The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT I, 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]

ACT I, 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]

ACT I, 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]

ACT I, 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]

ACT II, 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]

ACT II, 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]

ACT II, 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 and 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]

ACT III, 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]

ACT III, 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 and Co.:

• 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]

ACT III, 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]

ACT III, 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]

ACT III, 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?

• FALSTAFF:

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

• FORD:

• In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you
• have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;
• you'll undertake her no more?

• FALSTAFF:

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

• FORD:

• 'Tis past eight already, sir.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Exit]

• FORD:

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

• [Exit]

ACT IV, SCENE I. A street.

[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS]

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• Blessing of his heart!

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• William, how many numbers is in nouns?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Two.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• Truly, I thought there had been one number more,
• because they say, ''Od's nouns.'

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Pulcher.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace.
• What is 'lapis,' William?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• A stone.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• And what is 'a stone,' William?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• A pebble.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain.

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Lapis.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• WILLIAM PAGE:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Accusativo, hinc.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• I pray you, have your remembrance, child,
• accusative, hung, hang, hog.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative
• case, William?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• O,--vocativo, O.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Remember, William; focative is caret.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• And that's a good root.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• 'Oman, forbear.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Peace!

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• What is your genitive case plural, William?

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Genitive case!

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Ay.

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Genitive,--horum, harum, horum.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• For shame, 'oman.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• You do ill to teach the child such words: he
• teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do
• fast enough of themselves, and to call 'horum:' fie upon you!

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no
• understandings for thy cases and the numbers of the
• genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as
• I would desires.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Prithee, hold thy peace.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• WILLIAM PAGE:

• Forsooth, I have forgot.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your 'quies,'
• your 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be
• preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

• [Exit SIR HUGH EVANS]

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT IV, SCENE II. A room in FORD'S house.

[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD]

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• [Within]

• What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Step into the chamber, Sir John.

• [Exit FALSTAFF]

• [Enter MISTRESS PAGE]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Why, none but mine own people.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Indeed!

• MISTRESS FORD:

• No, certainly.

• [Aside to her]

• Speak louder.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Why?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Why, does he talk of him?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• How near is he, Mistress Page?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• I am undone! The knight is here.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead
• man. What a woman are you!--Away with him, away
• with him! better shame than murder.

• FORD:

• Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
• Shall I put him into the basket again?

• [Re-enter FALSTAFF]

• FALSTAFF:

• No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go
• out ere he come?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• Where is it?

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• I'll go out then.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir
• John. Unless you go out disguised--

• MISTRESS FORD:

• How might we disguise him?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a
• gown above.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put
• on the gown the while.

• [Exit FALSTAFF]

• MISTRESS FORD:

• I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he
• cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears
• she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath
• threatened to beat her.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the
• devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

• MISTRESS FORD:

• But is my husband coming?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket
• too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him
• like the witch of Brentford.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the
• basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.

• [Exit]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.
• We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
• Wives may be merry, and yet honest too:
• We do not act that often jest and laugh;
• 'Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff.

• [Exit]

• [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants]

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• [Exit]

• First Servant:

• Come, come, take it up.

• Second Servant:

• Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

• First Servant:

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

• [Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS]

• FORD:

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

• PAGE:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog!

• SHALLOW:

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

• FORD:

• So say I too, sir.

• [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD]

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• FORD:

• Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah!

• [Pulling clothes out of the basket]

• PAGE:

• This passes!

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

• FORD:

• I shall find you anon.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's
• clothes? Come away.

• FORD:

• Empty the basket, I say!

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Why, man, why?

• FORD:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

• PAGE:

• Here's no man.

• SHALLOW:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• FORD:

• Well, he's not here I seek for.

• PAGE:

• No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

• FORD:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• FORD:

• Old woman! what old woman's that?

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

• FORD:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• [Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

• FORD:

• I'll prat her.

• [Beating him]

• Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you
• polecat, you runyon! out, out! I'll conjure you,
• I'll fortune-tell you.

• [Exit FALSTAFF]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the
• poor woman.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.

• FORD:

• Hang her, witch!

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• FORD:

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

• PAGE:

• Let's obey his humour a little further: come,
• gentlemen.

• [Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the
• altar; it hath done meritorious service.

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of
• him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with
• fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the
• way of waste, attempt us again.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would
• not have things cool.

• [Exeunt]

ACT IV, SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter Host and BARDOLPH]

• BARDOLPH:

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

• Host:

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

• BARDOLPH:

• Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.

• Host:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT IV, SCENE IV. A room in FORD'S house.

