THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
By William Shakespeare
Dramatis Personae.
Sir John FALSTAFF.
BARDOLPH, }
PISTOL, } Falstaff's followers.
NYM, }
ROBIN, Falstaff's page.
FENTON, a young gentleman, seeking the hand of Anne Page.
Frank FORD, a gentleman citizen of Windsor.
MISTRESS Alice FORD, wife to Frank Ford.
JOHN, }
ROBERT, } servants to Frank Ford.
George PAGE, a gentleman citizen of Windsor.
MISTRESS Margaret PAGE, wife to George Page.
WILLIAM Page, their son, a boy.
ANNE Page, their daughter, in love with Fenton.
Sir Hugh EVANS, a Welsh parson.
Doctor CAIUS, a French physician.
Mistress QUICKLY, housekeeper to Doctor Caius.
John RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius.
Robert SHALLOW, a country Justice.
Abraham SLENDER, cousin to Shallow, seeking the hand of Anne Page.
Peter SIMPLE, servant to Slender.
HOST of the Garter Inn.
Three or four Children appearing as Fairies.
Scene: Windsor and the Neighbourhood.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 1.
Scene 1. Windsor. Before Page's House.
Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS.
Shallow Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star Chamber matter of it.
If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow,
Esquire.
Slender In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace and Coram.
Shallow Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.
Slender Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, Master Parson, who
writes himself `Armigero' in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation
-`Armigero'.
Shallow Ay, that I do, and have done any time these three hundred years.
Slender All his successors gone before him hath done't, and all his
ancestors that come after him may: they may give the dozen white luces in
their coat.
Shallow It is an old coat.
Evans The dozen white louses do become an old coat well. It agrees well,
passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.
Shallow The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.
Slender I may quarter, coz.
Shallow You may, by marrying.
Evans It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
Shallow Not a whit.
Evans Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three
skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures; but that is all one. If Sir
John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the Church and
will be glad to do my benevolence to make atonements and compromises between
you.
Shallow The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.
Evans It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a
riot. The Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to
hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.
Shallow Ha! O' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it.
Evans It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it; and there is also
another device in my prain, which peradventure prings goot discretions with
it. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is
pretty virginity.
Slender Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a
woman.
Evans It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you will desire;
and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold and silver, is her grandsire upon
his death's-bed -Got deliver to a joyful resurrections! -give, when she is
able to overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion if we leave our
pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and
Mistress Anne Page.
Shallow Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
Evans Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny
Shallow I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.
Evans Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.
Shallow Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?
Evans Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that
is false, or as I despise one that is not true. The knight Sir John is there,
and I beseech you be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for
Master Page.
[Knocks.
What ho! Got pless your house here!
Page [Within.] Who's there?
Evans Here is Got's plessing and your friend, and Justice Shallow, and here
young Master Slender, that peradventures shall tell you another tale if
matters grow to your likings.
Enter PAGE.
Page I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison,
Master Shallow.
Shallow Master Page, I am glad to see you -much good do it your good heart!
I wished your venison better; it was ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page?
And I thank you always with my heart, la, with my heart.
Page Sir, I thank you.
Shallow Sir, I thank you; by yea and no I do.
Page I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
Slender How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on
Cotsall.
Page It could not be judged, sir.
Slender You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
Shallow That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault. 'Tis a good dog.
Page A cur, sir.
Shallow Sir, he's a good dog and a fair dog; can there be more said? He is
good and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?
Page Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you.
Evans It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
Shallow He hath wronged me, Master Page.
Page Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
Shallow If it be confessed, it is not redressed -is not that so, Master
Page? He hath wronged me, indeed he hath; at a word, he hath, believe me.
Robert Shallow, Esquire, saith he is wronged.
Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL.
Page Here comes Sir John.
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.
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, Mephistophilus?
Slender Ay, it is no matter.
Nym Slice, I say! Pauca, pauca; slice! -that's my humour.
Slender Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?
Evans Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand: there is three umpires in
this matter, as I understand; that is, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and
there is myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally,
mine host of the Garter.
Page We three, to hear it and end it between them.
Evans Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my notebook, and we will
afterwards ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can.
Falstaff Pistol!
Pistol He hears with ears.
Evans The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, "He hears with ear"? Why,
it is affectations.
Falstaff Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?
Slender Ay, by these gloves, did he -or I would I might never come in mine
own great chamber again else -of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two
Edward shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and twopence apiece of Yead
Miller, by these gloves.
Falstaff Is this true, Pistol?
Evans No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pistol Ha, thou mountain foreigner! Sir John and master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
Word of denial in thy labras here!
Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!
Slender [Pointing to NYM.] By these gloves, then 'twas he.
Nym Be avised, sir, and pass good humours. I will say `marry trap with you'
if you run the nuthook's humour on me. That is the very note of it.
Slender By this hat, then he in the red face had it; for though I cannot
remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.
Falstaff What say you, Scarlet and John?
Bardolph Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out
of his five sentences.
Evans It is his `five senses'. Fie, what the ignorance is!
Bardolph And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and so
conclusions passed the careers.
Slender Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter. I'll ne'er be
drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this
trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and
not with drunken knaves.
Evans So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
Falstaff You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.
Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine, MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.
Page Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
[Exit ANNE PAGE.
Slender O heaven, this is Mistress Anne Page!
Page How now, Mistress Ford?
Falstaff Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met. By your leave,
good mistress.
[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 but SLENDER.
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?
Re-enter SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS.
Shallow Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz. Marry,
this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by
Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me?
Slender Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable: if it be so, I shall do that
that is reason.
Shallow Nay, but understand me.
Slender So I do, sir.
