The Merry Wives of Windsor

Scene I. Windsor. Before Page’s house.

Enter Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

Ay, cousin Slender, and ‘Custalourum’.

Slender

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

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

It is an old coat.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

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

Slender

I may quarter, coz.

Shallow

You may, by marrying.

Sir Hugh Evans

It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

Shallow

Not a whit.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

The council shall bear it; it is a riot.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Slender

Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Slender

I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.

Sir Hugh Evans

Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.

Shallow

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

Sir Hugh Evans

Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that is false, or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master Page.

Knocks

What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

Page

[Within] Who’s there?

Enter Page

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Page

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

Shallow

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

Page

Sir, I thank you.

Shallow

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

Page

I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

Slender

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

Page

It could not be judged, sir.

Slender

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

Shallow

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

Page

A cur, sir.

Shallow

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

Page

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

Sir Hugh Evans

It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

Shallow

He hath wronged me, Master Page.

Page

Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.

Shallow

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

Page

Here comes Sir John.

Enter Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol

Falstaff

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

Shallow

Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.

Falstaff

But not kissed your keeper’s daughter?

Shallow

Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

Falstaff

I will answer it straight; I have done all this.
That is now answered.

Shallow

The council shall know this.

Falstaff

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

Sir Hugh Evans

Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.

Falstaff

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

Slender

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

Bardolph

You Banbury cheese!

Slender

Ay, it is no matter.

Pistol

How now, Mephostophilus!

Slender

Ay, it is no matter.

Nym

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Page

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Falstaff

Pistol!

Pistol

He hears with ears.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Falstaff

Pistol, did you pick Master Slender’s purse?

Slender

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

Falstaff

Is this true, Pistol?

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Pistol

Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and Master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
Word of denial in thy labras here!
Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!

Slender

By these gloves, then, ’twas he.

Nym

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

Slender

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

Falstaff

What say you, Scarlet and John?

Bardolph

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Bardolph

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

Falstaff

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

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

Page

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

Exit Anne Page

Slender

O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.

Page

How now, Mistress Ford!

Falstaff

Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress.

Kisses her

Page

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

Exeunt all except Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans

Slender

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

Enter Simple

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

Simple

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

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

Nay, but understand me.

Slender

So I do, sir.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

But that is not the question: the question is concerning your marriage.

Shallow

Ay, there’s the point, sir.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Shallow

Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

Slender

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

Shallow

Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

Re-enter Anne Page

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

Anne Page

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

Shallow

I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Exeunt Shallow and Sir Hugh Evans

Anne Page

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

Slender

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

Anne Page

The dinner attends you, sir.

Slender

I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow.

Exit Simple

A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

Anne Page

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

Slender

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

Anne Page

I pray you, sir, walk in.

Slender

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

Anne Page

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

Slender

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

Anne Page

Ay, indeed, sir.

Slender

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

Re-enter Page

Page

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

Slender

I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

Page

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

Slender

Nay, pray you, lead the way.

Page

Come on, sir.

Slender

Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Anne Page

Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.

Slender

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

Exeunt

Scene II. The same.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Simple

Well, sir.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Exeunt

Scene III. A room in the Garter Inn.

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

Falstaff

Mine host of the Garter!

Host

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

Falstaff

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

Host

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

Falstaff

I sit at ten pounds a week.

Host

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

Falstaff

Do so, good mine host.

Host

I have spoke; let him follow.

To Bardolph

Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow.

Exit

Falstaff

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

Bardolph

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

Pistol

O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?

Exit Bardolph

Nym

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

Falstaff

I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer; he kept not time.

Nym

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

Pistol

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

Falstaff

Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

Pistol

Why, then, let kibes ensue.

Falstaff

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

Pistol

Young ravens must have food.

Falstaff

Which of you know Ford of this town?

Pistol

I ken the wight: he is of substance good.

Falstaff

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

Pistol

Two yards, and more.

Falstaff

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

Pistol

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

Nym

The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?

