Anne. Alas, how then?

Anne. May be he tells you true.

They converse apart.

Enter Shallow, Slender, and Mistress Quickly.

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

Sle. I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on’t: ’slid, ’tis but III. 4.
25 venturing.

Shal. Be not dismayed.

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 30 with you.

Quick. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, 35 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 40 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.

45 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.

III. 4.
50 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,—

55 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 60 me?

Slen. 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 65 ask your father; here he comes.

Enter Page and Mistress Page.

70 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?

Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.

Quick. Speak to Mistress Page.

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.

Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.

Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne.

Quick. This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you 95 cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton:’ this is my doing.

Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit III. 4.
100 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; 105 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.

III. 5 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 5 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, 10 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 15 should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter Bardolph with sack.

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 20 for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bard. Come in, woman!

Enter Mistress Quickly.

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

Fal. Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle III. 5.
25 of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

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 30 Ford.

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

Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook 35 their erection.

Fal. 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 40 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.

Fal. Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then 45 judge of my merit.

Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

III. 5.
50 Quick. Peace be with you, sir. Exit.

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

Enter Ford.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

55 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.

60 Ford. And 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 65 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 70 love.

Ford. What, while you were there?

Fal. While I was there.

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

III. 5.
75 Fal. 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!

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

Ford. And how long lay you there?

85 Fal. 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 90 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 95 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; III. 5.
100 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 105 the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,—hissing hot,—think of that, Master Brook.

Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake 110 you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?

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 115 from her another embassy of meeting; ’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 appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you 120 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 III. 5.
125 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 130 purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me,—I’ll be horn-mad. Exit.

ACT IV.

IV. 1 Scene I. A street.

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress 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 throwing into 5 the water. Mistress Ford desires 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?

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

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 15 some questions in his accidence.

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

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

Evans. William, how many numbers is in nouns?

20 Will. Two.

Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ‘Od’s nouns.’

Evans. Peace your tattlings! What is ‘fair,’ William?

Will. Pulcher.

IV. 1.
25 Quick. Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

Evans. You are a very simplicity ’oman: I pray you, peace. —What is ‘lapis,’ William?

Will. A stone.

30 Evans. And what is ‘a stone,’ William?

Will. A pebble.

Evans. No, it is ‘lapis:’ I pray you, remember in your prain.

Will. Lapis.

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

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

Evans. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: 40 genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?

Will. Accusativo, hinc.

Evans. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; accusativo, hung, hang, hog.

Quick. ‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

45 Evans. Leave your prabbles, ’oman. —What is the focative case, William?

Will. O,—vocativo, O.

Evans. Remember, William; focative is caret.

Quick. And that’s a good root.

IV. 1.
50 Evans. ’Oman, forbear.

Mrs Page. Peace!

Evans. What is your genitive case plural, William?

Will. Genitive case!

Evans. Ay.

55 Will. Genitive,—horum, harum, horum.

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

Evans. For shame, ’oman.

Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words:—he 60 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 lunaties? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? 65 Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs Page. Prithee, hold thy peace.

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

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

70 Evans. It is qui, quæ, quod: if you forget your ‘quies,’ your ‘quæs,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.

Mrs Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

IV. 1.
75 Evans. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

Mrs Page. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

Exit Sir Hugh.

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

Exeunt.

IV. 2 Scene II. A room in Ford’s house.

Enter Falstaff and Mistress Ford.

Fal. 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, 5 complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

Mrs Ford. He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

Mrs Page. [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

Mrs Ford. Step into the chamber, Sir John.

Exit Falstaff.

Enter Mistress Page.

10 Mrs Page. How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?

Mrs Ford. Why, none but mine own people.

Mrs Page. Indeed!

Mrs Ford. No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder.

15 Mrs Page. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

Mrs Ford. Why?

Mrs Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s 20 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.

IV. 2.
25 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, 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 30 another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

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.

35 Mrs 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.

Mrs Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter Falstaff.

40 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 shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you 45 here?

Fal. What shall I do?—I’ll creep up into the chimney.

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

Fal. Where is it?

IV. 2.
50 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.

55 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! There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put 60 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.

65 Mrs 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.

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

70 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 IV. 2.
75 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 talks of 80 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.

Mrs Page. Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go 85 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.

Re-enter Mistress Ford with two Servants.

Mrs Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your 95 shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch. Exit.

First Serv. Come, come, take it up.

Sec. Serv. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

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

Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.

IV. 2.
100 Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket!—O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. —What, 105 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 110 dog!

Shal. 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 115 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, 120 sirrah! Pulling clothes out of the basket.

Page. This passes!

Mrs Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

Ford. I shall find you anon.

Evans. ’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your IV. 2.
125 wife’s clothes? Come away.

Ford. Empty the basket, I say!

Mrs 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 130 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.

135 Page. Here’s no man.

Shal. 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.

140 Ford. Well, he’s not here I seek for.

Page. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

Ford. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, ‘As 145 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, 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?

IV. 2.
150 Mrs Ford. Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works 155 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.

Re-enter Falstaff in woman’s clothes, and Mistress Page.

160 Mrs Page. Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

Ford. I’ll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

Exit Falstaff.

165 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!

170 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 IV. 2.
175 upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

Page. Let’s obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen.

Exeunt Ford, Page, Shal., Caius, and Evans.

Mrs Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

Mrs Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat 180 him most unpitifully methought.

Mrs Page. I’ll have the cudgel hallowed 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 185 him with any further revenge?

Mrs 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.

190 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 195 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; shape it: IV. 2.
200 I would not have things cool.

Exeunt.

IV. 3 Scene III. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Bardolph.

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

Host. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I 5 hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English?

Bard. Ay, sir; I’ll call them to you.

Host. They shall have my horses; but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them: they have had my house a week at 10 command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I’ll sauce them. Come.

Exeunt.

IV. 4 Scene IV. 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?

5 Mrs Page. Within a quarter of an hour.