Evans Give ear to his motions. Master Slender, I will description the
matter to you, if you 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.
Evans But that is not the question: the question is concerning your marriage.
Shallow Ay, there's the point, sir.
Evans Marry, is it, the very point of it -to Mistress Anne Page.
Slender Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.
Evans But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your
mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of
the mouth: therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?
Shallow Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
Slender I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.
Evans Nay, Got's lords and His ladies! You must speak possitable, if you
can carry her your desires towards her.
Shallow That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?
Slender I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in
any reason.
Shallow Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do is to pleasure
you, coz. Can you love the maid?
Slender I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great
love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance,
when we are married and have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon
familiarity will grow more content: but if you say `Marry her', I will marry
her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.
Evans It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in the ord
`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!
Re-enter ANNE PAGE.
Shallow Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were young for your sake,
Mistress Anne!
Anne The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.
Shallow I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.
Evans Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
[Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS.
Anne Will't please your worship to come in, sir?
Slender No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
Anne The dinner attends you, sir.
Slender I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth.
[To SIMPLE.] Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin
Shallow.
[Exit SIMPLE.
A Justice of Peace sometime may be beholding to his friend for a man. I
keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead -but what though? Yet
I live like a poor gentleman born.
Anne I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.
Slender I'faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did.
Anne I pray you, sir, walk in.
[Dogs bark within.
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'th'town?
Anne I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.
Slender I love the sport well, but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man
in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?
Anne Ay, indeed, sir.
Slender That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose
twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women
have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot
abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things.
Re-enter PAGE.
Page Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.
Slender I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
Page By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come, come.
Slender Nay, pray you, lead the way.
Page Come on, sir.
Slender Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
Anne Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.
Slender Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do you that wrong.
Anne I pray you, sir.
Slender I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong
indeed, la!
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Before Page's House.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.
Evans Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which is the way: and
there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his
dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.
Simple Well, sir.
Evans Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a oman that
altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page; and the letter is to desire
and require her to solicit your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray
you be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to
come.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.
Falstaff Mine host of the Garter!
Host What says my bully-rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.
Falstaff Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.
Host Discard, bully Hercules, cashier. Let them wag; trot, trot.
Falstaff I sit at ten pounds a week.
Host Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, 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 servingman a fresh tapster. Go, adieu.
Bardolph It is a life that I have desired. I will thrive.
Pistol O base Hungarian wight, wilt thou the spigot wield?
[Exit BARDOLPH.
Nym He was gotten in drink; is not the humour conceited?
Falstaff I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his thefts were too
open; his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time.
Nym The good humour is to steal at a 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 behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is "I
am Sir John Falstaff's".
Pistol He hath studied her well, and translated her will, out of honesty,
into English.
Nym The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?
Falstaff Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse;
he hath a legion of angels.
Pistol As many devils entertain; and to her, boy, say I.
Nym The humour rises; it is good. Humour me the angels.
Falstaff [Showing letters.] 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 'cheaters 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.
[Giving a letter to PISTOL.]
Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page;
[Giving a letter to NYM.] 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!
[Returning the letter.
Nym I will run no base humour: here, take the humour-letter. I will keep
the haviour of reputation.
[Returning the letter.
Falstaff [To ROBIN, giving him the letters.]
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'th'hoof; seek shelter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the honour 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 Ford.
Pistol And I to Page 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 Ford to deal with poison; I
will possess him with yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous. That is
my true humour.
Pistol Thou art the Mars of Malcontents: I second thee; troop on.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Room in Doctor Caius's House.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and SIMPLE.
Quickly What, John Rugby!
Enter RUGBY.
I pray thee go to the casement and see if you can see my master, Master
Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i'faith, and find anybody in the house, here
will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Rugby I'll go watch.
Quickly Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in faith, at the
latter end of a sea-coal fire.
[Exit RUGBY.
An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house
withal; and, I warrant you, no telltale nor no breed-bate. His worst fault is
that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; but nobody but
has his fault; but let that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?
Simple Ay, for fault of a better.
Quickly And Master Slender's your master?
Simple Ay, forsooth.
Quickly Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover's paring-knife?
Simple No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey-face, with a little yellow
beard -a Cain-coloured beard.
Quickly A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
Simple Ay, forsooth, but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between
this and his head: he hath fought with a warrener.
Quickly How say you? -O, I should remember him: does he not hold up his
head, as it were, and strut in his gait?
Simple Yes, indeed, does he.
Quickly Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell Master Parson
Evans I will do what I can for your master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish -
Re-enter RUGBY.
Rugby Out, alas, here comes my master!
Quickly We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; go into this
closet. He will not stay long.
[SIMPLE steps into the closet.
What, John Rugby! John! What, John, I say! Go, John, go enquire for my
master -I doubt he be not well -that he comes not home.
[Exit RUGBY.
[Sings.] And down, down, adown-a, etc.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.
Caius Vat is you sing? I do not like dese 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.
Quickly Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you.
[Aside.] I am glad he went not in himself. If he had found the young man,
he would have been horn-mad.
Caius Fe, fe, fe, fe! Ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a la cour
-la grande affaire.
Quickly Is it this, sir?
Caius Oui, mettez le au mon pocket: depechez, quickly. Vere is dat knave
Rugby?
Quickly What, John Rugby! John!
Re-enter RUGBY
Rugby Here, sir!
Caius You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come, take-a your rapier,
and come after my heel to the court.
Rugby 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.
Caius By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me, Qu'ay j'oublie? Dere is some
simples in my closet dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.
Quickly [Aside.] Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be mad.
Caius O diable, diable! Vat is in my closet? Villainy, larron!
[Pulling SIMPLE out.