Falstaff

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

Pistol

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

Nym

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

Falstaff

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

Pistol

Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

Nym

I thank thee for that humour.

Falstaff

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

Pistol

Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all!

Nym

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

Falstaff

[To Robin] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
Trudge, plod away o’ the hoof; seek shelter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,
French thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page.

Exeunt Falstaff and Robin

Pistol

Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor:
Tester I’ll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!

Nym

I have operations which be humours of revenge.

Pistol

Wilt thou revenge?

Nym

By welkin and her star!

Pistol

With wit or steel?

Nym

With both the humours, I:
I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.

Pistol

  And I to Ford shall eke unfold
How Falstaff, varlet vile,
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.

Nym

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

Pistol

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

Exeunt

Scene IV. A room in Doctor Caius’ house.

Enter Mistress Quickly, Simple, and Rugby

Mistress Quickly

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

Rugby

I’ll go watch.

Mistress Quickly

Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.

Exit Rugby

An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?

Simple

Ay, for fault of a better.

Mistress Quickly

And Master Slender’s your master?

Simple

Ay, forsooth.

Mistress Quickly

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

Simple

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

Mistress Quickly

A softly-sprighted man, is he not?

Simple

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Simple

Yes, indeed, does he.

Mistress Quickly

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

Re-enter Rugby

Rugby

Out, alas! here comes my master.

Mistress Quickly

We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; go into this closet: he will not stay long.

Shuts Simple in the closet

What, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be not well, that he comes not home.

Singing

And down, down, adown-a, & c.

Enter Doctor Caius

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

Ay, forsooth; I’ll fetch it you.

Aside

I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

Is it this, sir?

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

What, John Rugby! John!

Rugby

Here, sir!

Doctor Caius

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

Rugby

’Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

Ay me, he’ll find the young man here, and be mad!

Doctor Caius

O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron!

Pulling Simple out

Rugby, my rapier!

Mistress Quickly

Good master, be content.

Doctor Caius

Wherefore shall I be content-a?

Mistress Quickly

The young man is an honest man.

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Doctor Caius

Vell.

Simple

Ay, forsooth; to desire her to—

Mistress Quickly

Peace, I pray you.

Doctor Caius

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

Simple

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Doctor Caius

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

Writes

Mistress Quickly

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

Simple

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Doctor Caius

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

Exit Simple

Mistress Quickly

Alas, he speaks but for his friend.

Doctor Caius

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Doctor Caius

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

Exeunt Doctor Caius and Rugby

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

[Within] Who’s within there? ho!

Mistress Quickly

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

Enter Fenton

Fenton

How now, good woman? how dost thou?

Mistress Quickly

The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.

Fenton

What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.

Mistress Quickly

Farewell to your worship.

Exit Fenton

Truly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne’s mind as well as another does. Out upon’t! what have I forgot?

Exit

Scene I. Before Page’s house.

Enter Mistress Page, with a letter

Mistress Page

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

[Reads] ‘Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there’s sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there’s more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,—at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,— that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; ’tis not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might
For thee to fight, John Falstaff’

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

Enter Mistress Ford

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

Faith, but you do, in my mind.

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

What’s the matter, woman?

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

You are the happier woman.

Mistress Page

Let’s consult together against this greasy knight.
Come hither.

They retire

Enter Ford with Pistol, and Page with Nym

Ford

Well, I hope it be not so.

Pistol

Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.

Ford

Why, sir, my wife is not young.

Pistol

He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.

Ford

Love my wife!

Pistol

With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:
O, odious is the name!

Ford

What name, sir?

Pistol

The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:
Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.

Exit

Ford

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

Nym

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

Exit

Page

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

Ford

I will seek out Falstaff.

Page

I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

Ford

If I do find it: well.

Page

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

Ford

’Twas a good sensible fellow: well.

Page

How now, Meg!

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford come forward

Mistress Page

Whither go you, George? Hark you.

Mistress Ford

How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

Ford

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

Have with you. You’ll come to dinner, George.

