{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/mww/mww.htm","path":"sks/mww/mww.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/mww/mww.htm","text":"THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nSIR JOHN FALSTAFF (FALSTAFF:)\nFENTON a gentleman.\nSHALLOW a country justice.\nSLENDER cousin to Shallow.\nFORD |\n| two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.\nPAGE |\nWILLIAM PAGE a boy, son to Page.\nSIR HUGH EVANS a Welsh parson.\nDOCTOR CAIUS a French physician.\nHost of the Garter Inn. (Host:)\nBARDOLPH |\n|\nPISTOL | sharpers attending on Falstaff.\n|\nNYM |\nROBIN page to Falstaff.\nSIMPLE servant to Slender.\nRUGBY servant to Doctor Caius.\nMISTRESS FORD:\nMISTRESS PAGE:\nANNE PAGE her daughter.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY servant to Doctor Caius.\nServants to Page, Ford, &c.\n(Servant:)\n(First Servant:)\n(Second Servant:)\nSCENE Windsor, and the neighbourhood.\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT I\nSCENE I Windsor. Before PAGE's house.\n[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nSHALLOW Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-\nchamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John\nFalstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.\nSLENDER In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and\n'Coram.'\nSHALLOW Ay, cousin Slender, and 'Custalourum.\nSLENDER Ay, and 'Rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born,\nmaster parson; who writes himself 'Armigero,' in any\nbill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.'\nSHALLOW Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three\nhundred years.\nSLENDER All his successors gone before him hath done't; and\nall his ancestors that come after him may: they may\ngive the dozen white luces in their coat.\nSHALLOW It is an old coat.\nSIR HUGH EVANS The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;\nit agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to\nman, and signifies love.\nSHALLOW The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.\nSLENDER I may quarter, coz.\nSHALLOW You may, by marrying.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.\nSHALLOW Not a whit.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat,\nthere is but three skirts for yourself, in my\nsimple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir\nJohn Falstaff have committed disparagements unto\nyou, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my\nbenevolence to make atonements and compremises\nbetween you.\nSHALLOW The council shall bear it; it is a riot.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no\nfear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall\ndesire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a\nriot; take your vizaments in that.\nSHALLOW Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword\nshould end it.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it:\nand there is also another device in my prain, which\nperadventure prings goot discretions with it: there\nis Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas\nPage, which is pretty virginity.\nSLENDER Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks\nsmall like a woman.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as\nyou will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys,\nand gold and silver, is her grandsire upon his\ndeath's-bed--Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!\n--give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years\nold: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles\nand prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master\nAbraham and Mistress Anne Page.\nSLENDER Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?\nSIR HUGH EVANS Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.\nSLENDER I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.\nSHALLOW Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?\nSIR HUGH EVANS Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do\ndespise one that is false, or as I despise one that\nis not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I\nbeseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will\npeat the door for Master Page.\n[Knocks]\nWhat, hoa! Got pless your house here!\nPAGE [Within] Who's there?\n[Enter PAGE]\nSIR HUGH EVANS Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice\nShallow; and here young Master Slender, that\nperadventures shall tell you another tale, if\nmatters grow to your likings.\nPAGE I am glad to see your worships well.\nI thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.\nSHALLOW Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it\nyour good heart! I wished your venison better; it\nwas ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page?--and I\nthank you always with my heart, la! with my heart.\nPAGE Sir, I thank you.\nSHALLOW Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.\nPAGE I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.\nSLENDER How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he\nwas outrun on Cotsall.\nPAGE It could not be judged, sir.\nSLENDER You'll not confess, you'll not confess.\nSHALLOW That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault;\n'tis a good dog.\nPAGE A cur, sir.\nSHALLOW Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be\nmore said? he is good and fair. Is Sir John\nFalstaff here?\nPAGE Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good\noffice between you.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.\nSHALLOW He hath wronged me, Master Page.\nPAGE Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.\nSHALLOW If it be confessed, it is not redress'd: is not that\nso, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he\nhath, at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert\nShallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged.\nPAGE Here comes Sir John.\n[Enter FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL]\nFALSTAFF Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king?\nSHALLOW Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and\nbroke open my lodge.\nFALSTAFF But not kissed your keeper's daughter?\nSHALLOW Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.\nFALSTAFF I will answer it straight; I have done all this.\nThat is now answered.\nSHALLOW The council shall know this.\nFALSTAFF 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:\nyou'll be laughed at.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.\nFALSTAFF Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your\nhead: what matter have you against me?\nSLENDER Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;\nand against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph,\nNym, and Pistol.\nBARDOLPH You Banbury cheese!\nSLENDER Ay, it is no matter.\nPISTOL How now, Mephostophilus!\nSLENDER Ay, it is no matter.\nNYM Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that's my humour.\nSLENDER Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?\nSIR HUGH EVANS Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is\nthree umpires in this matter, as I understand; that\nis, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is\nmyself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is,\nlastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.\nPAGE We three, to hear it and end it between them.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-\nbook; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with\nas great discreetly as we can.\nFALSTAFF Pistol!\nPISTOL He hears with ears.\nSIR HUGH EVANS The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He\nhears with ear'? why, it is affectations.\nFALSTAFF Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?\nSLENDER Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might\nnever come in mine own great chamber again else, of\nseven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward\nshovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two\npence apiece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.\nFALSTAFF Is this true, Pistol?\nSIR HUGH EVANS No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.\nPISTOL Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and Master mine,\nI combat challenge of this latten bilbo.\nWord of denial in thy labras here!\nWord of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!\nSLENDER By these gloves, then, 'twas he.\nNYM Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say\n'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's\nhumour on me; that is the very note of it.\nSLENDER By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for\nthough I cannot remember what I did when you made me\ndrunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.\nFALSTAFF What say you, Scarlet and John?\nBARDOLPH Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk\nhimself out of his five sentences.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!\nBARDOLPH And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and\nso conclusions passed the careires.\nSLENDER Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no\nmatter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again,\nbut in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick:\nif I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have\nthe fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.\nSIR HUGH EVANS So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.\nFALSTAFF You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.\n[Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; MISTRESS FORD\nand MISTRESS PAGE, following]\nPAGE Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.\n[Exit ANNE PAGE]\nSLENDER O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.\nPAGE How now, Mistress Ford!\nFALSTAFF Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met:\nby your leave, good mistress.\n[Kisses her]\nPAGE Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a\nhot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope\nwe shall drink down all unkindness.\n[Exeunt all except SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nSLENDER I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of\nSongs and Sonnets here.\n[Enter SIMPLE]\nHow now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait\non myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles\nabout you, have you?\nSIMPLE Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice\nShortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight\nafore Michaelmas?\nSHALLOW Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with\nyou, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a\ntender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh\nhere. Do you understand me?\nSLENDER Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so,\nI shall do that that is reason.\nSHALLOW Nay, but understand me.\nSLENDER So I do, sir.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will\ndescription the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.\nSLENDER Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray\nyou, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his\ncountry, simple though I stand here.\nSIR HUGH EVANS But that is not the question: the question is\nconcerning your marriage.\nSHALLOW Ay, there's the point, sir.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.\nSLENDER Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any\nreasonable demands.\nSIR HUGH EVANS But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to\nknow that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers\nphilosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the\nmouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your\ngood will to the maid?\nSHALLOW Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?\nSLENDER I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that\nwould do reason.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak\npossitable, if you can carry her your desires\ntowards her.\nSHALLOW That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?\nSLENDER I will do a greater thing than that, upon your\nrequest, cousin, in any reason.\nSHALLOW Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do\nis to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?\nSLENDER I will marry her, sir, at your request: but if there\nbe no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may\ndecrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are\nmarried and have more occasion to know one another;\nI hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt:\nbut if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that\nI am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in\nthe ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our\nmeaning, 'resolutely:' his meaning is good.\nSHALLOW Ay, I think my cousin meant well.\nSLENDER Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!\nSHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne.\n[Re-enter ANNE PAGE]\nWould I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!\nANNE PAGE The dinner is on the table; my father desires your\nworships' company.\nSHALLOW I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.\n[Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nANNE PAGE Will't please your worship to come in, sir?\nSLENDER No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.\nANNE PAGE The dinner attends you, sir.\nSLENDER I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,\nsirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my\ncousin Shallow.\n[Exit SIMPLE]\nA justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his\nfriend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy\nyet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I\nlive like a poor gentleman born.\nANNE PAGE I may not go in without your worship: they will not\nsit till you come.\nSLENDER I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as\nthough I did.\nANNE PAGE I pray you, sir, walk in.\nSLENDER I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised\nmy shin th' other day with playing at sword and\ndagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a\ndish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot\nabide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your\ndogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?\nANNE PAGE I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.\nSLENDER I love the sport well but I shall as soon quarrel at\nit as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see\nthe bear loose, are you not?\nANNE PAGE Ay, indeed, sir.\nSLENDER That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen\nSackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by\nthe chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so\ncried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women,\nindeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favored\nrough things.\n[Re-enter PAGE]\nPAGE Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.\nSLENDER I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.\nPAGE By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.\nSLENDER Nay, pray you, lead the way.\nPAGE Come on, sir.\nSLENDER Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.\nANNE PAGE Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.\nSLENDER I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome.\nYou do yourself wrong, indeed, la!\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT I\nSCENE II The same.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE]\nSIR HUGH EVANS Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which\nis the way: and there dwells one Mistress Quickly,\nwhich is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry\nnurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and\nhis wringer.\nSIMPLE Well, sir.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it\nis a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with\nMistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire\nand require her to solicit your master's desires to\nMistress Anne Page. I pray you, be gone: I will\nmake an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT I\nSCENE III A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter FALSTAFF, Host, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL,\nand ROBIN]\nFALSTAFF Mine host of the Garter!\nHost What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.\nFALSTAFF Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my\nfollowers.\nHost Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.\nFALSTAFF I sit at ten pounds a week.\nHost Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I\nwill entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall\ntap: said I well, bully Hector?\nFALSTAFF Do so, good mine host.\nHost I have spoke; let him follow.\n[To BARDOLPH]\nLet me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow.\n[Exit]\nFALSTAFF Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade:\nan old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered\nserving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.\nBARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.\nPISTOL O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?\n[Exit BARDOLPH]\nNYM He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?\nFALSTAFF I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his\nthefts were too open; his filching was like an\nunskilful singer; he kept not time.\nNYM The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.\nPISTOL 'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico\nfor the phrase!\nFALSTAFF Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.\nPISTOL Why, then, let kibes ensue.\nFALSTAFF There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.\nPISTOL Young ravens must have food.