Rugby, my rapier!
Quickly Good master, be content.
Caius Wherefore shall I be content-a?
Quickly The young man is an honest man.
Caius What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is no honest man dat
shall come in my closet.
Quickly I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it: he came
of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.
Caius Vell?
Simple Ay, forsooth; to desire her to -
Quickly Peace, I pray you.
Caius Peace-a your tongue! [To SIMPLE.] Speak-a your tale.
Simple To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word
to Mistress Anne Page for my master in the way of marriage.
Quickly This is all, indeed, la; but I'll ne'er put my finger in the fire,
and need not.
Caius Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, ballow me some paper.
[RUGBY fetches paper.
Tarry you a little-a while.
[Writes.
Quickly [Aside to SIMPLE.] I am glad he is so quiet: if he had been
throughly moved, you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy. But
notwithstanding, man, I'll do you your master what good I can; and the very
yea and the no is, the French doctor, my master -I 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 QUICKLY.] 'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand.
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.
Caius [To SIMPLE.] You, jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh. By gar,
it is a shallenge. I will cut his troat in de Park, and I will teach a scurvy
jackanape priest to meddle or make. You may be gone; it is not good you tarry
here. By gar, I will cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone
to throw at his dog.
[Exit SIMPLE.
Quickly Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
Caius It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne
Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de jack-priest; and I have appointed mine
host of de Jarteer to measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne Page.
Quickly Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We must give folks
leave to prate: what the goodyear!
Caius Rugby, come to the court with me.
[To QUICKLY.] By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out
of my door. Follow my heels, Rugby.
Quickly You shall have An -
[Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY.
- fool's-head of your own. No, I know Anne's mind for that: never a woman
in Windsor knows more of Anne's mind than I do, nor can do more than I do with
her, I thank heaven.
Fenton [Within.] Who's within there? Ho!
Quickly Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray you.
Enter FENTON.
Fenton How now, good woman, how dost thou?
Quickly The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.
Fenton What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?
Quickly In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle, and one
that is your friend. I can tell you that by the way, I praise heaven for it.
Fenton Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? Shall I not lose my suit?
Quickly Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but notwithstanding, Master
Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book she loves you. Have not your worship a wart
above your eye?
Fenton Yes, marry have I; what of that?
Quickly Well, thereby hangs a tale. Good faith, it is such another Nan! But
I detest, an honest maid as ever broke bread; we had an hour's talk of that
wart. I shall never laugh but in that maid's company -but, indeed, she is
given too much to allicholy and musing. But for you -well, go to.
Fenton Well, I shall see her today. Hold, there's money for thee; let me
have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her before me, commend me.
Quickly Will I? I'faith, that we will; and I will tell your worship more of
the wart the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers.
Fenton Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
Quickly Farewell to your worship.
[Exit FENTON.
Truly, an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not, for I know Anne's mind
as well as another does. Out upon't! What have I forgot?
[Exit.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 2.
Scene 1. 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 precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no
more am I; go to, then, there's sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha, ha,
then, there's more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you desire
better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least, if the love
of a soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say pity me -'tis not a
soldier-like phrase -but I say, love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might
For thee to fight,
JOHN FALSTAFF."
What a Herod of Jewry is this? O wicked, wicked world! One that is
well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant! What an
unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard picked, with the devil's name,
out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath
not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of
my mirth -heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for
the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? -For revenged I will
be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.
Enter MISTRESS FORD.
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.
[Gives MISTRESS PAGE a letter.
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 hundred Psalms to the tune of `Greensleeves'. What tempest, I trow,
threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor?
How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him
with hope till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did
you ever hear the like?
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.
[Gives MISTRESS FORD her 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 villainy against him that may
not sully the chariness of our honesty. O that my husband saw this letter! It
would give eternal food to his jealousy.
Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE and NYM.
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 stand apart.
Ford Well, I hope it be not so.
Pistol Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.
Ford Why, sir, my wife is not young.
Pistol He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.
Ford Love my wife?
Pistol With liver burning hot. Prevent,
Or go thou, like Sir Actaeon, he,
With Ringwood at thy heels.
O, odious is the name!
Ford What name, sir?
Pistol The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night.
Take heed ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym! Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
[Exit.
Ford [Aside.] I will be patient; I will find out this.
Nym [To PAGE.] And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath
wronged me in some humours. I should have borne the humoured letter to her;
but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife;
there's the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch
'tis true: my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the
humour of bread and cheese. 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'th'town
commended him for a true man.
Ford 'Twas a good sensible fellow -well.
MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward.
Page How now, Meg!
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?
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 toward my wife, I
would turn her loose to him, and what he gets more of her than sharp words,
let it lie on my head.
Ford I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath to turn them together.
A man may be too confident. I would have nothing lie on my head -I cannot be
thus satisfied.
Enter HOST, and SHALLOW following.
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. -How now, mine host?
Host How now, bully-rook! Thou'rt a gentleman. Cavaliero Justice, I say!
Shallow I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good Master
Page! Master Page, will you go with us? We have sport in hand.
Host Tell him, Cavaliero Justice; tell him, bully-rook.
Shallow Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest
and Caius the French doctor.
Ford Good mine host o'th'Garter, a word with you.
Host What sayst thou, my bully-rook?
[They talk apart.
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 talk apart.
Host [To FORD.] Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest cavalier?
Ford [To HOST.] 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 [To FORD.] My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress -said I
well? -and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. Will you go, Mynheers?
Shallow Have with you, mine host.
Page I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.
Shallow Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on
distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what. 'Tis the heart, Master
Page, 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would
have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
Host Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
Page Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.
