me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.
SHALLOW.
Trust me, a mad host!--Follow, gentlemen, follow.
SLENDER.
[Aside] O, sweet Anne Page!
[Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, 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 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 follow.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. A 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?
ROBIN.
I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man 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?
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.
FORD.
Where had you this pretty weathercock?
MRS. PAGE.
I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
husband had him of. What do you call your knight's
name, sirrah?
ROBIN.
Sir John Falstaff.
FORD.
Sir John Falstaff!
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.]
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; 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 veil of modesty
from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself
for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings
all my neighbours shall cry aim. [Clock strikes]
The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me
search; there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather 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.]
SHALLOW, 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.
SHALLOW.
I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
SLENDER.
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.
SHALLOW.
We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my
cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.
SLENDER.
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.
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 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
Pointz; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,
he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with 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; I will
show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall
you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.
SHALLOW. Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer
wooing at Master Page's.
[Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER.]
CAIUS.
Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.
[Exit RUGBY.]
HOST.
Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight
Falstaff, and drink canary with him. [Exit.] HOST
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.]
SCENE 3. 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.
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 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?
MRS. FORD.
I have 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?
ROBIN.
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?
ROBIN.
Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your
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.
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.
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
know turtles from jays.
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF.
'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!
FALSTAFF.
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 pitiful
lady.
FALSTAFF.
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.
MRS. FORD.
A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become
nothing else; nor that well neither.
FALSTAFF.
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 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.
FALSTAFF.
What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee
there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot
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 Mistress Page.
FALSTAFF.
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 you
shall one day find it.
FALSTAFF.
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.
ROBIN.
[Within] Mistress Ford! Mistress Ford! here's
Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking
wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
FALSTAFF.
She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind
the arras.
MRS. FORD.
Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling 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 are overthrown, you are undone for ever!
MRS. FORD.
What's the matter, good Mistress Page?
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! 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 take an
ill advantage of his absence: you are undone.
MRS. FORD.
[Asise.] Spek louder.--'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. 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.
MRS. FORD.
What shall I do?--There is a gentleman, my dear
friend; and I fear not mine own shame as 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' 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 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?
FALSTAFF.
[Coming forward] Let me see 't, let me see 't. O,
let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;
I'll in.
MRS. PAGE.
What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?
FALSTAFF.
I love thee and none but thee; help me away: let me creep in
here. I'll never--
[He 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? 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?
SERVANT. 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 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, 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.]
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 EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS.]
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!
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
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.
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
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.
[Aside to MRS. PAGE.] Ay, ay, peace.--You use me well, Master
Ford, do you?
FORD.
Ay, I do so.
MRS. FORD.
Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
FORD.
Amen!
MRS. PAGE.
You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
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 judgment!
CAIUS.
Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.
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.
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, 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 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.
EVANS.
If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
CAIUS.
If there 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.
CAIUS.
Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.
EVANS.
A lousy knave! to have his gibes and his mockeries!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4. A room in PAGE'S house.
[Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.
MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.]
FENTON.
I see I cannot get thy father's love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
ANNE.
Alas! how then?
FENTON.
Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object, I am too great of birth;
And that my state being gall'd with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.
ANNE.
May be he tells you true.
FENTON.
No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne:
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;
And 'tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.
ANNE.
Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why then,--hark you hither.
[They converse apart.]
[Enter SHALLOW and SLENDER.]
SHALLOW.
Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman
shall speak for himself.
SLENDER.
I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't. 'Slid, 'tis but
venturing.
SHALLOW.
Be not dismayed.
SLENDER.
No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that,
but that I am afeard.
QUICKLY.
Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.
ANNE.
I come to him. [Aside.] This is my father's choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
QUICKLY.
And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a
word with you.
SHALLOW.
She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
SLENDER.
I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell
you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne
the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good
uncle.
SHALLOW.
Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
SLENDER.
Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in
Gloucestershire.
SHALLOW.
He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
SLENDER.
Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the
degree of a squire.
SHALLOW.
He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
ANNE.
Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
SHALLOW.
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.
SLENDER.
Now, good Mistress Anne.--
ANNE.
What is your will?
SLENDER.
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 me?
SLENDER.
Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing
with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions;
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 ask
your father; here he comes.
[Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.]
PAGE.
Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.
FENTON.
Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
MRS. PAGE.
Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
PAGE.
She is no match for you.
FENTON.
Sir, will you hear me?
PAGE.
No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
QUICKLY.
Speak to Mistress Page.
FENTON.
Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love
And not retire: let me have your good will.
ANNE.
Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
MRS. PAGE.
I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
QUICKLY.
That's my master, Master doctor.
ANNE.
Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth.
And bowl'd to death with turnips.
MRS. PAGE.
Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected.