\nFALSTAFF Which of you know Ford of this town?\nPISTOL I ken the wight: he is of substance good.\nFALSTAFF My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.\nPISTOL Two yards, and more.\nFALSTAFF No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two\nyards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about\nthrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's\nwife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses,\nshe carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I\ncan construe the action of her familiar style; and\nthe hardest voice of her behavior, to be Englished\nrightly, is, 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'\nPISTOL He hath studied her will, and translated her will,\nout of honesty into English.\nNYM The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?\nFALSTAFF Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her\nhusband's purse: he hath a legion of angels.\nPISTOL As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.\nNYM The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.\nFALSTAFF I have writ me here a letter to her: and here\nanother to Page's wife, who even now gave me good\neyes too, examined my parts with most judicious\noeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my\nfoot, sometimes my portly belly.\nPISTOL Then did the sun on dunghill shine.\nNYM I thank thee for that humour.\nFALSTAFF O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a\ngreedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did\nseem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's\nanother letter to her: she bears the purse too; she\nis a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will\nbe cheater to them both, and they shall be\nexchequers to me; they shall be my East and West\nIndies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou\nthis letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to\nMistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.\nPISTOL Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,\nAnd by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all!\nNYM I will run no base humour: here, take the\nhumour-letter: I will keep the havior of reputation.\nFALSTAFF [To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;\nSail like my pinnace to these golden shores.\nRogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;\nTrudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack!\nFalstaff will learn the humour of the age,\nFrench thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page.\n[Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN]\nPISTOL Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds,\nAnd high and low beguiles the rich and poor:\nTester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,\nBase Phrygian Turk!\nNYM I have operations which be humours of revenge.\nPISTOL Wilt thou revenge?\nNYM By welkin and her star!\nPISTOL With wit or steel?\nNYM With both the humours, I:\nI will discuss the humour of this love to Page.\nPISTOL And I to Ford shall eke unfold\nHow Falstaff, varlet vile,\nHis dove will prove, his gold will hold,\nAnd his soft couch defile.\nNYM My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to\ndeal with poison; I will possess him with\nyellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous:\nthat is my true humour.\nPISTOL Thou art the Mars of malecontents: I second thee; troop on.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT I\nSCENE IV A room in DOCTOR CAIUS' house.\n[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement,\nand see if you can see my master, Master Doctor\nCaius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find any\nbody in the house, here will be an old abusing of\nGod's patience and the king's English.\nRUGBY I'll go watch.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in\nfaith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.\n[Exit RUGBY]\nAn honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant\nshall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no\ntell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,\nthat he is given to prayer; he is something peevish\nthat way: but nobody but has his fault; but let\nthat pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?\nSIMPLE Ay, for fault of a better.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY And Master Slender's your master?\nSIMPLE Ay, forsooth.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Does he not wear a great round beard, like a\nglover's paring-knife?\nSIMPLE No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a\nlittle yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY A softly-sprighted man, is he not?\nSIMPLE Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands\nas any is between this and his head; he hath fought\nwith a warrener.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY How say you? O, I should remember him: does he not\nhold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?\nSIMPLE Yes, indeed, does he.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell\nMaster Parson Evans I will do what I can for your\nmaster: Anne is a good girl, and I wish--\n[Re-enter RUGBY]\nRUGBY Out, alas! here comes my master.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man;\ngo into this closet: he will not stay long.\n[Shuts SIMPLE in the closet]\nWhat, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say!\nGo, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt\nhe be not well, that he comes not home.\n[Singing]\nAnd down, down, adown-a, &c.\n[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you,\ngo and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert, a box,\na green-a box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you.\n[Aside]\nI am glad he went not in himself: if he had found\nthe young man, he would have been horn-mad.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je\nm'en vais a la cour--la grande affaire.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Is it this, sir?\nDOCTOR CAIUS Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere\nis dat knave Rugby?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby! John!\nRUGBY Here, sir!\nDOCTOR CAIUS You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come,\ntake-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.\nRUGBY 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me!\nQu'ai-j'oublie! dere is some simples in my closet,\ndat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Ay me, he'll find the young man here, and be mad!\nDOCTOR CAIUS O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron!\n[Pulling SIMPLE out]\nRugby, my rapier!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Good master, be content.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Wherefore shall I be content-a?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY The young man is an honest man.\nDOCTOR CAIUS What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is\nno honest man dat shall come in my closet.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth\nof it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vell.\nSIMPLE Ay, forsooth; to desire her to--\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Peace, I pray you.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.\nSIMPLE To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to\nspeak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my\nmaster in the way of marriage.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my\nfinger in the fire, and need not.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper.\nTarry you a little-a while.\n[Writes]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY [Aside to SIMPLE] I am glad he is so quiet: if he\nhad been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him\nso loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding,\nman, I'll do you your master what good I can: and\nthe very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my\nmaster,--I may call him my master, look you, for I\nkeep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake,\nscour, dress meat and drink, make the beds and do\nall myself,--\nSIMPLE [Aside to MISTRESS QUICKLY] 'Tis a great charge to\ncome under one body's hand.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY [Aside to SIMPLE] Are you avised o' that? you\nshall find it a great charge: and to be up early\nand down late; but notwithstanding,--to tell you in\nyour ear; I would have no words of it,--my master\nhimself is in love with Mistress Anne Page: but\nnotwithstanding that, I know Anne's mind,--that's\nneither here nor there.\nDOCTOR CAIUS You jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by\ngar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in dee\npark; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest\nto meddle or make. You may be gone; it is not good\nyou tarry here. By gar, I will cut all his two\nstones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to throw\nat his dog:\n[Exit SIMPLE]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Alas, he speaks but for his friend.\nDOCTOR CAIUS It is no matter-a ver dat: do not you tell-a me\ndat I shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I\nvill kill de Jack priest; and I have appointed mine\nhost of de Jarteer to measure our weapon. By gar, I\nwill myself have Anne Page.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We\nmust give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!\nDOCTOR CAIUS Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have\nnot Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my\ndoor. Follow my heels, Rugby.\n[Exeunt DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I\nknow Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor\nknows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more\nthan I do with her, I thank heaven.\nFENTON [Within] Who's within there? ho!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Who's there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you.\n[Enter FENTON]\nFENTON How now, good woman? how dost thou?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.\nFENTON What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and\ngentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you\nthat by the way; I praise heaven for it.\nFENTON Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but\nnotwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a\nbook, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart\nabove your eye?\nFENTON Yes, marry, have I; what of that?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Well, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it is such\nanother Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever\nbroke bread: we had an hour's talk of that wart. I\nshall never laugh but in that maid's company! But\nindeed she is given too much to allicholy and\nmusing: but for you--well, go to.\nFENTON Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money\nfor thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if\nthou seest her before me, commend me.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Will I? i'faith, that we will; and I will tell your\nworship more of the wart the next time we have\nconfidence; and of other wooers.\nFENTON Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Farewell to your worship.\n[Exit FENTON]\nTruly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not;\nfor I know Anne's mind as well as another does. Out\nupon't! what have I forgot?\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT II\nSCENE I Before PAGE'S house.\n[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter]\nMISTRESS PAGE What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-\ntime of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?\nLet me see.\n[Reads]\n'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though\nLove use Reason for his physician, he admits him\nnot for his counsellor. You are not young, no more\nam I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry,\nso am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you\nlove sack, and so do I; would you desire better\nsympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at\nthe least, if the love of soldier can suffice,--\nthat I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis\nnot a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,\nThine own true knight,\nBy day or night,\nOr any kind of light,\nWith all his might\nFor thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF'\nWhat a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked\nworld! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with\nage to show himself a young gallant! What an\nunweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard\npicked--with the devil's name!--out of my\nconversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?\nWhy, he hath not been thrice in my company! What\nshould I say to him? I was then frugal of my\nmirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill\nin the parliament for the putting down of men. How\nshall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be,\nas sure as his guts are made of puddings.\n[Enter MISTRESS FORD]\nMISTRESS FORD Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.\nMISTRESS PAGE And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very\nill.\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.\nMISTRESS PAGE Faith, but you do, in my mind.\nMISTRESS FORD Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the\ncontrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!\nMISTRESS PAGE What's the matter, woman?\nMISTRESS FORD O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I\ncould come to such honour!\nMISTRESS PAGE Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is\nit? dispense with trifles; what is it?\nMISTRESS FORD If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so,\nI could be knighted.\nMISTRESS PAGE What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights\nwill hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the\narticle of thy gentry.\nMISTRESS FORD We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I\nmight be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat\nmen, as long as I have an eye to make difference of\nmen's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised\nwomen's modesty; and gave such orderly and\nwell-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I\nwould have sworn his disposition would have gone to\nthe truth of his words; but they do no more adhere\nand keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to\nthe tune of 'Green Sleeves.' What tempest, I trow,\nthrew this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his\nbelly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged\non him? I think the best way were to entertain him\nwith hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted\nhim in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?\nMISTRESS PAGE Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and\nFord differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery\nof ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy\nletter: but let thine inherit first; for, I\nprotest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a\nthousand of these letters, writ with blank space for\ndifferent names--sure, more,--and these are of the\nsecond edition: he will print them, out of doubt;\nfor he cares not what he puts into the press, when\nhe would put us two. I had rather be a giantess,\nand lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you\ntwenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.\nMISTRESS FORD Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very\nwords. What doth he think of us?\nMISTRESS PAGE Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to\nwrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain\nmyself like one that I am not acquainted withal;\nfor, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I\nknow not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.\nMISTRESS FORD 'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him\nabove deck.\nMISTRESS PAGE So will I if he come under my hatches, I'll never\nto sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's\nappoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in\nhis suit and lead him on with a fine-baited delay,\ntill he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him,\nthat may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,\nthat my husband saw this letter! it would give\neternal food to his jealousy.\nMISTRESS PAGE Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he's\nas far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause;\nand that I hope is an unmeasurable distance.\nMISTRESS FORD You are the happier woman.\nMISTRESS PAGE Let's consult together against this greasy knight.\nCome hither.\n[They retire]\n[Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM]\nFORD Well, I hope it be not so.\nPISTOL Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:\nSir John affects thy wife.\nFORD Why, sir, my wife is not young.\nPISTOL He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,\nBoth young and old, one with another, Ford;\nHe loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.\nFORD Love my wife!\nPISTOL With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,\nLike Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:\nO, odious is the name!\nFORD What name, sir?\nPISTOL The horn, I say. Farewell.\nTake heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:\nTake heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.\nAway, Sir Corporal Nym!\nBelieve it, Page; he speaks sense.\n[Exit]\nFORD [Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this.