[Exeunt HOST, SHALLOW, and PAGE.
Ford Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his wife's
frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily. She was in his company at
Page's house, and what they made there, I know not. Well, I will look further
into't; and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose
not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL.
Falstaff I will not lend thee a penny.
Pistol Why, then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.
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.
Quickly Give your worship good morrow.
Falstaff Good morrow, goodwife.
Quickly Not so, an't please your worship.
Falstaff Good maid, then.
Quickly I'll be sworn -as my mother was the first hour I was born.
Falstaff I do believe the swearer. What with me?
Quickly Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
Falstaff Two thousand, fair woman, and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing.
Quickly There is one Mistress Ford, sir -I pray, come a little nearer this
ways -I myself dwell with Master Doctor Caius.
Falstaff Well, on. Mistress Ford, you say.
Quickly Your worship says very true. I pray your worship, come a little
nearer this ways.
Falstaff I warrant thee nobody hears: -mine own people, mine own people.
Quickly Are they so? God bless them, and make them his servants!
Falstaff Well. Mistress Ford -what of her?
Quickly Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord, your worship's a
wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of us, I pray!
Falstaff Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford.
Quickly Marry, this is the short and the long of it. You have brought her
into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when
the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet
there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I
warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift, smelling
so sweetly, all musk, and so rustling, I warrant you, in silk and gold, and in
such alligant terms, and in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest,
that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never
get an eye-wink of her. I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but
I defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the way of honesty:
and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the
proudest of them all. And yet there has been earls, nay, which is more,
pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
Falstaff But what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-Mercury.
Quickly Marry, she hath received your letter; for the which she thanks you
a thousand times; and she gives you to notify that her husband will be absence
from his house between ten and eleven.
Falstaff Ten and eleven?
Quickly Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says,
that you wot of. Master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet
woman leads an ill life with him: he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very
frampold life with him, good heart.
Falstaff Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her.
Quickly Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to your worship:
Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too; and let me tell you in
your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that
will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be
the other; and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from
home, but she hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon
a man. Surely, I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth.
Falstaff Not I, I assure thee. Setting the attraction of my good parts
aside, I have no other charms.
Quickly Blessing on your heart for't!
Falstaff But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and Page's wife
acquainted each other how they love me?
Quickly That were a jest indeed! They have not so little grace, I hope!
That were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page would desire you to send her your
little page, of all loves: her husband has a marvellous infection to the
little page; and, truly, Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor
leads a better life than she does; do what she will, say what she will, take
all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will;
and, truly, she deserves it, for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is
one. You must send her your page, no remedy.
Falstaff Why, I will.
Quickly Nay, but do so, then, and, look you, he may come and go between you
both; and in any case have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind,
and the boy never need to understand anything; 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 Sayst thou so, old Jack? Go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old
body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the
expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them
say 'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.
Enter BARDOLPH with a cup of sack.
Bardolph Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain speak with
you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a 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'erflows 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 emboldened 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 warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations.
Falstaff O sir!
Ford Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend it, spend it; spend
more, spend all I have, only give me so much of your time in exchange of it as
to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife. Use your art of
wooing; win her to consent to you. If any man may, you may as soon as any.
Falstaff Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection that I
should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you prescribe to yourself very
preposterously.
Ford O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on the excellency of
her honour that the folly of my soul dares not present itself: she is too
bright to be looked against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my
hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves: I could
drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow,
and a thousand other her defences which now are too too strongly embattled
against me. What say you to't, Sir John?
Falstaff Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give
me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy
Ford's wife.
Ford O good sir!
Falstaff I say you shall.
Ford Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.
Falstaff Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want none. I shall
be with her, I may tell you, by her own appointment. Even as you came in to
me, her assistant or go-between, parted from me. I say I shall be with her
between ten and eleven, for at that time the jealous rascally knave her
husband will be forth. Come you to me at night, you shall know how I speed.
Ford I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir?
Falstaff Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not. Yet I wrong him to
call him poor: they say the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money, for
the which his wife seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the
cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home.
Ford I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him.
Falstaff Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of
his wits. I will awe him with my cudgel. It shall hang like a meteor o'er the
cuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the
peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night. Ford's a
knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou, Master Brook, shalt know him for
knave and cuckold. Come to me soon at night.
[Exit.
Ford What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack
with impatience. Who says this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to
him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this?
See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers
ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this
villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms -and by him
that does me this wrong. Terms! Names! `Amaimon' sounds well; `Lucifer' well;
`Barbason' well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends. But
`Cuckold', `Wittol'? -`Cuckold', the devil himself hath not such a name. Page
is an ass, a secure ass: he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous. I
will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my
cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling
gelding, than my wife with herself. Then she plots, then she ruminates, then
she devises; and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will
break their hearts but they will effect. God be praised for my jealousy!
Eleven o'clock the hour: I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on
Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon than
a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! Cuckold, cuckold, cuckold!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Field near Windsor.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY.
Caius Jack Rugby!
Rugby Sir?
Caius Vat is the clock, Jack?
Rugby 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.
Caius By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come: he has pray his
Pible 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.
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.
Caius Villainy, take your rapier.
Rugby Forbear; here's company.
Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER and PAGE.
Host Bless thee, bully Doctor!
Shallow Save you, Master Doctor Caius!
Page Now, good Master Doctor!
Slender Give you good morrow, sir.
Caius Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?
Host To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse, to see thee
here, to see thee there, to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse,
thy distance, thy montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco?
Ha, bully! What says my Aesculapius, my Galen, my heart of elder? Ha, is he
dead, bully stale? Is he dead?