Till then, farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
Her father will be angry.
FENTON.
Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.
[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.}
QUICKLY.
This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I 'will you cast
away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on
Master Fenton.' This is my doing.
FENTON.
I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.
QUICKLY.
Now Heaven send thee good fortune!
[Exit 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, 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.]
SCENE 5. A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.]
FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, I say,--
BARDOLPH.
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in
the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? 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, 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 I abhor, for the water
swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when
had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of
mummy.
[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack.]
BARDOLPH.
Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF.
Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed
snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
BARDOLPH.
Come in, woman.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY.
By your leave. I cry you mercy. Give your
worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF.
Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle
of sack finely.
BARDOLPH.
With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
brewage.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
How now!
QUICKLY.
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF.
Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was
thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
QUICKLY.
Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:
she does so take on with her men; they mistook their
erection.
FALSTAFF.
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.
QUICKLY.
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
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.
FALSTAFF.
Well, I will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her
think what a man is; let her consider his frailty, and then
judge of my merit.
QUICKLY.
I will tell her.
FALSTAFF.
Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
QUICKLY.
Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
QUICKLY.
Peace be with you, sir.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF.
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 disguised.]
FORD.
Bless you, sir!
FALSTAFF.
Now, Master Brook, you come to know what
hath passed between me and Ford's wife?
FORD.
That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF.
Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.
FORD.
And how sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
FORD.
How so, sir? did she change her determination?
FALSTAFF.
No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her
husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of
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
love.
FORD.
What! while you were there?
FALSTAFF.
While I was there.
FORD.
And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF.
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.
FORD.
A buck-basket!
FALSTAFF.
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 villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
FORD.
And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF.
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 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 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; 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 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 you
have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate;
you'll undertake her no more.
FALSTAFF.
Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I
have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her
husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from
her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is
the hour, Master Brook.
FORD.
'Tis past eight already, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.
Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you 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 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 half-penny 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.
SCENE I. The street.
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM.]
MRS. PAGE.
Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?
QUICKLY.
Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly
he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the
water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
MRS. PAGE.
I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring 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?
EVANS.
No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
QUICKLY.
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 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?
WILLIAM.
Two.
QUICKLY.
Truly, I thought there had been one number
more, because they say 'Od's nouns.'
EVANS.
Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?
WILLIAM.
Pulcher.
QUICKLY.
Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats, sure.
EVANS.
You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.
What is 'lapis,' William?
WILLIAM.
A stone.
EVANS.
And what is 'a stone,' William?
WILLIAM.
A pebble.
EVANS.
No, it is 'lapis'; I pray you remember in your prain.
WILLIAM.
Lapis.
EVANS.
That is a good William. What is he, William, that
does lend articles?
WILLIAM.
Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be
thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.
EVANS.
Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo,
hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
WILLIAM.
Accusativo, hinc.
EVANS.
I pray you, have your remembrance, child.
Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.
QUICKLY.
Hang-hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
EVANS.
Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative
case, William?
WILLIAM.
O vocativo, O.
EVANS.
Remember, William: focative is caret.
QUICKLY.
And that's a good root.
EVANS.
'Oman, forbear.
MRS. PAGE.
Peace.
EVANS.
What is your genitive case plural, William?
WILLIAM.
Genitive case?
EVANS.
Ay.
WILLIAM.
Genitive: horum, harum, horum.
QUICKLY.
Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never
name her, child, if she be a whore.
EVANS.
For shame, 'oman.
QUICKLY.
YOU do ill to teach the child such words. He
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 lunatics? Hast thou no understandings
for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? 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.
WILLIAM.
Forsooth, I have forgot.
EVANS.
It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your 'quis', your
'quaes', 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.
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.]
SCENE 2. A room in FORD'S house.
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD.]
FALSTAFF.
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,
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.]
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.}
FALSTAFF.
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 here?
FALSTAFF.
What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.
MRS. FORD.
There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.
MRS. PAGE.
Creep into the kiln-hole.
FALSTAFF.
Where is it?
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.
FALSTAFF.
I'll go out then.
MRS. PAGE.
If you go out in your own semblance, you die,
Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,--
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 on a
hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
FALSTAFF.
Good hearts, devise something: any extremity
rather than a mischief.
MRS. FORD.
My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has
a gown above.
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.
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 Brainford; he
swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath
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 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 dress
him like the witch of Brainford.
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.]
MRS. PAGE.
Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.
We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
We do not act that often jest and laugh;
'Tis old but true: 'Still swine eats all the draff.'
[Exit.]
[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS.]
MRS. FORD.
Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;
your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey
him. Quickly, dispatch.
[Exit.]
FIRST SERVANT.
Come, come, take it up.
SECOND SERVANT.
Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again.
FIRST SERVANT.