\nNYM [To PAGE] And this is true; I like not the humour\nof lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I\nshould have borne the humoured letter to her; but I\nhave a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity.\nHe loves your wife; there's the short and the long.\nMy name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis\ntrue: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.\nAdieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,\nand there's the humour of it. Adieu.\n[Exit]\nPAGE 'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow\nfrights English out of his wits.\nFORD I will seek out Falstaff.\nPAGE I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.\nFORD If I do find it: well.\nPAGE I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest\no' the town commended him for a true man.\nFORD 'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.\nPAGE How now, Meg!\n[MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward]\nMISTRESS PAGE Whither go you, George? Hark you.\nMISTRESS FORD How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?\nFORD I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.\nMISTRESS FORD Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,\nwill you go, Mistress Page?\nMISTRESS PAGE Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George.\n[Aside to MISTRESS FORD]\nLook who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger\nto this paltry knight.\nMISTRESS FORD [Aside to MISTRESS PAGE] Trust me, I thought on her:\nshe'll fit it.\n[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nMISTRESS PAGE You are come to see my daughter Anne?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?\nMISTRESS PAGE Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with\nyou.\n[Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nPAGE How now, Master Ford!\nFORD You heard what this knave told me, did you not?\nPAGE Yes: and you heard what the other told me?\nFORD Do you think there is truth in them?\nPAGE Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would\noffer it: but these that accuse him in his intent\ntowards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men;\nvery rogues, now they be out of service.\nFORD Were they his men?\nPAGE Marry, were they.\nFORD I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at\nthe Garter?\nPAGE Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage\ntowards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and\nwhat he gets more of her than sharp words, let it\nlie on my head.\nFORD I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to\nturn them together. A man may be too confident: I\nwould have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus satisfied.\nPAGE Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes:\nthere is either liquor in his pate or money in his\npurse when he looks so merrily.\n[Enter Host]\nHow now, mine host!\nHost How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.\nCavaleiro-justice, I say!\n[Enter SHALLOW]\nSHALLOW I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and\ntwenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go\nwith us? we have sport in hand.\nHost Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.\nSHALLOW Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh\nthe Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.\nFORD Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.\n[Drawing him aside]\nHost What sayest thou, my bully-rook?\nSHALLOW [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My\nmerry host hath had the measuring of their weapons;\nand, I think, hath appointed them contrary places;\nfor, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester.\nHark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.\n[They converse apart]\nHost Hast thou no suit against my knight, my\nguest-cavaleire?\nFORD None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of\nburnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him\nmy name is Brook; only for a jest.\nHost My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;\n--said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is\na merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?\nSHALLOW Have with you, mine host.\nPAGE I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in\nhis rapier.\nSHALLOW Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times\nyou stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and\nI know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis\nhere, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long\nsword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.\nHost Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?\nPAGE Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.\n[Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE]\nFORD Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly\non his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my\nopinion so easily: she was in his company at Page's\nhouse; and what they made there, I know not. Well,\nI will look further into't: and I have a disguise\nto sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not\nmy labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed.\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT II\nSCENE II A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL]\nFALSTAFF I will not lend thee a penny.\nPISTOL Why, then the world's mine oyster.\nWhich I with sword will open.\nFALSTAFF Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should\nlay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon my\ngood friends for three reprieves for you and your\ncoach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through\nthe grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in\nhell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were\ngood soldiers and tall fellows; and when Mistress\nBridget lost the handle of her fan, I took't upon\nmine honour thou hadst it not.\nPISTOL Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?\nFALSTAFF Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I'll\nendanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more\nabout me, I am no gibbet for you. Go. A short knife\nand a throng! To your manor of Pickt-hatch! Go.\nYou'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you\nstand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable\nbaseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the\nterms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself\nsometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand\nand hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to\nshuffle, to hedge and to lurch; and yet you, rogue,\nwill ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain\nlooks, your red-lattice phrases, and your\nbold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your\nhonour! You will not do it, you!\nPISTOL I do relent: what would thou more of man?\n[Enter ROBIN]\nROBIN Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.\nFALSTAFF Let her approach.\n[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Give your worship good morrow.\nFALSTAFF Good morrow, good wife.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Not so, an't please your worship.\nFALSTAFF Good maid, then.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY I'll be sworn,\nAs my mother was, the first hour I was born.\nFALSTAFF I do believe the swearer. What with me?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?\nFALSTAFF Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee\nthe hearing.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a\nlittle nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master\nDoctor Caius,--\nFALSTAFF Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,--\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,\ncome a little nearer this ways.\nFALSTAFF I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine\nown people.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!\nFALSTAFF Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your\nworship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all\nof us, I pray!\nFALSTAFF Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,--\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you\nhave brought her into such a canaries as 'tis\nwonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the\ncourt lay at Windsor, could never have brought her\nto such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and\nlords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant\nyou, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift\nafter gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so\nrushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in\nsuch alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of\nthe best and the fairest, that would have won any\nwoman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never\nget an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels\ngiven me this morning; but I defy all angels, in\nany such sort, as they say, but in the way of\nhonesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get\nher so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of\nthem all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which\nis more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.\nFALSTAFF But what says she to me? be brief, my good\nshe-Mercury.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, she hath received your letter, for the which\nshe thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you\nto notify that her husband will be absence from his\nhouse between ten and eleven.\nFALSTAFF Ten and eleven?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the\npicture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford,\nher husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet\nwoman leads an ill life with him: he's a very\njealousy man: she leads a very frampold life with\nhim, good heart.\nFALSTAFF Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will\nnot fail her.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to\nyour worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty\ncommendations to you too: and let me tell you in\nyour ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and\none, I tell you, that will not miss you morning nor\nevening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the\nother: and she bade me tell your worship that her\nhusband is seldom from home; but she hopes there\nwill come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon\na man: surely I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth.\nFALSTAFF Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my\ngood parts aside I have no other charms.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing on your heart for't!\nFALSTAFF But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and\nPage's wife acquainted each other how they love me?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY That were a jest indeed! they have not so little\ngrace, I hope: that were a trick indeed! but\nMistress Page would desire you to send her your\nlittle page, of all loves: her husband has a\nmarvellous infection to the little page; and truly\nMaster Page is an honest man. Never a wife in\nWindsor leads a better life than she does: do what\nshe will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go\nto bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as\nshe will: and truly she deserves it; for if there\nbe a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must\nsend her your page; no remedy.\nFALSTAFF Why, I will.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and\ngo between you both; and in any case have a\nnay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and\nthe boy never need to understand any thing; for\n'tis not good that children should know any\nwickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion,\nas they say, and know the world.\nFALSTAFF Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's\nmy purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with\nthis woman.\n[Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN]\nThis news distracts me!\nPISTOL This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:\nClap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights:\nGive fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!\n[Exit]\nFALSTAFF Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make\nmore of thy old body than I have done. Will they\nyet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense\nof so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I\nthank thee. Let them say 'tis grossly done; so it be\nfairly done, no matter.\n[Enter BARDOLPH]\nBARDOLPH Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain\nspeak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath\nsent your worship a morning's draught of sack.\nFALSTAFF Brook is his name?\nBARDOLPH Ay, sir.\nFALSTAFF Call him in.\n[Exit BARDOLPH]\nSuch Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such\nliquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page\nhave I encompassed you? go to; via!\n[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised]\nFORD Bless you, sir!\nFALSTAFF And you, sir! Would you speak with me?\nFORD I make bold to press with so little preparation upon\nyou.\nFALSTAFF You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.\n[Exit BARDOLPH]\nFORD Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.\nFALSTAFF Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.\nFORD Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you;\nfor I must let you understand I think myself in\nbetter plight for a lender than you are: the which\nhath something embolden'd me to this unseasoned\nintrusion; for they say, if money go before, all\nways do lie open.\nFALSTAFF Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.\nFORD Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me:\nif you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or\nhalf, for easing me of the carriage.\nFALSTAFF Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.\nFORD I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.\nFALSTAFF Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be\nyour servant.\nFORD Sir, I hear you are a scholar,--I will be brief\nwith you,--and you have been a man long known to me,\nthough I had never so good means, as desire, to make\nmyself acquainted with you. I shall discover a\nthing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine\nown imperfection: but, good Sir John, as you have\none eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded,\nturn another into the register of your own; that I\nmay pass with a reproof the easier, sith you\nyourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.\nFALSTAFF Very well, sir; proceed.\nFORD There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's\nname is Ford.\nFALSTAFF Well, sir.\nFORD I have long loved her, and, I protest to you,\nbestowed much on her; followed her with a doting\nobservance; engrossed opportunities to meet her;\nfee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly\ngive me sight of her; not only bought many presents\nto give her, but have given largely to many to know\nwhat she would have given; briefly, I have pursued\nher as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the\nwing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have\nmerited, either in my mind or, in my means, meed,\nI am sure, I have received none; unless experience\nbe a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite\nrate, and that hath taught me to say this:\n'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;\nPursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'\nFALSTAFF Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?\nFORD Never.\nFALSTAFF Have you importuned her to such a purpose?\nFORD Never.\nFALSTAFF Of what quality was your love, then?\nFORD Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so\nthat I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place\nwhere I erected it.\nFALSTAFF To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?\nFORD When I have told you that, I have told you all.\nSome say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in\nother places she enlargeth her mirth so far that\nthere is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir\nJohn, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a\ngentleman of excellent breeding, admirable\ndiscourse, of great admittance, authentic in your\nplace and person, generally allowed for your many\nwar-like, court-like, and learned preparations.\nFALSTAFF O, sir!\nFORD Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend\nit, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only\ngive me so much of your time in exchange of it, as\nto lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this\nFord's wife: use your art of wooing; win her to\nconsent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as\nany.\nFALSTAFF Would it apply well to the vehemency of your\naffection, that I should win what you would enjoy?\nMethinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.\nFORD O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on\nthe excellency of her honour, that the folly of my\nsoul dares not present itself: she is too bright to\nbe looked against. Now, could I could come to her\nwith any detection in my hand, my desires had\ninstance and argument to commend themselves: I\ncould drive her then from the ward of her purity,\nher reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand\nother her defences, which now are too too strongly\nembattled against me. What say you to't, Sir John?\nFALSTAFF Master Brook, I will first make bold with your\nmoney; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a\ngentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.