Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress. Mrs. Ford. I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now. Mrs. Page. I will lay a plot to try that: And we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. Mrs. Ford. Shall we send that foolish carrion, mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment? Mrs. Page. We'll do it; let him be sent for tomorrow eight o'clock, to have amends. Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS. Ford. I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass. Mrs. Page. Heard you that? Mrs. Ford. Ay, ay, peace: -You use me well, master Ford, do you? Ford. Ay, I do so. Mrs. Ford. Heaven make you better than your thoughts! Ford. Amen. And that, my state being gall'd with my expense, Fent. No, Heaven so speed me in my time tc come ! Albeit, I will confess, thy father's wealth Mrs. Page. You do yourself mighty wrong, mas. but venturing. ter Ford. Ford. Ay, ay; I must bear it. Eva. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, Heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment ! Caius. By gar, nor I too; dere is no bodies. Page. Fie, fie, master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not have your distemper in this kind, for the wealth of Windsor Castle. Ford. "Tis my fault, master Page: I suffer for it. Eva. 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: pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you, why I have done this.-Come, wife ;-come, mistress Page; I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me. Page. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush: Shall it be so? Shal. Be not dismay'd. Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard. Quick. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you. Anne. I come to him. This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! [Aside. Quick. And how does good master Fenton? Prav you, a word with you. Shal. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father! Slen. 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. Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long tail, under the degree of a 'squire. Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself. Shal. 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. Slen. Now, good mistress Anne. Anne. What is your will? Slen. 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? Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father, and my uncle, have 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. Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house : I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of. Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient. Mrs. Page. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child. Page. She is no match for you. Fent. Sir, will you hear me? Page. No, good master Fenton. Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender; in:kaowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Quick. Speak to mistress Page. Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond' fool. Mrs. Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. Quick. That's my master, master doctor. Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips. Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself: Good master Fenton, I will not be your friend, nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, [Exeunt Mrs. PAGE and ANNE. Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan. Quick. 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. Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to night Give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy pains. [Exit. Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! 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 Black it! [Exit. SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, I say, Bard. Here, sir. Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARD.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, 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 bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i'the litter: and you may know by my size, that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been, when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the wine. Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. Bard. Come in, woman. Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet sperm in my brewage.-Exit BARDOLPH.]-How now? Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford. was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I ford. Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. Ful. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. Quick. 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. her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, Fal. Well, I will visit her: Tell her so; and bid and then judge of my merit. Quick. I will tell her. Fal. Now, master Brook? you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife. Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business. Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And how sped you, sir? Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determination? Fal. 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, sp ke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his dis temper, and forsooth, to search his house for his the devil that guides him should aid him, I will wife's love. Ford. What, while you were there? Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you? Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket! Ford. A buck-basket! Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril. Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall bear, 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: 1 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 1 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, search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me, I'll be horn mad. [Exit ACT IV. SCENE I.-The Street. Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. QUICKLY, and WILLIAM. Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou? Quick. Sure he is by this; or will be presently: but truly he is very courageous mad, about his Mistress Ford desires throwing into the water. you to come suddenly. Mrs. Page. I'll be with her by-and-by; I'll but bring my young man here to school; Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, I see. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS. How now, sir Hugh? no school to-day? Quick. Blessing of his heart! Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my son profits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. Eva. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah: hold up your head, answer your master, be not afraid. Eva. William, how many numbers is in nouns? Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one Will. Pulcher. Quick. Poulcats! there are fairer things than poulcats, sure. Eva. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray Eva. And what is a stone, William ? Fal. 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 meet-your ing; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook. Ford. 'Tis past eight already, sir. Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my ap. pointment. 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 Eva. No, it is lapis; I pray you remember in What is he, Wil Eva. That is good, William. liam, that does lend articles? Will. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc. Eva. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-pray you, mark: genetivo, hujus: Well, what is your accusative case? Will. Accusativo, hinc. Eva. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo, hing, hang, hog. Quick. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. Eva. Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William? Will. O-vocativo, O Eva. Remember, William, focative is, caret, Quick. And that's a good root. Era. 'Oman, forbear. Mrs. Page. Peace. and hath drawn him and the rest of their company Eva. What is your genitive case plural, William? here: now he shall see his own foolery. Eva. Ay. Will. Genitive,—horum, harum, horum. Quick. 'Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! -never name her, child, if she be a whore. Era. For shame, 'oman. Quick. 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 :be upon you! Eva. Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires. Mrs. Page. Pr'ythee, hold thy peace. Era. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. Will. Forsooth, I have forgot. Eva. It is, ki, kæ, cod; if you forget your kies, your kes, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go. Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was. Mrs. Ford. Why? Mrs. Ford. How near is he, mistress Page? Mrs. Page. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. Mrs. Ford. I am undone !—the knight is here. Mrs. Page. Why then you are utterly ashamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you? :-Away with him, away with him; better shame than murder. Mrs. Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his eld lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind';| so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, erving Peer-out, peer-out! that any madness, I ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now; I am glad the fat knight is not here. Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs. Page. Of none but him; and swears, he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, a basket: protests to my husband he is now here; Mrs. Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? Re-enter FALSTAFF. Fal. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: May I not go out ere he come? Mrs. Page. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none sball issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney. Mrs Ford. There they always used to discharge their birding pieces: Creep into the kiln-hole. Fal. Where is it? Mrs. Ford. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: There is no hiding you in the house. Fal. I'll go out then. There is Mrs. Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, sir John. Unless you go out disguised,Mrs. Ford. How might we disguise him? Mrs. Page. Alas the day, I know not. no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape. Fal. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief. Mrs. Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. Mrs. Page. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too: Run up, sir John. Mrs. Ford. Go, go, sweet sir John: mistress Page and I, will look some linen for your head. Mrs. Page. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight put on the gown the while. [Exit FALSTAFF. Mrs. Ford. I would, my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears, she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her. Mrs. Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! Mrs. Ford. But is my husband coming? Mrs. Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and he talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. Mrs. Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. let's Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: go dress him like the witch of Brentford. Mrs. Ford. I'll first direct my men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit. HUGH EVANS. Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?-Set down the basket, villain :-Somebody call my wife: -You, youth in a basket, come out here!-0, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: Now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say! come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching. Page. Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! Enter Mrs. FORD. Ford. So say I too, sir.-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? Mrs. Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty. Ford. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah. [Pulls the clothes out of the basket. Page. This passes! Ford. I shall find you anon. Ford. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. Page. Here's no man. Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you. Eva. 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. Ford. Help to search my house this one time : if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table sport; let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman, down; my husband will come into the chamber. Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that? ford. Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing.Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down I say. Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband :-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman, Enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, led by Mrs. PAGE. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand. Ford. I'll prat her:-- Out of my door, you witch, [beats him.] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'l fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFT. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think, you have killed the poor woman. Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it:-'Tis a goodly credit for you. Ford. Hang her, witch! Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler. Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHALLOW, and EVANS. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd, and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in feesimple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publicly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed. Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it then, Page. No, nor nowhere else, but in your brain. shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt. |