[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS]

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever
• I did look upon.

• PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Within a quarter of an hour.

• FORD:

• Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
• I rather will suspect the sun with cold
• Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand
• In him that was of late an heretic,
• As firm as faith.

• PAGE:

• 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:
• Be not as extreme in submission
• As in offence.
• But let our plot go forward: let our wives
• Yet once again, to make us public sport,
• Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
• Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.

• FORD:

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

• PAGE:

• How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park
• at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• PAGE:

• So think I too.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
• And let us two devise to bring him thither.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
• Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
• Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
• Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
• And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle
• And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain
• In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
• You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
• The superstitious idle-headed eld
• Received and did deliver to our age
• This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

• PAGE:

• Why, yet there want not many that do fear
• In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
• But what of this?

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Marry, this is our device;
• That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

• PAGE:

• Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
• And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
• What shall be done with him? what is your plot?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
• Nan Page my daughter and my little son
• And three or four more of their growth we'll dress
• Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,
• With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
• And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,
• As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,
• Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
• With some diffused song: upon their sight,
• We two in great amazedness will fly:
• Then let them all encircle him about
• And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,
• And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
• In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
• In shape profane.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• And till he tell the truth,
• Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
• And burn him with their tapers.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• The truth being known,
• We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
• And mock him home to Windsor.

• FORD:

• The children must
• Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• FORD:

• That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
• Finely attired in a robe of white.

• PAGE:

• That silk will I go buy.

• [Aside]

• And in that time
• Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away
• And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.

• FORD:

• Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook
• He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Fear not you that. Go get us properties
• And tricking for our fairies.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Go, Mistress Ford,
• Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.

• [Exit MISTRESS FORD]

• I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,
• And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
• That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
• And he my husband best of all affects.
• The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
• Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
• Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

• [Exit]

ACT IV, SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter Host and SIMPLE]

• Host:

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

• SIMPLE:

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

• Host:

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

• SIMPLE:

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

• Host:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• [Above]

• How now, mine host!

• Host:

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

• [Enter FALSTAFF]

• FALSTAFF:

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

• SIMPLE:

• Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
• Brentford?

• FALSTAFF:

• Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?

• SIMPLE:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• I spake with the old woman about it.

• SIMPLE:

• And what says she, I pray, sir?

• FALSTAFF:

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

• SIMPLE:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• What are they? let us know.

• Host:

• Ay, come; quick.

• SIMPLE:

• I may not conceal them, sir.

• Host:

• Conceal them, or thou diest.

• SIMPLE:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

• SIMPLE:

• What, sir?

• FALSTAFF:

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

• SIMPLE:

• May I be bold to say so, sir?

• FALSTAFF:

• Ay, sir; like who more bold.

• SIMPLE:

• I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad
• with these tidings.

• [Exit]

• Host:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Enter BARDOLPH]

• BARDOLPH:

• Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!

• Host:

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

• BARDOLPH:

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

• Host:

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

• [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS]

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Where is mine host?

• Host:

• What is the matter, sir?

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• [Exit]

• [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS]

• DOCTOR CAIUS:

• Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

• Host:

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

• DOCTOR CAIUS:

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

• [Exit]

• Host:

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

• [Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH]

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]

• Now, whence come you?

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• From the two parties, forsooth.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• Come up into my chamber.

• [Exeunt]

ACT IV, SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FENTON and Host]

• Host:

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

• FENTON:

• Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
• And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee
• A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

• Host:

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

• FENTON:

• From time to time I have acquainted you
• With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;
• Who mutually hath answer'd my affection,
• So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
• Even to my wish: I have a letter from her
• Of such contents as you will wonder at;
• The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,
• That neither singly can be manifested,
• Without the show of both; fat Falstaff
• Hath a great scene: the image of the jest
• I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host.
• To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
• Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;
• The purpose why, is here: in which disguise,
• While other jests are something rank on foot,
• Her father hath commanded her to slip
• Away with Slender and with him at Eton
• Immediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir,
• Her mother, ever strong against that match
• And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
• That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
• While other sports are tasking of their minds,
• And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
• Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot
• She seemingly obedient likewise hath
• Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests:
• Her father means she shall be all in white,
• And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
• To take her by the hand and bid her go,
• She shall go with him: her mother hath intended,
• The better to denote her to the doctor,
• For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,
• That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,
• With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
• And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
• To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,
• The maid hath given consent to go with him.

• Host:

• Which means she to deceive, father or mother?