\nFORD O good sir!\nFALSTAFF I say you shall.\nFORD Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.\nFALSTAFF Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want\nnone. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her\nown appointment; even as you came in to me, her\nassistant or go-between parted from me: I say I\nshall be with her between ten and eleven; for at\nthat time the jealous rascally knave her husband\nwill be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall\nknow how I speed.\nFORD I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,\nsir?\nFALSTAFF Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:\nyet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the\njealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the\nwhich his wife seems to me well-favored. I will\nuse her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer;\nand there's my harvest-home.\nFORD I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him\nif you saw him.\nFALSTAFF Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will\nstare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my\ncudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er the\ncuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I\nwill predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt\nlie with his wife. Come to me soon at night.\nFord's a knave, and I will aggravate his style;\nthou, Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and\ncuckold. Come to me soon at night.\n[Exit]\nFORD What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is\nready to crack with impatience. Who says this is\nimprovident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the\nhour is fixed; the match is made. Would any man\nhave thought this? See the hell of having a false\nwoman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers\nransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not\nonly receive this villanous wrong, but stand under\nthe adoption of abominable terms, and by him that\ndoes me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds\nwell; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are\ndevils' additions, the names of fiends: but\nCuckold! Wittol!--Cuckold! the devil himself hath\nnot such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass: he\nwill trust his wife; he will not be jealous. I will\nrather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh\nthe Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my\naqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling\ngelding, than my wife with herself; then she plots,\nthen she ruminates, then she devises; and what they\nthink in their hearts they may effect, they will\nbreak their hearts but they will effect. God be\npraised for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour.\nI will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on\nFalstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it;\nbetter three hours too soon than a minute too late.\nFie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT II\nSCENE III A field near Windsor.\n[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Jack Rugby!\nRUGBY Sir?\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vat is de clock, Jack?\nRUGBY 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he\nhas pray his Pible well, dat he is no come: by gar,\nJack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.\nRUGBY He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill\nhim, if he came.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him.\nTake your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.\nRUGBY Alas, sir, I cannot fence.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Villany, take your rapier.\nRUGBY Forbear; here's company.\n[Enter Host, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE]\nHost Bless thee, bully doctor!\nSHALLOW Save you, Master Doctor Caius!\nPAGE Now, good master doctor!\nSLENDER Give you good morrow, sir.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?\nHost To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee\ntraverse; to see thee here, to see thee there; to\nsee thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy\ndistance, thy montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is\nhe dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my\nAEsculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is\nhe dead, bully stale? is he dead?\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he\nis not show his face.\nHost Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!\nDOCTOR CAIUS I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or\nseven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.\nSHALLOW He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of\nsouls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should\nfight, you go against the hair of your professions.\nIs it not true, Master Page?\nPAGE Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great\nfighter, though now a man of peace.\nSHALLOW Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of\nthe peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to\nmake one. Though we are justices and doctors and\nchurchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our\nyouth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page.\nPAGE 'Tis true, Master Shallow.\nSHALLOW It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor\nCaius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of\nthe peace: you have showed yourself a wise\nphysician, and Sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise\nand patient churchman. You must go with me, master doctor.\nHost Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Mock-vater! vat is dat?\nHost Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de\nEnglishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me\nvill cut his ears.\nHost He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?\nHost That is, he will make thee amends.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me;\nfor, by gar, me vill have it.\nHost And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Me tank you for dat.\nHost And, moreover, bully,--but first, master guest, and\nMaster Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you\nthrough the town to Frogmore.\n[Aside to them]\nPAGE Sir Hugh is there, is he?\nHost He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will\nbring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?\nSHALLOW We will do it.\nPAGE |\n|\nSHALLOW | Adieu, good master doctor.\n|\nSLENDER |\n[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER]\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a\njack-an-ape to Anne Page.\nHost Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold\nwater on thy choler: go about the fields with me\nthrough Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress\nAnne Page is, at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou\nshalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well?\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you;\nand I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl,\nde knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.\nHost For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne\nPage. Said I well?\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, 'tis good; vell said.\nHost Let us wag, then.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT III\nSCENE I A field near Frogmore.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE]\nSIR HUGH EVANS I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man,\nand friend Simple by your name, which way have you\nlooked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?\nSIMPLE Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every\nway; old Windsor way, and every way but the town\nway.\nSIR HUGH EVANS I most fehemently desire you you will also look that\nway.\nSIMPLE I will, sir.\n[Exit]\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and\ntrempling of mind! I shall be glad if he have\ndeceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog\nhis urinals about his knave's costard when I have\ngood opportunities for the ork. 'Pless my soul!\n[Sings]\nTo shallow rivers, to whose falls\nMelodious birds sings madrigals;\nThere will we make our peds of roses,\nAnd a thousand fragrant posies.\nTo shallow--\nMercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.\n[Sings]\nMelodious birds sing madrigals--\nWhen as I sat in Pabylon--\nAnd a thousand vagram posies.\nTo shallow &c.\n[Re-enter SIMPLE]\nSIMPLE Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.\nSIR HUGH EVANS He's welcome.\n[Sings]\nTo shallow rivers, to whose falls-\nHeaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?\nSIMPLE No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master\nShallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over\nthe stile, this way.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms.\n[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER]\nSHALLOW How now, master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh.\nKeep a gamester from the dice, and a good student\nfrom his book, and it is wonderful.\nSLENDER [Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!\nPAGE 'Save you, good Sir Hugh!\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!\nSHALLOW What, the sword and the word! do you study them\nboth, master parson?\nPAGE And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this\nraw rheumatic day!\nSIR HUGH EVANS There is reasons and causes for it.\nPAGE We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Fery well: what is it?\nPAGE Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike\nhaving received wrong by some person, is at most\nodds with his own gravity and patience that ever you\nsaw.\nSHALLOW I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never\nheard a man of his place, gravity and learning, so\nwide of his own respect.\nSIR HUGH EVANS What is he?\nPAGE I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the\nrenowned French physician.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as\nlief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.\nPAGE Why?\nSIR HUGH EVANS He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,\n--and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you\nwould desires to be acquainted withal.\nPAGE I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.\nSHALLOW [Aside] O sweet Anne Page!\nSHALLOW It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder:\nhere comes Doctor Caius.\n[Enter Host, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY]\nPAGE Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.\nSHALLOW So do you, good master doctor.\nHost Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep\ntheir limbs whole and hack our English.\nDOCTOR CAIUS I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.\nVherefore vill you not meet-a me?\nSIR HUGH EVANS [Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you, use your patience:\nin good time.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.\nSIR HUGH EVANS [Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you let us not be\nlaughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you\nin friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.\n[Aloud]\nI will knog your urinals about your knave's cockscomb\nfor missing your meetings and appointments.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Diable! Jack Rugby,--mine host de Jarteer,--have I\nnot stay for him to kill him? have I not, at de place\nI did appoint?\nSIR HUGH EVANS As I am a Christians soul now, look you, this is the\nplace appointed: I'll be judgement by mine host of\nthe Garter.\nHost Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,\nsoul-curer and body-curer!\nDOCTOR CAIUS Ay, dat is very good; excellent.\nHost Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I\npolitic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I\nlose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions and the\nmotions. Shall I lose my parson, my priest, my Sir\nHugh? no; he gives me the proverbs and the\nno-verbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so. Give me\nthy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have\ndeceived you both; I have directed you to wrong\nplaces: your hearts are mighty, your skins are\nwhole, and let burnt sack be the issue. Come, lay\ntheir swords to pawn. Follow me, lads of peace;\nfollow, follow, follow.\nSHALLOW Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.\nSLENDER [Aside] O sweet Anne Page!\n[Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and Host]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of\nus, ha, ha?\nSIR HUGH EVANS This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I\ndesire you that we may be friends; and let us knog\nour prains together to be revenge on this same\nscall, scurvy cogging companion, the host of the Garter.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me\nwhere is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT III\nSCENE II A street.\n[Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN]\nMISTRESS PAGE Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were wont to\nbe a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether\nhad you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?\nROBIN I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man\nthan follow him like a dwarf.\nMISTRESS PAGE O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you'll be a courtier.\n[Enter FORD]\nFORD Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?\nMISTRESS PAGE Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?\nFORD Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want\nof company. I think, if your husbands were dead,\nyou two would marry.\nMISTRESS PAGE Be sure of that,--two other husbands.\nFORD Where had you this pretty weather-cock?\nMISTRESS PAGE I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my\nhusband had him of. What do you call your knight's\nname, sirrah?\nROBIN Sir John Falstaff.\nFORD Sir John Falstaff!\nMISTRESS PAGE He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such a\nleague between my good man and he! Is your wife at\nhome indeed?\nFORD Indeed she is.\nMISTRESS PAGE By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.\n[Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN]\nFORD Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any\nthinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them.\nWhy, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as\neasy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve\nscore. He pieces out his wife's inclination; he\ngives her folly motion and advantage: and now she's\ngoing to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A\nman may hear this shower sing in the wind. And\nFalstaff's boy with her! Good plots, they are laid;\nand our revolted wives share damnation together.\nWell; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck\nthe borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming\nMistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and\nwilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all\nmy neighbours shall cry aim.\n[Clock heard]\nThe clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me\nsearch: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be\nrather praised for this than mocked; for it is as\npositive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is\nthere: I will go.\n[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Host,\nSIR HUGH EVANS, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY]\nSHALLOW |\n|\nPAGE | Well met, Master Ford.\n|\n&C |\nFORD Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home;\nand I pray you all go with me.\nSHALLOW I must excuse myself, Master Ford.\nSLENDER And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with\nMistress Anne, and I would not break with her for\nmore money than I'll speak of.\nSHALLOW We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and\nmy cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.\nSLENDER I hope I have your good will, father Page.\nPAGE You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you:\nbut my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a\nQuickly tell me so mush.\nHost What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he\ndances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he\nspeaks holiday, he smells April and May: he will\ncarry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he\nwill carry't.\nPAGE Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is\nof no having: he kept company with the wild prince\nand Poins; he is of too high a region; he knows too\nmuch. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes\nwith the finger of my substance: if he take her,\nlet him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on\nmy consent, and my consent goes not that way.\nFORD I beseech you heartily, some of you go home with me\nto dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have\nsport; I will show you a monster. Master doctor,\nyou shall go; so shall you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.\nSHALLOW Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing\nat Master Page's.\n[Exeunt SHALLOW, and SLENDER]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.\n[Exit RUGBY]\nHost Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight\nFalstaff, and drink canary with him.\n[Exit]\nFORD [Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe wine first\nwith him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?\nAll Have with you to see this monster.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT III\nSCENE III A room in FORD'S house.\n[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE]\nMISTRESS FORD What, John! What, Robert!