Caius By gar, he is de coward jack-priest of de vorld; he is not show his
face.
Host Thou art a Castilian King Urinal, Hector of Greece, my boy!
Caius I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or seven, two, tree
hours for him, and he is no come.
Shallow He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you
a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your
professions. Is it not true, Master Page?
Page Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a
man of peace.
Shallow Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of the peace, if I
see a sword out my finger itches to make one. Though we are justices and
doctors and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we
are the sons of women, Master Page.
Page 'Tis true, Master Shallow.
Shallow It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor Caius, I 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, Monsieur Mockwater.
Caius Mock-vater? Vat is dat?
Host Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
Caius By gar, then, I have as much mock-vater as de Englishman. Scurvy
jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.
Host He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
Caius Clapper-de-claw? Vat is dat?
Host That is, he will make thee amends.
Caius By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me, for, by gar, me vill
have it.
Host And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
Caius Me tank you for dat.
Host And, moreover, bully -
[Aside to SLENDER, PAGE, and SHALLOW.] But first, Master guest, and Master
Page, and eke Cavaliero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore.
Page [Aside to HOST.] Sir Hugh is there, is he?
Host [Aside to others.] He is there. See what humour he is in; and I will
bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?
Shallow [Aside to HOST.] We will do it.
Page, Shallow,
& Slender Adieu, good Master Doctor.
[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.
Caius By gar, me vill kill de priest, for he speak for a jackanape 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 farmhouse a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried game?
Said I well?
Caius By gar, me dank you vor dat. By gar, I love you, and I shall
procure-a you de good guest: de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my
patients.
Host For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne Page. Said I well?
Caius By gar, 'tis good; vell said.
Host Let us wag, then.
Caius Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 3.
Scene 1. A Field near Frogmore.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, with a book, and SIMPLE.
Evans I pray you now, good Master Slender's servingman, and friend Simple
by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius, that calls himself
Doctor of Physic?
Simple Marry, sir, the Petty-ward, the Park-ward, every way; Old Windsor
way, and every way but the town way.
Evans I most fehemently desire you you will also look that way.
Simple I will, sir.
[Exit.
Evans Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling of mind! I
shall be glad if he have deceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog his
urinals about his knave's costard when I have 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, etc.
Re-enter SIMPLE.
Simple Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.
Evans He's welcome.
[Sings.] To shallow rivers, to whose falls -
Heaven prosper the right! -What weapons is he?
Simple No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master Shallow, and another
gentleman, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way.
Evans Pray you, give me my gown, or else keep it in your arms.
[Reads the book.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW and SLENDER.
Shallow How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester
from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful.
Slender Ah, sweet Anne Page!
Page Save you, good Sir Hugh!
Evans Pless you from His mercy sake, all of you!
Shallow What, the sword and the word! Do you study them both, Master Parson?
Page And youthful still in your doublet and hose this raw rheumatic day?
Evans There is reasons and causes for it.
Page We are come to you to do a good office, Master Parson.
Evans Fery well: what is it?
Page Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having received wrong
by some person, is at most odds with his own gravity and patience that ever
you saw.
Shallow I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never heard a man of his
place, gravity, and learning so wide of his own respect.
Evans What is he?
Page I think you know him -Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French
physician.
Evans Got's will, and His passion of my heart! I had as lief you would tell
me of a mess of porridge.
Page Why?
Evans He has no more knowledge in Hipocrates 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.
Slender 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.
Caius I pray you let-a me speak a word with your ear. Verefore vill you not
meet-a me?
Evans [Aside to CAIUS.] Pray you use your patience.
[Aloud.] In good time.
Caius By gar, you are de coward, de jack-dog, john-ape!
Evans [Aside to CAIUS.] Pray you, let us not be laughing-stocks to other
men's humours. I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make
you amends.
[Aloud.] I will knog your urinal about your knave's cogscomb.
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?
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.
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.
[Exit.
Shallow Trust me -a mad host! Follow, gentlemen, follow.
Slender O sweet Anne Page!
[Exeunt SLENDER, SHALLOW and PAGE.
Caius Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us, ha, ha?
Evans This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I desire you that we
may be friends, and let us knog our prains together to be revenge on this same
scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of the Garter.
Caius By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me where is Anne Page:
by gar, he deceive me too.
Evans Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. A Street in Windsor.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN.
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 weathercock?
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 goodman 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 strikes.
The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search: there I shall
find Falstaff. I shall be rather praised for this than mocked, for it is as
positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there. I will go.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS, DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY.
Shallow &
the others Well met, Master Ford.
Ford [Aside.] Trust me, a good knot.
[Aloud.] I have good cheer at home, and I pray you all go with me.
Shallow I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
Slender And so must I, sir. We have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne,
and I would not break with her for more money than I'll speak of.
Shallow We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin
Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.
Slender I hope I have your good will, father Page.
Page You have, Master Slender, I stand wholly for you. But my wife, Master
Doctor, is for you altogether.
Caius Ay, be-gar, and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a Quickly tell me so
mush.
Host What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes
of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May: -he
will carry't, he will carry 't. 'Tis in his buttons he will carry't.
Page Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he
kept company with the wild Prince and 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.
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.
[Aloud.] Will you go, gentles?
All Have with you to see this monster.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Room in Ford's House.
Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.
Mistress Ford What, John! What, Robert!
Mistress Page Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket -
Mistress Ford I warrant. What, Robin! I say!
Enter JOHN and ROBERT 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 JOHN and ROBERT.
Enter ROBIN.
Mistress Page Here comes little 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.
Mistress Ford Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross
watery pumpion. We'll teach him to know turtles from jays.
[Exit MISTRESS PAGE.