I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.
[Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
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, 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 dog.
SHALLOW.
Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
FORD.
So say I too, sir.--
[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.]
Come hither, Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest
wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool
to her husband! I suspect without cause, Mistress, do I?
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, 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 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 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.
PAGE.
Here's no man.
SHALLOW.
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.
FORD.
Well, he's not here I seek for.
PAGE.
No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
[Servants carry away the basket.]
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 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, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old
woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.
FORD.
Old woman? what old woman's that?
MRS. FORD.
Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.
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 by
charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as 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, led by MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. PAGE.
Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
FORD.
I'll prat her.--[Beats him.] Out of my door, you
witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!
Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
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!
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 her muffler.
FORD.
Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow;
see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no
trail, never trust me when I open again.
PAGE.
Let's obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen.
[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and EVANS.]
MRS. PAGE.
Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
MRS. FORD.
Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat 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 him with
any further revenge?
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.
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 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. I
would not have things cool.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 3. A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.]
BARDOLPH.
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 hear
not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen;
they speak English?
BARDOLPH.
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
command; I have turned away my other guests. They must
come off; I'll sauce them. Come.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4. 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
did look upon.
PAGE.
And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
MRS. PAGE.
Within a quarter of an hour.
FORD.
Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;
I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand,
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.
PAGE.
'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.
Be not as extreme in submission
As in offence;
But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
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!
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.
MRS. FORD.
Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
MRS. PAGE.
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great raggd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Received, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
PAGE.
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.
But what of this?
MRS. FORD.
Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguis'd, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
PAGE.
Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
MRS. PAGE.
That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphs, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffused song; upon their sight
We two in great amazedness will fly:
Then let them all encircle him about,
And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
MRS. FORD.
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
MRS. PAGE.
The truth being known,
We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
FORD.
The children must
Be practis'd well to this or they'll ne'er do 't.
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 buy them vizards.
MRS. PAGE.
My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.
PAGE.
That silk will I go buy. [Aside.] And in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
And marry her at Eton. Go, send to Falstaff straight.
FORD.
Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook;
He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.
MRS. PAGE.
Fear not you that. Go, get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.
EVANS.
Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery
honest knaveries.
[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS.]
MRS. PAGE.
Go, Mistress Ford.
Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
[Exit MRS. FORD.]
I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
And he my husband best of all affects:
The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
[Exit.]
SCENE 5. 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.
SIMPLE.
Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
from Master Slender.
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.
SIMPLE.
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 lungs
military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian,
calls.
FALSTAFF.
[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 descend;
my chambers are honourible. Fie! privacy? fie!
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF.
There was, mine host, an old fat woman even
now with, me; but she's gone.
SIMPLE.
Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brainford?
FALSTAFF.
Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
SIMPLE.
My master, sir, my 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.
FALSTAFF.
I spake with the old woman about it.
SIMPLE.
And what says she, I pray, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Marry, she says that the very same man that
beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.
SIMPLE.
I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had
other things to have spoken with her too, from him.
FALSTAFF.
What are they? Let us know.
HOST.
Ay, come; quick.
SIMPLE.
I may not conceal them, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Conceal them, or thou diest.
SIMPLE.
Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page: to
know if it were my master's fortune to have her or no.
FALSTAFF.
'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
SIMPLE.
What sir?
FALSTAFF.
To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.
SIMPLE.
May I be bold to say so, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Ay, Sir Tike; like who more bold?
SIMPLE.
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?
FALSTAFF.
Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath
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.
[Enter BARDOLPH.]
BARDOLPH.
Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!
HOST.
Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
BARDOLPH.
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.
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 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-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be
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 you
make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my
trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I
tell you for good will: Adieu.
[Exit.]
HOST.
Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am
undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone!
[Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH.]
FALSTAFF.
I would all the world might be cozened, for I have
been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear
of the court how I have been transformed, and how my
transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they
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
would repent.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
Now! whence come you?
QUICKLY.
From the two parties, forsooth.
FALSTAFF.
The devil take one party and his dam the other!
And so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more
for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of
man's disposition is able to bear.
QUICKLY.
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 about her.
FALSTAFF.
What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was
beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and
was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But
that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the
action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable
had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.
QUICKLY.
Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you
shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content.
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.
FALSTAFF.
Come up into my chamber.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 6. 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.
FENTON.
Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the
A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
HOST.
I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,
keep your counsel.
FENTON.