\nMISTRESS PAGE Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket--\nMISTRESS FORD I warrant. What, Robin, I say!\n[Enter Servants with a basket]\nMISTRESS PAGE Come, come, come.\nMISTRESS FORD Here, set it down.\nMISTRESS PAGE Give your men the charge; we must be brief.\nMISTRESS FORD Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be\nready here hard by in the brew-house: and when I\nsuddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause\nor staggering take this basket on your shoulders:\nthat done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry\nit among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there\nempty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.\nMISTRESS PAGE You will do it?\nMISTRESS FORD I ha' told them over and over; they lack no\ndirection. Be gone, and come when you are called.\n[Exeunt Servants]\nMISTRESS PAGE Here comes little Robin.\n[Enter ROBIN]\nMISTRESS FORD How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?\nROBIN My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door,\nMistress Ford, and requests your company.\nMISTRESS PAGE You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?\nROBIN Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your\nbeing here and hath threatened to put me into\neverlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he\nswears he'll turn me away.\nMISTRESS PAGE Thou'rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be\na tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet\nand hose. I'll go hide me.\nMISTRESS FORD Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.\n[Exit ROBIN]\nMistress Page, remember you your cue.\nMISTRESS PAGE I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.\n[Exit]\nMISTRESS FORD Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity,\nthis gross watery pumpion; we'll teach him to know\nturtles from jays.\n[Enter FALSTAFF]\nFALSTAFF Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let\nme die, for I have lived long enough: this is the\nperiod of my ambition: O this blessed hour!\nMISTRESS FORD O sweet Sir John!\nFALSTAFF Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,\nMistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would\nthy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the\nbest lord; I would make thee my lady.\nMISTRESS FORD I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady!\nFALSTAFF Let the court of France show me such another. I see\nhow thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast\nthe right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the\nship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of\nVenetian admittance.\nMISTRESS FORD A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing\nelse; nor that well neither.\nFALSTAFF By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou\nwouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm\nfixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion\nto thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see\nwhat thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature\nthy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.\nMISTRESS FORD Believe me, there is no such thing in me.\nFALSTAFF What made me love thee? let that persuade thee\nthere's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I\ncannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a\nmany of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like\nwomen in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury\nin simple time; I cannot: but I love thee; none\nbut thee; and thou deservest it.\nMISTRESS FORD Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.\nFALSTAFF Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the\nCounter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek\nof a lime-kiln.\nMISTRESS FORD Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one\nday find it.\nFALSTAFF Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not\nbe in that mind.\nROBIN [Within] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's\nMistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and\nlooking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.\nFALSTAFF She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras.\nMISTRESS FORD Pray you, do so: she's a very tattling woman.\n[FALSTAFF hides himself]\n[Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN]\nWhat's the matter? how now!\nMISTRESS PAGE O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed,\nyou're overthrown, you're undone for ever!\nMISTRESS FORD What's the matter, good Mistress Page?\nMISTRESS PAGE O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man\nto your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!\nMISTRESS FORD What cause of suspicion?\nMISTRESS PAGE What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I\nmistook in you!\nMISTRESS FORD Why, alas, what's the matter?\nMISTRESS PAGE Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the\nofficers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that\nhe says is here now in the house by your consent, to\ntake an ill advantage of his assence: you are undone.\nMISTRESS FORD 'Tis not so, I hope.\nMISTRESS PAGE Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man\nhere! but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,\nwith half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a\none. I come before to tell you. If you know\nyourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you\nhave a friend here convey, convey him out. Be not\namazed; call all your senses to you; defend your\nreputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.\nMISTRESS FORD What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear\nfriend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his\nperil: I had rather than a thousand pound he were\nout of the house.\nMISTRESS PAGE For shame! never stand 'you had rather' and 'you\nhad rather:' your husband's here at hand, bethink\nyou of some conveyance: in the house you cannot\nhide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here\nis a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he\nmay creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as\nif it were going to bucking: or--it is whiting-time\n--send him by your two men to Datchet-mead.\nMISTRESS FORD He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?\nFALSTAFF [Coming forward] Let me see't, let me see't, O, let\nme see't! I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's\ncounsel. I'll in.\nMISTRESS PAGE What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?\nFALSTAFF I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.\nI'll never--\n[Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]\nMISTRESS PAGE Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,\nMistress Ford. You dissembling knight!\nMISTRESS FORD What, John! Robert! John!\n[Exit ROBIN]\n[Re-enter Servants]\nGo take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the\ncowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to\nthe laundress in Datchet-meat; quickly, come.\n[Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nFORD Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause,\nwhy then make sport at me; then let me be your jest;\nI deserve it. How now! whither bear you this?\nServant To the laundress, forsooth.\nMISTRESS FORD Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You\nwere best meddle with buck-washing.\nFORD Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!\nBuck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck;\nand of the season too, it shall appear.\n[Exeunt Servants with the basket]\nGentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my\ndream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my\nchambers; search, seek, find out: I'll warrant\nwe'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.\n[Locking the door]\nSo, now uncape.\nPAGE Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.\nFORD True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see\nsport anon: follow me, gentlemen.\n[Exit]\nSIR HUGH EVANS This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not\njealous in France.\nPAGE Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.\n[Exeunt PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nMISTRESS PAGE Is there not a double excellency in this?\nMISTRESS FORD I know not which pleases me better, that my husband\nis deceived, or Sir John.\nMISTRESS PAGE What a taking was he in when your husband asked who\nwas in the basket!\nMISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so\nthrowing him into the water will do him a benefit.\nMISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same\nstrain were in the same distress.\nMISTRESS FORD I think my husband hath some special suspicion of\nFalstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross\nin his jealousy till now.\nMISTRESS PAGE I will lay a plot to try that; and we will yet have\nmore tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will\nscarce obey this medicine.\nMISTRESS FORD Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress\nQuickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the\nwater; and give him another hope, to betray him to\nanother punishment?\nMISTRESS PAGE We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow,\neight o'clock, to have amends.\n[Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and\nSIR HUGH EVANS]\nFORD I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that\nhe could not compass.\nMISTRESS PAGE [Aside to MISTRESS FORD] Heard you that?\nMISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you?\nFORD Ay, I do so.\nMISTRESS FORD Heaven make you better than your thoughts!\nFORD Amen!\nMISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.\nFORD Ay, ay; I must bear it.\nSIR HUGH EVANS If there be any pody in the house, and in the\nchambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses,\nheaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies.\nPAGE Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What\nspirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I\nwould not ha' your distemper in this kind for the\nwealth of Windsor Castle.\nFORD 'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.\nSIR HUGH EVANS You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as\nhonest a 'omans as I will desires among five\nthousand, and five hundred too.\nDOCTOR CAIUS By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.\nFORD Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in\nthe Park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter\nmake known to you why I have done this. Come,\nwife; come, Mistress Page. I pray you, pardon me;\npray heartily, pardon me.\nPAGE Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock\nhim. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house\nto breakfast: after, we'll a-birding together; I\nhave a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?\nFORD Any thing.\nSIR HUGH EVANS If there is one, I shall make two in the company.\nDOCTOR CAIUS If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.\nFORD Pray you, go, Master Page.\nSIR HUGH EVANS I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy\nknave, mine host.\nDOCTOR CAIUS Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart!\nSIR HUGH EVANS A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT III\nSCENE IV A room in PAGE'S house.\n[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE]\nFENTON I see I cannot get thy father's love;\nTherefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.\nANNE PAGE Alas, how then?\nFENTON Why, thou must be thyself.\nHe doth object I am too great of birth--,\nAnd that, my state being gall'd with my expense,\nI seek to heal it only by his wealth:\nBesides these, other bars he lays before me,\nMy riots past, my wild societies;\nAnd tells me 'tis a thing impossible\nI should love thee but as a property.\nANNE PAGE May be he tells you true.\nFENTON No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!\nAlbeit I will confess thy father's wealth\nWas the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne:\nYet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value\nThan stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;\nAnd 'tis the very riches of thyself\nThat now I aim at.\nANNE PAGE Gentle Master Fenton,\nYet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir:\nIf opportunity and humblest suit\nCannot attain it, why, then,--hark you hither!\n[They converse apart]\n[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nSHALLOW Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall\nspeak for himself.\nSLENDER I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but\nventuring.\nSHALLOW Be not dismayed.\nSLENDER No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,\nbut that I am afeard.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.\nANNE PAGE I come to him.\n[Aside]\nThis is my father's choice.\nO, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults\nLooks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.\nSHALLOW She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!\nSLENDER I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you\ngood jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress\nAnne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of\na pen, good uncle.\nSHALLOW Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.\nSLENDER Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in\nGloucestershire.\nSHALLOW He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.\nSLENDER Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the\ndegree of a squire.\nSHALLOW He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.\nANNE PAGE Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.\nSHALLOW Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good\ncomfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you.\nANNE PAGE Now, Master Slender,--\nSLENDER Now, good Mistress Anne,--\nANNE PAGE What is your will?\nSLENDER My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest\nindeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I\nam not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.\nANNE PAGE I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?\nSLENDER Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing\nwith you. Your father and my uncle hath made\nmotions: if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be\nhis dole! They can tell you how things go better\nthan I can: you may ask your father; here he comes.\n[Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE]\nPAGE Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.\nWhy, how now! what does Master Fenton here?\nYou wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:\nI told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.\nFENTON Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.\nMISTRESS PAGE Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.\nPAGE She is no match for you.\nFENTON Sir, will you hear me?\nPAGE No, good Master Fenton.\nCome, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.\nKnowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.\n[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Speak to Mistress Page.\nFENTON Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter\nIn such a righteous fashion as I do,\nPerforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners,\nI must advance the colours of my love\nAnd not retire: let me have your good will.\nANNE PAGE Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.\nMISTRESS PAGE I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY That's my master, master doctor.\nANNE PAGE Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth\nAnd bowl'd to death with turnips!\nMISTRESS PAGE Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,\nI will not be your friend nor enemy:\nMy daughter will I question how she loves you,\nAnd as I find her, so am I affected.\nTill then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;\nHer father will be angry.\nFENTON Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.\n[Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ANNE PAGE]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY This is my doing, now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast\naway your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on\nMaster Fenton:' this is my doing.\nFENTON I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night\nGive my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Now heaven send thee good fortune!\n[Exit FENTON]\nA kind heart he hath: a woman would run through\nfire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I\nwould my master had Mistress Anne; or I would\nMaster Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master\nFenton had her; I will do what I can for them all\nthree; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good\nas my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well,\nI must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from\nmy two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it!\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT III\nSCENE V A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]\nFALSTAFF Bardolph, I say,--\nBARDOLPH Here, sir.\nFALSTAFF Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.\n[Exit BARDOLPH]\nHave I lived to be carried in a basket, like a\nbarrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the\nThames? Well, if I be served such another trick,\nI'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give\nthem to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues\nslighted me into the river with as little remorse as\nthey would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies,\nfifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size\nthat I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the\nbottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had\nbeen drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and\nshallow,--a death that I abhor; for the water swells\na man; and what a thing should I have been when I\nhad been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.