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 Thou art a tyrant 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 semicircled 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's no such thing in me.
Falstaff What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there's something
extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like
a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's apparel
and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I cannot; but I love thee; none
but thee; and thou deservest it.
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.
Enter ROBIN.
Robin 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 behind the arras.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE.
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 welladay, 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 upon 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 absence. 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 [Advancing.] 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 -
[He gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen.
Mistress Page Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress Ford.
[To FALSTAFF.] You dissembling knight!
Mistress Ford What, John! Robert! John!
[Exit ROBIN.
Enter JOHN and ROBERT.
Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the cowl-staff? Look, how
you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead. Quickly, come.
Enter FORD, PAGE, 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?
John 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 JOHN and ROBERT with the basket.
Gentlemen, I have dreamed tonight. I'll tell you my dream. Here, here,
here be my keys. Ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out. I'll warrant
we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.
[Locking the door.
So, now uncape.
Page Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself too much.
Ford True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport anon. Follow me,
gentlemen.
[Exit.
Evans This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
Caius By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.
Page Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.
[Exeunt PAGE, CAIUS and 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 tomorrow, eight o'clock,
to have amends.
Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS and SIR HUGH EVANS.
Ford I cannot find him: maybe 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.
Evans If there be anypody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the
coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgement!
Caius By gar, nor I too: there is nobodies.
Page Fie, fie, Master Ford! Are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil
suggests this imagination? I would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the
wealth of Windsor Castle.
Ford 'Tis my fault, Master Page, I suffer for it.
Evans You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a omans as I
will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.
Caius By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.
Ford Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park. I pray
you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come,
wife, come, Mistress Page, I pray you pardon me; pray, heartily pardon me.
Page Let's go in, gentlemen.
[To CAIUS and EVANS.] But, trust me, we'll mock him.
[To FORD, CAIUS, and EVANS.] I do invite you tomorrow 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 Anything.
Evans If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
Caius If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
Ford Pray you go, Master Page.
[Exit FORD and PAGE.
Evans I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host.
Caius Dat is good, by gar; with all my heart!
Evans A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Room in Page's House.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE.
Fenton I see I cannot get thy father's love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Anne Alas, how then?
Fenton Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth,
And that, my state being galled 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 Maybe he tells you true.
Fenton No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne,
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;
And 'tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.
Anne Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why then -hark you hither!
[They converse apart.
Enter SHALLOW, 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.
Quickly [To ANNE.] Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word with you.
Anne I come to him. [Aside.] This is my father's choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
Quickly And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.
Shallow She's coming. To her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
Slender I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of
him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two
geese out of a pen, good uncle.
Shallow Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
Slender Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.
Shallow He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
Slender Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a
squire.
Shallow He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
Anne Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
Shallow Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She
calls you, coz: I'll leave you.
Anne Now, Master Slender.
Slender Now, good Mistress Anne.
Anne What is your will?
Slender My will? Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made
my will yet, I thank heaven. I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven
praise.
Anne I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
Slender Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your
father and my uncle hath made motions. If it be my luck, so: if not, happy man
be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask
your father; here he comes.
Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.
Page Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
Why, how now! What does Master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
I told you, sir, my daughter is 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.
Quickly Speak to Mistress Page.
Fenton Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love
And not retire. Let me have your good will.
Anne Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
Mistress Page I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
Quickly That's my master, Master Doctor.
Anne Alas, I had rather be set quick i'th'earth,
And bowled 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.
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 tonight
Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.
Quickly Now heaven send thee good fortune!
[Exit FENTON.
A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a
kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master
Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I
can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my
word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir
John Falstaff from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF.
Falstaff Bardolph, I say!
Enter BARDOLPH.
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'th'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 the sack.
Bardolph Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
Falstaff Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water, for my belly's
as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her
in.
Bardolph Come in, woman!
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.
Quickly By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.
Falstaff Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.
Bardolph With eggs, sir?
Falstaff Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
[Exit BARDOLPH.
How now?
Quickly Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
Falstaff Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford.
I have my belly full of ford.
Quickly Alas the day, good heart! That was not her fault. She does so take
on with her men; they mistook their erection.
Falstaff So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.
Quickly Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to
see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding: she desires you once more to
come to her, between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly. She'll
make you amends, I warrant you.
Falstaff Well, I will visit her; tell her so. And bid her think what a man
is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.
Quickly I will tell her.
Falstaff Do so. Between nine and ten, sayst thou?
Quickly Eight and nine, sir.
Falstaff Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
Quickly Peace be with you, sir.
[Exit.
Falstaff I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay
within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.
Enter FORD disguised as Brook.
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-favouredly, Master Brook.
Ford How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
Falstaff No, Master Brook, but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master
Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of
our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were,
spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions,
thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his
house for his wife's love.
Ford What, while you were there?
Falstaff While I was there.
Ford And did he search for you, and could not find you?
Falstaff You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress
Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach, and, in her invention and Ford's
wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket
Ford A buck-basket?
Falstaff Yes, a buck-basket! Rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks,
socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the
rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
Ford And how long lay you there?
Falstaff Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring
this woman to evil, for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple
of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me
in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane. They took me on their shoulders,
met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice
what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave would
have searched it, but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand.
Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the
sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths. First, an
intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether. Next, to
be compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point,
heel to head. And then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with
stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that -a man of my
kidney -think of that -that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of
continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in
the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a
Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames and cooled, glowing hot, in that
surge, like a horseshoe. Think of that -hissing hot -think of that, Master
Brook!
Ford In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered
all this. My suit, then, is desperate. You'll undertake her no more?