Aside to Mistress Ford

Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.

Mistress Ford

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

Enter Mistress Quickly

Mistress Page

You are come to see my daughter Anne?

Mistress Quickly

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

Mistress Page

Go in with us and see: we have an hour’s talk with you.

Exeunt Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Mistress Quickly

Page

How now, Master Ford!

Ford

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

Page

Yes: and you heard what the other told me?

Ford

Do you think there is truth in them?

Page

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

Ford

Were they his men?

Page

Marry, were they.

Ford

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

Page

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

Ford

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

Page

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

Enter Host

How now, mine host!

Host

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

Enter Shallow

Shallow

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

Host

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

Shallow

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

Ford

Good mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you.

Drawing him aside

Host

What sayest thou, my bully-rook?

Shallow

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

They converse apart

Host

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

Ford

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

Host

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

Shallow

Have with you, mine host.

Page

I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.

Shallow

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

Host

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

Page

Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.

Exeunt Host, Shallow, and Page

Ford

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

Exit

Scene II. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff and Pistol

Falstaff

I will not lend thee a penny.

Pistol

Why, then the world’s mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open.

Falstaff

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

Pistol

Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?

Falstaff

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

Pistol

I do relent: what would thou more of man?

Enter Robin

Robin

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

Falstaff

Let her approach.

Enter Mistress Quickly

Mistress Quickly

Give your worship good morrow.

Falstaff

Good morrow, good wife.

Mistress Quickly

Not so, an’t please your worship.

Falstaff

Good maid, then.

Mistress Quickly

I’ll be sworn,
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.

Falstaff

I do believe the swearer. What with me?

Mistress Quickly

Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,—

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,—

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Ten and eleven?

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

Blessing on your heart for’t!

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Why, I will.

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there’s my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with this woman.

Exeunt Mistress Quickly and Robin

This news distracts me!

Pistol

This punk is one of Cupid’s carriers:
Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights:
Give fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!

Exit

Falstaff

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

Enter Bardolph

Bardolph

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

Falstaff

Brook is his name?

Bardolph

Ay, sir.

Falstaff

Call him in.

Exit Bardolph

Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o’erflow such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page have I encompassed you? go to; via!

Re-enter Bardolph, with Ford disguised

Ford

Bless you, sir!

Falstaff

And you, sir! Would you speak with me?

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Exit Bardolph

Ford

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

Falstaff

Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

Very well, sir; proceed.

Ford

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

Falstaff

Well, sir.

Ford

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

‘Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.’

Falstaff

Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?

Ford

Never.

Falstaff

Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

Ford

Never.

Falstaff

Of what quality was your love, then?

Ford

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

Falstaff

To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

Ford

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

Falstaff

O, sir!

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

O good sir!

Falstaff

I say you shall.

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Exit

Ford

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

Exit

Scene III. A field near Windsor.

Enter Doctor Caius and Rugby

Doctor Caius

Jack Rugby!

Rugby

Sir?

Doctor Caius

Vat is de clock, Jack?

Rugby

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

Doctor Caius

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

Rugby

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

Doctor Caius

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

Rugby

Alas, sir, I cannot fence.

Doctor Caius

Villany, take your rapier.

Rugby

Forbear; here’s company.

Enter Host, Shallow, Slender, and Page

Host

Bless thee, bully doctor!

Shallow

Save you, Master Doctor Caius!

Page

Now, good master doctor!

Slender

Give you good morrow, sir.

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

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

Shallow

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

Page

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

Shallow

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

Page

’Tis true, Master Shallow.

Shallow

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

Host

Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.

Doctor Caius

Mock-vater! vat is dat?

Host

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

Doctor Caius

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

Host

He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

Doctor Caius

Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?

Host

That is, he will make thee amends.

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

Me tank you for dat.

Host

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

Aside to them

Page

Sir Hugh is there, is he?

Host

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

Shallow

We will do it.

Page

Shallow

Slender

Adieu, good master doctor.

Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

By gar, ’tis good; vell said.