\n[Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack]\nBARDOLPH Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.\nFALSTAFF Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my\nbelly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for\npills to cool the reins. Call her in.\nBARDOLPH Come in, woman!\n[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship\ngood morrow.\nFALSTAFF Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of\nsack finely.\nBARDOLPH With eggs, sir?\nFALSTAFF Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.\n[Exit BARDOLPH]\nHow now!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.\nFALSTAFF Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown\ninto the ford; I have my belly full of ford.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:\nshe does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.\nFALSTAFF So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn\nyour heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning\na-birding; she desires you once more to come to her\nbetween eight and nine: I must carry her word\nquickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.\nFALSTAFF Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her\nthink what a man is: let her consider his frailty,\nand then judge of my merit.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY I will tell her.\nFALSTAFF Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir.\nFALSTAFF Well, be gone: I will not miss her.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Peace be with you, sir.\n[Exit]\nFALSTAFF I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word\nto stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.\n[Enter FORD]\nFORD Bless you, sir!\nFALSTAFF Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed\nbetween me and Ford's wife?\nFORD That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.\nFALSTAFF Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her\nhouse the hour she appointed me.\nFORD And sped you, sir?\nFALSTAFF Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.\nFORD How so, sir? Did she change her determination?\nFALSTAFF No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her\nhusband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual\n'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our\nencounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested,\nand, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy;\nand at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither\nprovoked and instigated by his distemper, and,\nforsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.\nFORD What, while you were there?\nFALSTAFF While I was there.\nFORD And did he search for you, and could not find you?\nFALSTAFF You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes\nin one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's\napproach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's\ndistraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.\nFORD A buck-basket!\nFALSTAFF By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul\nshirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy\nnapkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest\ncompound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.\nFORD And how long lay you there?\nFALSTAFF Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have\nsuffered to bring this woman to evil for your good.\nBeing thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's\nknaves, his hinds, were called forth by their\nmistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to\nDatchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met\nthe jealous knave their master in the door, who\nasked them once or twice what they had in their\nbasket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave\nwould have searched it; but fate, ordaining he\nshould be a cuckold, held his hand. Well: on went he\nfor a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But\nmark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs\nof three several deaths; first, an intolerable\nfright, to be detected with a jealous rotten\nbell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good\nbilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to\npoint, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in,\nlike a strong distillation, with stinking clothes\nthat fretted in their own grease: think of that,--a\nman of my kidney,--think of that,--that am as subject\nto heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution\nand thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation.\nAnd in the height of this bath, when I was more than\nhalf stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be\nthrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot,\nin that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of\nthat,--hissing hot,--think of that, Master Brook.\nFORD In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you\nhave sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;\nyou'll undertake her no more?\nFALSTAFF Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have\nbeen into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her\nhusband is this morning gone a-birding: I have\nreceived from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt\neight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.\nFORD 'Tis past eight already, sir.\nFALSTAFF Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.\nCome to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall\nknow how I speed; and the conclusion shall be\ncrowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall\nhave her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall\ncuckold Ford.\n[Exit]\nFORD Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I\nsleep? Master Ford awake! awake, Master Ford!\nthere's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford.\nThis 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen\nand buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself\nwhat I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my\nhouse; he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he\nshould; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse,\nnor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that\nguides him should aid him, I will search\nimpossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid,\nyet to be what I would not shall not make me tame:\nif I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go\nwith me: I'll be horn-mad.\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE I A street.\n[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and\nWILLIAM PAGE]\nMISTRESS PAGE Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but,\ntruly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing\ninto the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.\nMISTRESS PAGE I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young\nman here to school. Look, where his master comes;\n'tis a playing-day, I see.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS]\nHow now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?\nSIR HUGH EVANS No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart!\nMISTRESS PAGE Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in\nthe world at his book. I pray you, ask him some\nquestions in his accidence.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.\nMISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your\nmaster, be not afraid.\nSIR HUGH EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns?\nWILLIAM PAGE Two.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more,\nbecause they say, ''Od's nouns.'\nSIR HUGH EVANS Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?\nWILLIAM PAGE Pulcher.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.\nSIR HUGH EVANS You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace.\nWhat is 'lapis,' William?\nWILLIAM PAGE A stone.\nSIR HUGH EVANS And what is 'a stone,' William?\nWILLIAM PAGE A pebble.\nSIR HUGH EVANS No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain.\nWILLIAM PAGE Lapis.\nSIR HUGH EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that\ndoes lend articles?\nWILLIAM PAGE Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus\ndeclined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:\ngenitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?\nWILLIAM PAGE Accusativo, hinc.\nSIR HUGH EVANS I pray you, have your remembrance, child,\naccusative, hung, hang, hog.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative\ncase, William?\nWILLIAM PAGE O,--vocativo, O.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Remember, William; focative is caret.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY And that's a good root.\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, forbear.\nMISTRESS PAGE Peace!\nSIR HUGH EVANS What is your genitive case plural, William?\nWILLIAM PAGE Genitive case!\nSIR HUGH EVANS Ay.\nWILLIAM PAGE Genitive,--horum, harum, horum.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name\nher, child, if she be a whore.\nSIR HUGH EVANS For shame, 'oman.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY You do ill to teach the child such words: he\nteaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do\nfast enough of themselves, and to call 'horum:' fie upon you!\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no\nunderstandings for thy cases and the numbers of the\ngenders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as\nI would desires.\nMISTRESS PAGE Prithee, hold thy peace.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.\nWILLIAM PAGE Forsooth, I have forgot.\nSIR HUGH EVANS It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your 'quies,'\nyour 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be\npreeches. Go your ways, and play; go.\nMISTRESS PAGE He is a better scholar than I thought he was.\nSIR HUGH EVANS He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.\nMISTRESS PAGE Adieu, good Sir Hugh.\n[Exit SIR HUGH EVANS]\nGet you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE II A room in FORD'S house.\n[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD]\nFALSTAFF Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my\nsufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love,\nand I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not\nonly, Mistress Ford, in the simple\noffice of love, but in all the accoutrement,\ncomplement and ceremony of it. But are you\nsure of your husband now?\nMISTRESS FORD He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.\nMISTRESS PAGE [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!\nMISTRESS FORD Step into the chamber, Sir John.\n[Exit FALSTAFF]\n[Enter MISTRESS PAGE]\nMISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?\nMISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people.\nMISTRESS PAGE Indeed!\nMISTRESS FORD No, certainly.\n[Aside to her]\nSpeak louder.\nMISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.\nMISTRESS FORD Why?\nMISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again:\nhe so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails\nagainst all married mankind; so curses all Eve's\ndaughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets\nhimself on the forehead, crying, 'Peer out, peer\nout!' that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but\ntameness, civility and patience, to this his\ndistemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here.\nMISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him?\nMISTRESS PAGE Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the\nlast time he searched for him, in a basket; protests\nto my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and\nthe rest of their company from their sport, to make\nanother experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad\nthe knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.\nMISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page?\nMISTRESS PAGE Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.\nMISTRESS FORD I am undone! The knight is here.\nMISTRESS PAGE Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead\nman. What a woman are you!--Away with him, away\nwith him! better shame than murder.\nFORD Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?\nShall I put him into the basket again?\n[Re-enter FALSTAFF]\nFALSTAFF No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go\nout ere he come?\nMISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door\nwith pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise\nyou might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?\nFALSTAFF What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.\nMISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their\nbirding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.\nFALSTAFF Where is it?\nMISTRESS FORD He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,\ncoffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an\nabstract for the remembrance of such places, and\ngoes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.\nFALSTAFF I'll go out then.\nMISTRESS PAGE If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir\nJohn. Unless you go out disguised--\nMISTRESS FORD How might we disguise him?\nMISTRESS PAGE Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's gown\nbig enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat,\na muffler and a kerchief, and so escape.\nFALSTAFF Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather\nthan a mischief.\nMISTRESS FORD My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a\ngown above.\nMISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he\nis: and there's her thrummed hat and her muffler\ntoo. Run up, Sir John.\nMISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will\nlook some linen for your head.\nMISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put\non the gown the while.\n[Exit FALSTAFF]\nMISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he\ncannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears\nshe's a witch; forbade her my house and hath\nthreatened to beat her.\nMISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the\ndevil guide his cudgel afterwards!\nMISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming?\nMISTRESS PAGE Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket\ntoo, howsoever he hath had intelligence.\nMISTRESS FORD We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the\nbasket again, to meet him at the door with it, as\nthey did last time.\nMISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him\nlike the witch of Brentford.\nMISTRESS FORD I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the\nbasket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.\n[Exit]\nMISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.\nWe'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,\nWives may be merry, and yet honest too:\nWe do not act that often jest and laugh;\n'Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff.\n[Exit]\n[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants]\nMISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders:\nyour master is hard at door; if he bid you set it\ndown, obey him: quickly, dispatch.\n[Exit]\nFirst Servant Come, come, take it up.\nSecond Servant Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.\nFirst Servant I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.\n[Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and\nSIR HUGH EVANS]\nFORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any\nway then to unfool me again? Set down the basket,\nvillain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket!\nO you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a\npack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil\nbe shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth!\nBehold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!\nPAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go\nloose any longer; you must be pinioned.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog!\nSHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.\nFORD So say I too, sir.\n[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD]\nCome hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford the honest\nwoman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that\nhath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect\nwithout cause, mistress, do I?\nMISTRESS FORD Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in\nany dishonesty.\nFORD Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah!\n[Pulling clothes out of the basket]\nPAGE This passes!\nMISTRESS FORD Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.\nFORD I shall find you anon.\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's\nclothes? Come away.\nFORD Empty the basket, I say!\nMISTRESS FORD Why, man, why?\nFORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed\nout of my house yesterday in this basket: why may\nnot he be there again? In my house I am sure he is:\nmy intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.\nPluck me out all the linen.\nMISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.\nPAGE Here's no man.\nSHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this\nwrongs you.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the\nimaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.