Falstaff Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into
Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding:
I have received from her another embassy of meeting. 'Twixt eight and nine is
the hour, Master Brook.
Ford 'Tis past eight already, sir.
Falstaff Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at
your convenient leisure and you shall know how I speed, and the conclusion
shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master
Brook. Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.
[Exit.
Ford Hum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford,
awake! Awake, Master Ford! There's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford.
This 'tis to be married: this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I
will proclaim myself what I am. I will now take the lecher; he is at my house.
He cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should. He cannot creep into a
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 4.
Scene 1. A Street.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE.
Mistress Page Is he at Master Ford's already, thinkest thou?
Quickly Sure he is by this, or will be presently; but truly, he is very
courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to
come suddenly.
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 today?
Evans No, Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
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.
Evans Come hither, William. Hold up your head; come.
Mistress Page Come on, sirrah, hold up your head. Answer your master, be
not afraid.
Evans William, how many numbers is in nouns?
William Two.
Quickly Truly I thought there had been one number more, because they say
"Od's nouns".
Evans Peace your tattlings! What is `fair', William?
William Pulcher.
Quickly Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats, sure.
Evans You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you, peace. -What is lapis,
William?
William A stone.
Evans And what is `a stone', William?
William A pebble.
Evans No, it is lapis: I pray you remember in your prain.
William Lapis.
Evans That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?
William Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined:
singulariter nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.
Evans Nominativo hig, hag, hog; pray you mark: genitivo, huius. Well, what
is your accusative case?
William Accusativo, hinc.
Evans I pray you have your remembrance, child: accusativo, hing, hang, hog.
Quickly `Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
Evans Leave your prabbles, 'oman. -What is the focative case, William?
William O vocativo, O.
Evans Remember, William: focative is caret.
Quickly And that's a good root.
Evans Oman, forbear.
Mistress Page [To QUICKLY.] Peace!
Evans What is your genitive case plural, William?
William Genitive case?
Evans Ay.
William Genitive, horum, harum, horum.
Quickly Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never name her, child, if
she be a whore.
Evans For shame, 'oman!
Quickly You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick
and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call `horum'.
Fie upon you!
Evans Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases
and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I
would desires.
Mistress Page [To QUICKLY.] Prithee hold thy peace.
Evans Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
William Forsooth, I have forgot.
Evans It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your quis, your quaes, and your
quods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.
Mistress Page He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Evans He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
Mistress Page Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
[Exit EVANS.
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. A Room in Ford's House.
Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD.
Falstaff Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you
are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not
only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the
accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband
now?
Mistress Ford He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.
Mistress Page [Within.] What ho, gossip Ford! What ho!
Mistress Ford Step into th'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 lines 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.
Mistress Ford Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put
him into the basket again?
Re-enter FALSTAFF.
Falstaff No, I'll come no more i'th'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.
Mistress Page Creep into the kill-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 Brainford, 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 Brainford. 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 Ay, 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 Brainford.
Mistress Ford I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket.
Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.
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 eats all the draff'.
[Exit.
Enter JOHN and ROBERT.
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.
John Come, come, take it up.
Robert Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
John 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, villains! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a
basket? O you pandarly rascals! There's a knot, a gin, a pack, a conspiracy
against me. Now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come
forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!
Page Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you
must be pinioned.
Evans Why, this is lunatics! This is mad as a mad dog.
Shallow Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
Ford So say I too, sir.
Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.
Come hither, Mistress Ford. 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!
[Pulls the clothes out of the basket.
Page This passes!
Mistress Ford Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.
Ford I shall find you anon.
Evans 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come, away.
Ford Empty the basket, I say!
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.
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.
[Exeunt JOHN and ROBERT with the basket.
Ford Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I seek, show
no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say
of me, `As jealous as Ford that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's
leman'. Satisfy me once more. Once more search with me.
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 Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.
Ford A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my
house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know
what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by
charms, by spells, by th'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.
Enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, led by MISTRESS PAGE.
Mistress Page Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
Ford I'll `prat' her.
[Beats him.
Out of my door you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion!
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!
Evans By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a
'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under his muffler.
Ford Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. See but the issue
of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open
again.
Page Let's obey his humour a little further. Come gentlemen.
[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS and EVANS.
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.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.
Bardolph Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke
himself will be tomorrow 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 him to you.
Host They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay. I'll sauce them.
They have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests.
They must come off; I'll sauce them. Come.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Room in Ford's House.
Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.
Evans 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever 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.
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,
Disguised like Herne, with hugh horns on his head.
Page Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
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, ouphs, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffused song. Upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness will fly;
Then let them all encircle him about,
And, fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
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, dishorn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford The children must
Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.
Evans I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a
jackanapes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
Ford That will be excellent. I'll go buy them visors.
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.
[To MISTRESS PAGE.] 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.
Evans Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.
[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and 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 monied, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter HOST and SIMPLE.
Host What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thickskin? Speak, breathe, discuss
-brief, short, quick, snap.
Simple Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master
Slender.
Host There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and
truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new.
Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I
say.
Simple There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber. I'll be
so bold as stay, sir, till she come down. I come to speak with her, indeed.
Host Ha, a fat woman! The knight may be robbed; I'll call. Bully knight!
Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military. Art thou there? It is thine
host, thine Ephesian, calls.
Falstaff [Above, within.] 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 Brainford?
Falstaff Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell. What would you with her?
Simple My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go
thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of
a chain, had the chain or no.
Falstaff I spake with the old woman about it.
Simple And what says she, I pray, sir?
Falstaff Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master
Slender of his chain cozened him of it.
Simple I would I could have spoken with the woman herself. I had other
things to have spoken with her too, from him.
Falstaff What are they? Let us know.