Host

Let us wag, then.

Doctor Caius

Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

Exeunt

Scene I. A field near Frogmore.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Simple

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Simple

I will, sir.

Exit

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Sings

To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sings madrigals;
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
To shallow—
Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.

Sings

Melodious birds sing madrigals—
When as I sat in Pabylon—
And a thousand vagram posies.
To shallow & c.

Re-enter Simple

Simple

Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.

Sir Hugh Evans

He’s welcome.

Sings

To shallow rivers, to whose falls-
Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?

Simple

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender

Shallow

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

Slender

[Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!

Page

’save you, good Sir Hugh!

Sir Hugh Evans

’Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!

Shallow

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

Page

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

Sir Hugh Evans

There is reasons and causes for it.

Page

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

Sir Hugh Evans

Fery well: what is it?

Page

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

Shallow

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

Sir Hugh Evans

What is he?

Page

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Page

Why?

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Page

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

Shallow

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

Shallow

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

Enter Host, Doctor Caius, and Rugby

Page

Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.

Shallow

So do you, good master doctor.

Host

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

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

[Aside to Doctor Caius] Pray you, use your patience: in good time.

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

[Aside to Doctor Caius] Pray you let us not be laughing-stocks to other men’s humours; I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.

Aloud

I will knog your urinals about your knave’s cockscomb for missing your meetings and appointments.

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Host

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

Doctor Caius

Ay, dat is very good; excellent.

Host

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

Shallow

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

Slender

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

Exeunt Shallow, Slender, Page, and Host

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Exeunt

Scene II. A street.

Enter Mistress Page and Robin

Mistress Page

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

Robin

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

Mistress Page

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

Enter Ford

Ford

Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

Mistress Page

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

Ford

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

Mistress Page

Be sure of that,—two other husbands.

Ford

Where had you this pretty weather-cock?

Mistress Page

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

Robin

Sir John Falstaff.

Ford

Sir John Falstaff!

Mistress Page

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

Ford

Indeed she is.

Mistress Page

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

Exeunt Mistress Page and Robin

Ford

Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wife’s inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage: and now she’s going to my wife, and Falstaff’s boy with her. A man may hear this shower sing in the wind. And Falstaff’s boy with her! Good plots, they are laid; and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall cry aim.

Clock heard

The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be rather praised for this than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there: I will go.

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

Shallow, Page, amp;c

Well met, Master Ford.

Ford

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

Shallow

I must excuse myself, Master Ford.

Slender

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

Shallow

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

Slender

I hope I have your good will, father Page.

Page

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

Doctor Caius

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

Host

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

Page

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

Ford

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

Shallow

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

Exeunt Shallow, and Slender

Doctor Caius

Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

Exit Rugby

Host

Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight
Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

Exit

Ford

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

All

Have with you to see this monster.

Exeunt

Scene III. A room in Ford’s house.

Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page

Mistress Ford

What, John! What, Robert!

Mistress Page

Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket—

Mistress Ford

I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

Enter Servants with a basket

Mistress Page

Come, come, come.

Mistress Ford

Here, set it down.

Mistress Page

Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

You will do it?

Mistress Ford

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

Exeunt Servants

Mistress Page

Here comes little Robin.

Enter Robin

Mistress Ford

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

Robin

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

Mistress Page

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

Robin

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.

Exit Robin

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

Mistress Page

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

Exit

Mistress Ford

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

Enter Falstaff

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

O sweet Sir John!

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady!

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

Believe me, there is no such thing in me.

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

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

Falstaff

Keep in that mind; I’ll deserve it.

Mistress Ford

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

Robin

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Ford

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

Falstaff hides himself

Re-enter Mistress Page and Robin

What’s the matter? how now!

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

What cause of suspicion?

Mistress Page

What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I mistook in you!

Mistress Ford

Why, alas, what’s the matter?

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

’Tis not so, I hope.

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Page

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

Falstaff

I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.
I’ll never—

Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

What, John! Robert! John!