\nFORD Well, he's not here I seek for.\nPAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.\nFORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find\nnot what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let\nme for ever be your table-sport; let them say of\nme, 'As jealous as Ford, Chat searched a hollow\nwalnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more;\nonce more search with me.\nMISTRESS FORD What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman\ndown; my husband will come into the chamber.\nFORD Old woman! what old woman's that?\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.\nFORD A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not\nforbid her my house? She comes of errands, does\nshe? We are simple men; we do not know what's\nbrought to pass under the profession of\nfortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells,\nby the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond\nour element we know nothing. Come down, you witch,\nyou hag, you; come down, I say!\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him\nnot strike the old woman.\n[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and\nMISTRESS PAGE]\nMISTRESS PAGE Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.\nFORD I'll prat her.\n[Beating him]\nOut of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you\npolecat, you runyon! out, out! I'll conjure you,\nI'll fortune-tell you.\n[Exit FALSTAFF]\nMISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the\npoor woman.\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.\nFORD Hang her, witch!\nSIR HUGH EVANS By the yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch\nindeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard;\nI spy a great peard under his muffler.\nFORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow;\nsee but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus\nupon no trail, never trust me when I open again.\nPAGE Let's obey his humour a little further: come,\ngentlemen.\n[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and\nSIR HUGH EVANS]\nMISTRESS PAGE Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.\nMISTRESS FORD Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most\nunpitifully, methought.\nMISTRESS PAGE I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the\naltar; it hath done meritorious service.\nMISTRESS FORD What think you? may we, with the warrant of\nwomanhood and the witness of a good conscience,\npursue him with any further revenge?\nMISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of\nhim: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with\nfine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the\nway of waste, attempt us again.\nMISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?\nMISTRESS PAGE Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the\nfigures out of your husband's brains. If they can\nfind in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight\nshall be any further afflicted, we two will still be\nthe ministers.\nMISTRESS FORD I'll warrant they'll have him publicly shamed: and\nmethinks there would be no period to the jest,\nshould he not be publicly shamed.\nMISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would\nnot have things cool.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE III A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter Host and BARDOLPH]\nBARDOLPH Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your\nhorses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at\ncourt, and they are going to meet him.\nHost What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear\nnot of him in the court. Let me speak with the\ngentlemen: they speak English?\nBARDOLPH Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.\nHost They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay;\nI'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at\ncommand; I have turned away my other guests: they\nmust come off; I'll sauce them. Come.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE IV A room in FORD'S house.\n[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD,\nand SIR HUGH EVANS]\nSIR HUGH EVANS 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever\nI did look upon.\nPAGE And did he send you both these letters at an instant?\nMISTRESS PAGE Within a quarter of an hour.\nFORD Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;\nI rather will suspect the sun with cold\nThan thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand\nIn him that was of late an heretic,\nAs firm as faith.\nPAGE 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:\nBe not as extreme in submission\nAs in offence.\nBut let our plot go forward: let our wives\nYet once again, to make us public sport,\nAppoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,\nWhere we may take him and disgrace him for it.\nFORD There is no better way than that they spoke of.\nPAGE How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park\nat midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.\nSIR HUGH EVANS You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has\nbeen grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks\nthere should be terrors in him that he should not\ncome; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have\nno desires.\nPAGE So think I too.\nMISTRESS FORD Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,\nAnd let us two devise to bring him thither.\nMISTRESS PAGE There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,\nSometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,\nDoth all the winter-time, at still midnight,\nWalk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;\nAnd there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle\nAnd makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain\nIn a most hideous and dreadful manner:\nYou have heard of such a spirit, and well you know\nThe superstitious idle-headed eld\nReceived and did deliver to our age\nThis tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.\nPAGE Why, yet there want not many that do fear\nIn deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:\nBut what of this?\nMISTRESS FORD Marry, this is our device;\nThat Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.\nPAGE Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:\nAnd in this shape when you have brought him thither,\nWhat shall be done with him? what is your plot?\nMISTRESS PAGE That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:\nNan Page my daughter and my little son\nAnd three or four more of their growth we'll dress\nLike urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,\nWith rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,\nAnd rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,\nAs Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,\nLet them from forth a sawpit rush at once\nWith some diffused song: upon their sight,\nWe two in great amazedness will fly:\nThen let them all encircle him about\nAnd, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,\nAnd ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,\nIn their so sacred paths he dares to tread\nIn shape profane.\nMISTRESS FORD And till he tell the truth,\nLet the supposed fairies pinch him sound\nAnd burn him with their tapers.\nMISTRESS PAGE The truth being known,\nWe'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,\nAnd mock him home to Windsor.\nFORD The children must\nBe practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.\nSIR HUGH EVANS I will teach the children their behaviors; and I\nwill be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the\nknight with my taber.\nFORD That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards.\nMISTRESS PAGE My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,\nFinely attired in a robe of white.\nPAGE That silk will I go buy.\n[Aside]\nAnd in that time\nShall Master Slender steal my Nan away\nAnd marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.\nFORD Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook\nHe'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.\nMISTRESS PAGE Fear not you that. Go get us properties\nAnd tricking for our fairies.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery\nhonest knaveries.\n[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS]\nMISTRESS PAGE Go, Mistress Ford,\nSend quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.\n[Exit MISTRESS FORD]\nI'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,\nAnd none but he, to marry with Nan Page.\nThat Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;\nAnd he my husband best of all affects.\nThe doctor is well money'd, and his friends\nPotent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,\nThough twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.\n[Exit]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE V A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter Host and SIMPLE]\nHost What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?\nspeak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.\nSIMPLE Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff\nfrom Master Slender.\nHost There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his\nstanding-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about\nwith the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go\nknock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian\nunto thee: knock, I say.\nSIMPLE There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his\nchamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come\ndown; I come to speak with her, indeed.\nHost Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll\ncall. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from\nthy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine\nhost, thine Ephesian, calls.\nFALSTAFF [Above] How now, mine host!\nHost Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of\nthy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her\ndescend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?\nfie!\n[Enter FALSTAFF]\nFALSTAFF There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with\nme; but she's gone.\nSIMPLE Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of\nBrentford?\nFALSTAFF Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?\nSIMPLE My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing\nher go through the streets, to know, sir, whether\none Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the\nchain or no.\nFALSTAFF I spake with the old woman about it.\nSIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir?\nFALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that\nbeguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of\nit.\nSIMPLE I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;\nI had other things to have spoken with her too from\nhim.\nFALSTAFF What are they? let us know.\nHost Ay, come; quick.\nSIMPLE I may not conceal them, sir.\nHost Conceal them, or thou diest.\nSIMPLE Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne\nPage; to know if it were my master's fortune to\nhave her or no.\nFALSTAFF 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.\nSIMPLE What, sir?\nFALSTAFF To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.\nSIMPLE May I be bold to say so, sir?\nFALSTAFF Ay, sir; like who more bold.\nSIMPLE I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad\nwith these tidings.\n[Exit]\nHost Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was\nthere a wise woman with thee?\nFALSTAFF Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught\nme more wit than ever I learned before in my life;\nand I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for\nmy learning.\n[Enter BARDOLPH]\nBARDOLPH Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!\nHost Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto.\nBARDOLPH Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came\nbeyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of\nthem, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away,\nlike three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.\nHost They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not\nsay they be fled; Germans are honest men.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS]\nSIR HUGH EVANS Where is mine host?\nHost What is the matter, sir?\nSIR HUGH EVANS Have a care of your entertainments: there is a\nfriend of mine come to town tells me there is three\ncozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of\nReadins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and\nmoney. I tell you for good will, look you: you\nare wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and\n'tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.\n[Exit]\n[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vere is mine host de Jarteer?\nHost Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.\nDOCTOR CAIUS I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat\nyou make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by\nmy trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to\ncome. I tell you for good vill: adieu.\n[Exit]\nHost Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am\nundone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone!\n[Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH]\nFALSTAFF I would all the world might be cozened; for I have\nbeen cozened and beaten too. If it should come to\nthe ear of the court, how I have been transformed\nand how my transformation hath been washed and\ncudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by\ndrop and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant\nthey would whip me with their fine wits till I were\nas crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered\nsince I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my\nwind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.\n[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nNow, whence come you?\nMISTRESS QUICKLY From the two parties, forsooth.\nFALSTAFF The devil take one party and his dam the other! and\nso they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more\nfor their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy\nof man's disposition is able to bear.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant;\nspeciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart,\nis beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a\nwhite spot about her.\nFALSTAFF What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was\nbeaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow;\nand I was like to be apprehended for the witch of\nBrentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit,\nmy counterfeiting the action of an old woman,\ndelivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the\nstocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you\nshall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your\ncontent. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good\nhearts, what ado here is to bring you together!\nSure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that\nyou are so crossed.\nFALSTAFF Come up into my chamber.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT IV\nSCENE VI Another room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter FENTON and Host]\nHost Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I\nwill give over all.\nFENTON Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,\nAnd, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee\nA hundred pound in gold more than your loss.\nHost I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the\nleast keep your counsel.\nFENTON From time to time I have acquainted you\nWith the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;\nWho mutually hath answer'd my affection,\nSo far forth as herself might be her chooser,\nEven to my wish: I have a letter from her\nOf such contents as you will wonder at;\nThe mirth whereof so larded with my matter,\nThat neither singly can be manifested,\nWithout the show of both; fat Falstaff\nHath a great scene: the image of the jest\nI'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host.\nTo-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,\nMust my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;\nThe purpose why, is here: in which disguise,\nWhile other jests are something rank on foot,\nHer father hath commanded her to slip\nAway with Slender and with him at Eton\nImmediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir,\nHer mother, ever strong against that match\nAnd firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed\nThat he shall likewise shuffle her away,\nWhile other sports are tasking of their minds,\nAnd at the deanery, where a priest attends,\nStraight marry her: to this her mother's plot\nShe seemingly obedient likewise hath\nMade promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests:\nHer father means she shall be all in white,\nAnd in that habit, when Slender sees his time\nTo take her by the hand and bid her go,\nShe shall go with him: her mother hath intended,\nThe better to denote her to the doctor,\nFor they must all be mask'd and vizarded,\nThat quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,\nWith ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;\nAnd when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,\nTo pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,\nThe maid hath given consent to go with him.\nHost Which means she to deceive, father or mother?\nFENTON Both, my good host, to go along with me:\nAnd here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar\nTo stay for me at church 'twixt twelve and one,\nAnd, in the lawful name of marrying,\nTo give our hearts united ceremony.