Host Ay, come; quick.
Simple I may not conceal them, sir.
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.
Evans Where is mine host?
Host What is the matter, sir?
Evans Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to
town tells me there is three cozen-Germans that has cozened all the hosts of
Reading, of Maidenhead, of Colnbrook, 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.
Caius Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
Host Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.
Caius I cannot tell vat is dat, but it is tell-a me dat you make grand
preparation for a duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is no duke that the court
is know to come. I tell you for good will. Adieu.
[Exit.
Host Hue and cry, villain! Go! Assist me, knight, I am undone. Fly, run,
hue and cry, villain! I am undone!
[Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH.
Falstaff I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened
and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been
transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they
would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with
me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as
crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at
primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough, I would repent.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.
Now, whence come you?
Quickly From the two parties, forsooth.
Falstaff The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall
be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the
villainous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear.
Quickly And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them:
Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue that you cannot see a
white spot about her.
Falstaff What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into
all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch
of Brainford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the
action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me
i'th'stocks -i'th'common stocks! -for a witch.
Quickly Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you shall hear how
things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say
somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of
you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.
Falstaff Come up into my chamber.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 6. Another Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FENTON and HOST.
Host Master Fenton, talk not to me: my mind is heavy. I will give over all.
Fenton Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give 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 answered my affection,
So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
Even to my wish. I have a letter from her
Of such contents as you will wonder at,
The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,
That neither singly can be manifested
Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff
Hath a great scene; the image of the jest
I'll show you here at large.
[Showing the letter.] Hark, good mine host:
Tonight at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;
The purpose why, is here: in which disguise,
While other jests are something rank on foot,
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry: she hath consented.
Now, sir, her mother, even strong against that match
And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
While other sports are tasking of their minds,
And at the dean'ry, 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 masked and visorded -
That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,
With ribands pendant 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 5.
Scene 1. A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY.
Falstaff Prithee no more prattling. Go. I'll hold. This is the third time:
I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go! They say there is divinity in
odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!
Quickly I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to get you a pair
of horns.
Falstaff Away, I say! Time wears: hold up your head, and mince.
[Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY.
Enter FORD, disguised as Brook.
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known tonight, or
never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see
wonders.
Ford Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?
Falstaff I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man, but
I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford,
her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that
ever governed frenzy. I will tell you, he beat me grievously -in the shape of
a woman -for, in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a
weaver's beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along
with me, I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played
truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately.
Follow me; I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I
will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange
things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Windsor Park.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.
Page Come, come, we'll couch i'th'castle-ditch till we see the light of our
fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
Slender Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word how to
know one another. I come to her in white and cry `mum'; she cries `budget';
and by that we know one another.
Shallow That's good too; but what needs either your `mum' or her `budget'?
The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o'clock.
Page The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven
prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by
his horns. Let's away; follow me.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. 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 hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it
quickly. Go before into the Park: we two must go together.
Caius I know vat I have to do. Adieu.
Mistress Page Fare you well, sir.
[Exit CAIUS.
My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will
chafe at the Doctor's marrying my daughter. But 'tis no matter: -better a
little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak.
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.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. Windsor Park.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS disguised, with WILLIAM and three or four other CHILDREN
as Fairies.
Evans Trib, trib, fairies! Come; and remember your parts. Be pold, I pray
you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch'ords, do as I pid you.
Come, come! Trib, trib!
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. Another Part of the Park.
Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne, with a buck's head on.
Falstaff The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the
hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa;
love set on thy horns. O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a
man; in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love
of Leda. O omnipotent love! How near the god drew to the complexion of a
goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast -O Jove, a beastly fault!
-and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl: think on't, Jove, a foul
fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a
Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i'th'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 `Greensleeves', hail kissing-comfits, and snow
eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.
[He embraces MISTRESS FORD.
Mistress Ford Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
Falstaff Divide me like a bribed 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 of horns within.
Mistress Page Alas, what noise?
Mistress Ford Heaven forgive our sins!
Falstaff What should this be?
Mistress Ford &
Mistress Page Away, away!
[Exeunt MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.
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 in his disguise, PISTOL as Hobgoblin, MISTRESS QUICKLY as
the Fairy Queen, with ANNE PAGE, WILLIAM, and CHILDREN, as fairies with tapers.
Quickly Fairies, black, gray, 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 thon 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 face down.
Evans Where's Bead? Go you, and where yon 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.
Quickly About, about!
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.
Strew good luck, ouphs, 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 sev'ral crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest;
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
Th' 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 em'rald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away! Disperse! But till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.
Evans Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle earth!
Falstaff Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a
piece of cheese!
Pistol Vile worm, thou wast o'erlooked even in thy birth.
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.
Evans Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.
Falstaff Oh, oh, oh!
Quickly Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
Fairies [Sing.] 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 villainy;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
During this song they pinch Falstaff;
and DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a FAIRY in green;
SLENDER another way, and takes off a FAIRY in white;
and FENTON comes, and steals away ANNE PAGE.
A noise of hunting is heard within.
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 watched 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?
[Pointing to the horns.]
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!
Evans Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies
will not pinse you.
Ford Well said, fairy Hugh.
Evans And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in
good English.
Falstaff Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter
to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too?
Shall I have a cockscomb of frieze? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of
toasted cheese.
Evans Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.
Falstaff `Seese' and `putter'? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one
that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and
late-walking through the realm.
Mistress Page Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust
virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves
without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
Ford What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax?
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?
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 pandar. 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 tonight at my house,
where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife that now laughs at thee. Tell her
Master Slender hath married her daughter.
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'th'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.
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?
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 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 eschewed 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.