Exit Robin

Re-enter Servants

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

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

Ford

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

Servant

To the laundress, forsooth.

Mistress Ford

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

Ford

Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear.

Exeunt Servants with the basket

Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I’ll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out: I’ll warrant we’ll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.

Locking the door

So, now uncape.

Page

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

Ford

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

Exit

Sir Hugh Evans

This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

Doctor Caius

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

Page

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

Exeunt Page, Doctor Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans

Mistress Page

Is there not a double excellency in this?

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Ford

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

Mistress Page

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

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

Ford

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

Mistress Page

[Aside to Mistress Ford] Heard you that?

Mistress Ford

You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

Ford

Ay, I do so.

Mistress Ford

Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Ford

Amen!

Mistress Page

You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

Ford

Ay, ay; I must bear it.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Doctor Caius

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

Page

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

Ford

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Doctor Caius

By gar, I see ’tis an honest woman.

Ford

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

Page

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

Ford

Any thing.

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Doctor Caius

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

Ford

Pray you, go, Master Page.

Sir Hugh Evans

I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host.

Doctor Caius

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

Sir Hugh Evans

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

Exeunt

Scene IV. A room in Page’s house.

Enter Fenton and Anne Page

Fenton

I see I cannot get thy father’s love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.

Anne Page

Alas, how then?

Fenton

  Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth—,
And that, my state being gall’d with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth:
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me ’tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.

Anne Page

May be he tells you true.

Fenton

No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth
Was the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne:
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;
And ’tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.

Anne Page

  Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir:
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why, then,—hark you hither!

They converse apart

Enter Shallow, Slender, and Mistress Quickly

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

Be not dismayed.

Slender

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Anne Page

I come to him.

Aside

This is my father’s choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favor’d faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!

Mistress Quickly

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

Shallow

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

Slender

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

Shallow

Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Slender

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

Shallow

He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

Slender

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

Shallow

He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Anne Page

Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

Shallow

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

Anne Page

Now, Master Slender,—

Slender

Now, good Mistress Anne,—

Anne Page

What is your will?

Slender

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

Anne Page

I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?

Slender

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

Enter Page and Mistress Page

Page

Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.

Fenton

Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

Mistress Page

Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

Page

She is no match for you.

Fenton

Sir, will you hear me?

Page

No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender

Mistress Quickly

Speak to Mistress Page.

Fenton

Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love
And not retire: let me have your good will.

Anne Page

Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

Mistress Page

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

Mistress Quickly

That’s my master, master doctor.

Anne Page

Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ the earth
And bowl’d to death with turnips!

Mistress Page

Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
I will not be your friend nor enemy:
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected.
Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
Her father will be angry.

Fenton

Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.

Exeunt Mistress Page and Anne Page

Mistress Quickly

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

Fenton

I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
Give my sweet Nan this ring: there’s for thy pains.

Mistress Quickly

Now heaven send thee good fortune!

Exit Fenton

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

Exit

Scene V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph

Falstaff

Bardolph, I say,—

Bardolph

Here, sir.

Falstaff

Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t.

Exit Bardolph

Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ the litter: and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,—a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter Bardolph with sack

Bardolph

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

Falstaff

Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bardolph

Come in, woman!

Enter Mistress Quickly

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bardolph

With eggs, sir?

Falstaff

Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.

Exit Bardolph

How now!

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

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

Falstaff

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

Mistress Quickly

I will tell her.

Falstaff

Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Mistress Quickly

Eight and nine, sir.

Falstaff

Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

Mistress Quickly

Peace be with you, sir.

Exit

Falstaff

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

Enter Ford

Ford

Bless you, sir!

Falstaff

Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?

Ford

That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

Falstaff

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

Ford

And sped you, sir?

Falstaff

Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.

Ford

How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

Falstaff

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

Ford

What, while you were there?

Falstaff

While I was there.

Ford

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

Falstaff

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

Ford

A buck-basket!

Falstaff

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

Ford

And how long lay you there?

Falst