• FENTON:

• Both, my good host, to go along with me:
• And here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar
• To stay for me at church 'twixt twelve and one,
• And, in the lawful name of marrying,
• To give our hearts united ceremony.

• Host:

• Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar:
• Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

• FENTON:

• So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
• Besides, I'll make a present recompense.

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY]

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to
• get you a pair of horns.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY]

• [Enter FORD]

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

• FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE II. Windsor Park.

[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER]

• PAGE:

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

• SLENDER:

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

• SHALLOW:

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

• PAGE:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE III. A street leading to the Park.

[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• DOCTOR CAIUS:

• I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Fare you well, sir.

• [Exit DOCTOR CAIUS]

• My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of
• Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying
• my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little
• chiding than a great deal of heart-break.

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the
• Welsh devil Hugh?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• That cannot choose but amaze him.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• We'll betray him finely.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE IV. Windsor Park.

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies]

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE V. Another part of the Park.

[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne]

• FALSTAFF:

• The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute
• draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!
• Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love
• set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some
• respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man
• a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love
• of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew
• to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
• the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And
• then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think
• on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot
• backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a
• Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the
• forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can
• blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my
• doe?

• [Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE]

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Noise within]

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Alas, what noise?

• MISTRESS FORD:

• Heaven forgive our sins

• FALSTAFF:

• What should this be?

• MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE:

• Away, away!

• [They run off]

• FALSTAFF:

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

• [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL, as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and others, as Fairies, with tapers]

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
• You moonshine revellers and shades of night,
• You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
• Attend your office and your quality.
• Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

• PISTOL:

• Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
• Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
• Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
• There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
• Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

• FALSTAFF:

• They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
• I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.

• [Lies down upon his face]

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
• That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
• Raise up the organs of her fantasy;
• Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:
• But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
• Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• About, about;
• Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
• Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
• That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
• In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
• Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
• The several chairs of order look you scour
• With juice of balm and every precious flower:
• Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
• With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
• And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
• Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
• The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
• More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
• And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
• In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
• Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
• Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
• Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
• Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,
• Our dance of custom round about the oak
• Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set
• And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
• To guide our measure round about the tree.
• But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• PISTOL:

• Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
• If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
• And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
• It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

• PISTOL:

• A trial, come.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Come, will this wood take fire?

• [They burn him with their tapers]

• FALSTAFF:

• Oh, Oh, Oh!

• MISTRESS QUICKLY:

• Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
• About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
• And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
• SONG.
• Fie on sinful fantasy!
• Fie on lust and luxury!
• Lust is but a bloody fire,
• Kindled with unchaste desire,
• Fed in heart, whose flames aspire
• As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
• Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
• Pinch him for his villany;
• Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
• Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

• [During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white; and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises]

• [Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD]

• PAGE:

• Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now
• Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher
• Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
• See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
• Become the forest better than the town?

• FORD:

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

• MISTRESS FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
• desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

• FORD:

• Well said, fairy Hugh.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.

• FORD:

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

• FALSTAFF:

• Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that
• it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as
• this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I
• have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked
• with a piece of toasted cheese.

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

• Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• FORD:

• What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• A puffed man?

• PAGE:

• Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?

• FORD:

• And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

• PAGE:

• And as poor as Job?

• FORD:

• And as wicked as his wife?

• SIR HUGH EVANS:

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

• FALSTAFF:

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

• FORD:

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

• PAGE:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• [Aside]

• Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
• daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

• [Enter SLENDER]

• SLENDER:

• Whoa ho! ho, father Page!

• PAGE:

• Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

• SLENDER:

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

• PAGE:

• Of what, son?

• SLENDER:

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

• PAGE:

• Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

• SLENDER:

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

• PAGE:

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

• SLENDER:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

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

• [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS]

• DOCTOR CAIUS:

• Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'
• married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;
• it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Why, did you take her in green?

• DOCTOR CAIUS:

• Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.

• [Exit]

• FORD:

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

• PAGE:

• My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.

• [Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE]

• How now, Master Fenton!

• ANNE PAGE:

• Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

• PAGE:

• Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

• FENTON:

• You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
• You would have married her most shamefully,
• Where there was no proportion held in love.
• The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
• Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
• The offence is holy that she hath committed;
• And this deceit loses the name of craft,
• Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
• Since therein she doth evitate and shun
• A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
• Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

• FORD:

• Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
• In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
• Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• PAGE:

• Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
• What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

• FALSTAFF:

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

• MISTRESS PAGE:

• Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
• Heaven give you many, many merry days!
• Good husband, let us every one go home,
• And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
• Sir John and all.

• FORD:

• Let it be so. Sir John,
• To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word
• For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.

• [Exeunt]