From time to time I have acquainted you
With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page
Who, mutually, hath answered my affection,
So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
Even to my wish. I have a letter from her
Of such contents as you will wonder at;
The mirth whereof so larded with my matter
That neither, singly, can be manifested
Without the show of both; wherein fat Falstaff
Hath a great scare: the image of the jest
I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:
To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;
The purpose why is here: in which disguise,
While other jests are something rank on foot,
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry; she hath consented:
Now, sir,
Her mother, even strong against that match
And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
While other sports are tasking of their minds;
And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot
She seemingly obedient likewise hath
Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:
Her father means she shall be all in white;
And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
To take her by the hand and bid her go,
She shall go with him: her mother hath intended
The better to denote her to the doctor,--
For they must all be mask'd and vizarded--
That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,
With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
To pinch her by the hand: and, on that token,
The maid hath given consent to go with him.
HOST.
Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
FENTON.
Both, my good host, to go along with me:
And here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar
To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,
And in the lawful name of marrying,
To give our hearts united ceremony.
HOST.
Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.
Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
FENTON.
So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
Besides, I'll make a present recompense.
[Exeunt.]
ACT V.
SCENE 1. A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
FALSTAFF.
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!
QUICKLY.
I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to
get you a pair of horns.
FALSTAFF.
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
be known tonight, 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?
FALSTAFF.
I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a
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 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 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.]
SCENE 2. 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.
SLENDER.
Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have
a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in
white and cry 'mum'; she cries 'budget,' and by that we
know one another.
SHALLOW.
That's good too; but what needs either your mum
or her budget? The white will decipher her well 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.]
SCENE 3. The street in Windsor.
[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.
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
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 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.
MRS. FORD.
We'll betray him finely.
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.]
SCENE 4. 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.]
SCENE 5. Another part of the Park.
[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE with a buck's head on.]
FALSTAFF.
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute
draws on. Now the hot-blooded gods assist me!
Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy
horns. O powerful love! that in some respects, makes a
beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You were also,
Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love!
how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A
fault done first in the form of a beast; O Jove, a beastly
fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl:
think on't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs
what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor
stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest. Send me a cool
rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?
Who comes here? my doe?
[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. FORD.
Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
FALSTAFF.
My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'; hail
kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest
of provocation, I will shelter me here.
[Embracing her.]
MRS. FORD.
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF.
Divide me like a brib'd 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. 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!
FALSTAFF.
What should this be?
MRS. FORD.
Away, away!
MRS. PAGE.
Away, away!
[They run off.]
FALSTAFF.
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 like a Satyr, PISTOL as a Hobgoblin, ANNE
PAGE as the the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brothers and Others,
as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.]
ANNE.
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL.
Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys!
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
FALSTAFF.
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.]
EVANS.
Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
ANNE.
About, about!
Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
Worthy the owner and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away! disperse! But, till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter let us not forget.
EVANS.
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
FALSTAFF.
Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he
transform me to a piece of cheese!
PISTOL.
Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
ANNE.
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
PISTOL.
A trial! come.
EVANS.
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.]
FALSTAFF.
Oh, oh, oh!
ANNE.
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.
[During this song the Fairies pinch FALSTAFF.
DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in
green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in
white; and FENTON comes, and steals away 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, MISTRESS FORD. They lay hold on
FALSTAFF.]
PAGE.
Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now:
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
MRS. PAGE.
I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?
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 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 I will
always count you my deer.
FALSTAFF.
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD.
Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
FALSTAFF.
And these are not fairies? I was three or four
times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the
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!
EVANS.
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,
and fairies will not pinse you.
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 able
to woo her in good English.
FALSTAFF.
Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that
it wants matter to prevent so gross, o'er-reaching as this?
Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb
of frieze? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of
toasted cheese.
EVANS.
Seese is not good to give putter: your belly is all
putter.
FALSTAFF.
'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I lived to stand at the
taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough
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?
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?
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?
FALSTAFF.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of 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 you
should have been a pander: over and above that you have
suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting
affliction.
MRS. FORD.
Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;
Forget that sum, so we';; all be friends.
FORD.
Well, here's my hand: all is forgiven at last.
PAGE.
Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset
tonight at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at 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.]
SLENDER.
Whoa, ho! ho! father Page!
PAGE.
Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
SLENDER.
Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
know on't; would I were hanged, la, else!
PAGE.
Of what, son?
SLENDER.
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.
PAGE.
Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
SLENDER.
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 how
you should know my daughter by her garments?
SLENDER.
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.
EVANS.
Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see put marry poys?
PAGE.
O I am vexed at heart: what shall I do?
MRS. PAGE.
Good George, be not angry: I knew of your
purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she
is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
CAIUS.
Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'
married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is
not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.
MRS. PAGE.
Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS.
Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all
Windsor.
[Exit.]
FORD.
This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
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 Master
Slender?
MRS. PAGE.
Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
FENTON.
You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD.
Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy:
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF.
I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand
to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
PAGE.
Well, what remedy?--Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.
FALSTAFF.
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.
MRS. PAGE.
Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD.
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.
[Exeunt.]

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