\nHost Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar:\nBring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.\nFENTON So shall I evermore be bound to thee;\nBesides, I'll make a present recompense.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT V\nSCENE I A room in the Garter Inn.\n[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY]\nFALSTAFF Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is\nthe third time; I hope good luck lies in odd\nnumbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in\nodd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to\nget you a pair of horns.\nFALSTAFF Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince.\n[Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY]\n[Enter FORD]\nHow now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter\nwill be known to-night, or never. Be you in the\nPark about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall\nsee wonders.\nFORD Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me\nyou had appointed?\nFALSTAFF I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor\nold man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a\npoor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband,\nhath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him,\nMaster Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell\nyou: he beat me grievously, in the shape of a\nwoman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear\nnot Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know\nalso life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along\nwith me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I\nplucked geese, played truant and whipped top, I knew\nnot what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow\nme: I'll tell you strange things of this knave\nFord, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I\nwill deliver his wife into your hand. Follow.\nStrange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT V\nSCENE II Windsor Park.\n[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER]\nPAGE Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we\nsee the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,\nmy daughter.\nSLENDER Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her and we have a\nnay-word how to know one another: I come to her in\nwhite, and cry 'mum;' she cries 'budget;' and by\nthat we know one another.\nSHALLOW That's good too: but what needs either your 'mum'\nor her 'budget?' the white will decipher her well\nenough. It hath struck ten o'clock.\nPAGE The night is dark; light and spirits will become it\nwell. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil\nbut the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.\nLet's away; follow me.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT V\nSCENE III A street leading to the Park.\n[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and\nDOCTOR CAIUS]\nMISTRESS PAGE Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you\nsee your time, take her by the band, away with her\nto the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before\ninto the Park: we two must go together.\nDOCTOR CAIUS I know vat I have to do. Adieu.\nMISTRESS PAGE Fare you well, sir.\n[Exit DOCTOR CAIUS]\nMy husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of\nFalstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying\nmy daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little\nchiding than a great deal of heart-break.\nMISTRESS FORD Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the\nWelsh devil Hugh?\nMISTRESS PAGE They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak,\nwith obscured lights; which, at the very instant of\nFalstaff's and our meeting, they will at once\ndisplay to the night.\nMISTRESS FORD That cannot choose but amaze him.\nMISTRESS PAGE If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be\namazed, he will every way be mocked.\nMISTRESS FORD We'll betray him finely.\nMISTRESS PAGE Against such lewdsters and their lechery\nThose that betray them do no treachery.\nMISTRESS FORD The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT V\nSCENE IV Windsor Park.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies]\nSIR HUGH EVANS Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts:\nbe pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and\nwhen I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you:\ncome, come; trib, trib.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\nACT V\nSCENE V Another part of the Park.\n[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne]\nFALSTAFF The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute\ndraws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!\nRemember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love\nset on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some\nrespects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man\na beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love\nof Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew\nto the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in\nthe form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And\nthen another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think\non 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot\nbacks, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a\nWindsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the\nforest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can\nblame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my\ndoe?\n[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE]\nMISTRESS FORD Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?\nFALSTAFF My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain\npotatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green\nSleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let\nthere come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.\nMISTRESS FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.\nFALSTAFF Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will\nkeep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow\nof this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.\nAm I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter?\nWhy, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes\nrestitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!\n[Noise within]\nMISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise?\nMISTRESS FORD Heaven forgive our sins\nFALSTAFF What should this be?\nMISTRESS FORD |\n| Away, away!\nMISTRESS PAGE |\n[They run off]\nFALSTAFF I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the\noil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would\nnever else cross me thus.\n[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL,\nas Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and\nothers, as Fairies, with tapers]\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,\nYou moonshine revellers and shades of night,\nYou orphan heirs of fixed destiny,\nAttend your office and your quality.\nCrier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.\nPISTOL Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.\nCricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:\nWhere fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,\nThere pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:\nOur radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.\nFALSTAFF They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:\nI'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.\n[Lies down upon his face]\nSIR HUGH EVANS Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid\nThat, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,\nRaise up the organs of her fantasy;\nSleep she as sound as careless infancy:\nBut those as sleep and think not on their sins,\nPinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY About, about;\nSearch Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:\nStrew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:\nThat it may stand till the perpetual doom,\nIn state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,\nWorthy the owner, and the owner it.\nThe several chairs of order look you scour\nWith juice of balm and every precious flower:\nEach fair instalment, coat, and several crest,\nWith loyal blazon, evermore be blest!\nAnd nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,\nLike to the Garter's compass, in a ring:\nThe expressure that it bears, green let it be,\nMore fertile-fresh than all the field to see;\nAnd 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write\nIn emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;\nLet sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,\nBuckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:\nFairies use flowers for their charactery.\nAway; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,\nOur dance of custom round about the oak\nOf Herne the hunter, let us not forget.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set\nAnd twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,\nTo guide our measure round about the tree.\nBut, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.\nFALSTAFF Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he\ntransform me to a piece of cheese!\nPISTOL Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.\nMISTRESS QUICKLY With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:\nIf he be chaste, the flame will back descend\nAnd turn him to no pain; but if he start,\nIt is the flesh of a corrupted heart.\nPISTOL A trial, come.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Come, will this wood take fire?\n[They burn him with their tapers]\nFALSTAFF Oh, Oh, Oh!\nMISTRESS QUICKLY Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!\nAbout him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;\nAnd, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.\nSONG.\nFie on sinful fantasy!\nFie on lust and luxury!\nLust is but a bloody fire,\nKindled with unchaste desire,\nFed in heart, whose flames aspire\nAs thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.\nPinch him, fairies, mutually;\nPinch him for his villany;\nPinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,\nTill candles and starlight and moonshine be out.\n[During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS\ncomes one way, and steals away a boy in green;\nSLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white;\nand FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE.\nA noise of hunting is heard within. All the\nFairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's\nhead, and rises]\n[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD]\nPAGE Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now\nWill none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?\nMISTRESS PAGE I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher\nNow, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?\nSee you these, husband? do not these fair yokes\nBecome the forest better than the town?\nFORD Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,\nFalstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his\nhorns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath\nenjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his\ncudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be\npaid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for\nit, Master Brook.\nMISTRESS FORD Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.\nI will never take you for my love again; but I will\nalways count you my deer.\nFALSTAFF I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.\nFORD Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.\nFALSTAFF And these are not fairies? I was three or four\ntimes in the thought they were not fairies: and yet\nthe guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my\npowers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a\nreceived belief, in despite of the teeth of all\nrhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now\nhow wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon\nill employment!\nSIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your\ndesires, and fairies will not pinse you.\nFORD Well said, fairy Hugh.\nSIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.\nFORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art\nable to woo her in good English.\nFALSTAFF Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that\nit wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as\nthis? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I\nhave a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked\nwith a piece of toasted cheese.\nSIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.\nFALSTAFF 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the\ntaunt of one that makes fritters of English? This\nis enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking\nthrough the realm.\nMISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the\nvirtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders\nand have given ourselves without scruple to hell,\nthat ever the devil could have made you our delight?\nFORD What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?\nMISTRESS PAGE A puffed man?\nPAGE Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?\nFORD And one that is as slanderous as Satan?\nPAGE And as poor as Job?\nFORD And as wicked as his wife?\nSIR HUGH EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack\nand wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and\nswearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?\nFALSTAFF Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I\nam dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh\nflannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use\nme as you will.\nFORD Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one\nMaster Brook, that you have cozened of money, to\nwhom you should have been a pander: over and above\nthat you have suffered, I think to repay that money\nwill be a biting affliction.\nPAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset\nto-night at my house; where I will desire thee to\nlaugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her\nMaster Slender hath married her daughter.\nMISTRESS PAGE [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my\ndaughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.\n[Enter SLENDER]\nSLENDER Whoa ho! ho, father Page!\nPAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?\nSLENDER Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire\nknow on't; would I were hanged, la, else.\nPAGE Of what, son?\nSLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,\nand she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been\ni' the church, I would have swinged him, or he\nshould have swinged me. If I did not think it had\nbeen Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis\na postmaster's boy.\nPAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.\nSLENDER What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took\na boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for\nall he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had\nhim.\nPAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how\nyou should know my daughter by her garments?\nSLENDER I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she\ncried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet\nit was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.\nMISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;\nturned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is\nnow with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.\n[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS]\nDOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'\nmarried un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;\nit is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.\nMISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green?\nDOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.\n[Exit]\nFORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?\nPAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.\n[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE]\nHow now, Master Fenton!\nANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!\nPAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?\nMISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid?\nFENTON You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.\nYou would have married her most shamefully,\nWhere there was no proportion held in love.\nThe truth is, she and I, long since contracted,\nAre now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.\nThe offence is holy that she hath committed;\nAnd this deceit loses the name of craft,\nOf disobedience, or unduteous title,\nSince therein she doth evitate and shun\nA thousand irreligious cursed hours,\nWhich forced marriage would have brought upon her.\nFORD Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:\nIn love the heavens themselves do guide the state;\nMoney buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.\nFALSTAFF I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to\nstrike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.\nPAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!\nWhat cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.\nFALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.\nMISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,\nHeaven give you many, many merry days!\nGood husband, let us every one go home,\nAnd laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;\nSir John and all.\nFORD Let it be so. Sir John,\nTo Master Brook you yet shall hold your word\nFor he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.\n[Exeunt]","title":"Merry Wives of Windsor","type":"page"}