ACT III SCENE IV A room in PAGE'S house. [Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE] FENTON I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. ANNE PAGE Alas, how then? FENTON Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object I am too great of birth--, And that, my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth: Besides these, other bars he lays before me, My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me 'tis a thing impossible I should love thee but as a property. ANNE PAGE May be he tells you true. FENTON No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags; And 'tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. ANNE PAGE Gentle Master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir: If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why, then,--hark you hither! [They converse apart] [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY] SHALLOW Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself. SLENDER I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but venturing. SHALLOW Be not dismayed. SLENDER No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard. MISTRESS QUICKLY Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you. ANNE PAGE I come to him. [Aside] This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year! MISTRESS QUICKLY And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you. SHALLOW She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father! SLENDER I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. SHALLOW Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. SLENDER Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. SHALLOW He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. SLENDER Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire. SHALLOW He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. ANNE PAGE Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself. SHALLOW Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you. ANNE PAGE Now, Master Slender,-- SLENDER Now, good Mistress Anne,-- ANNE PAGE What is your will? SLENDER My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. ANNE PAGE I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me? SLENDER Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions: if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can: you may ask your father; here he comes. [Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE] PAGE Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne. Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of. FENTON Nay, Master Page, be not impatient. MISTRESS PAGE Good Master Fenton, come not to my child. PAGE She is no match for you. FENTON Sir, will you hear me? PAGE No, good Master Fenton. Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER] MISTRESS QUICKLY Speak to Mistress Page. FENTON Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners, I must advance the colours of my love And not retire: let me have your good will. ANNE PAGE Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool. MISTRESS PAGE I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. MISTRESS QUICKLY That's my master, master doctor. ANNE PAGE Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth And bowl'd to death with turnips! MISTRESS PAGE Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton, I will not be your friend nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected. Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in; Her father will be angry. FENTON Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan. [Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ANNE PAGE] MISTRESS QUICKLY This is my doing, now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton:' this is my doing. FENTON I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains. MISTRESS QUICKLY Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit FENTON] A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE V A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH] FALSTAFF Bardolph, I say,-- BARDOLPH Here, sir. FALSTAFF Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARDOLPH] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,--a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. [Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack] BARDOLPH Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. FALSTAFF Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. BARDOLPH Come in, woman! [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] MISTRESS QUICKLY By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow. FALSTAFF Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely. BARDOLPH With eggs, sir? FALSTAFF Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH] How now! MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford. FALSTAFF Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford. MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. FALSTAFF So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine: I must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you. FALSTAFF Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. MISTRESS QUICKLY I will tell her. FALSTAFF Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir. FALSTAFF Well, be gone: I will not miss her. MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace be with you, sir. [Exit] FALSTAFF I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes. [Enter FORD] FORD Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife? FORD That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. FORD And sped you, sir? FALSTAFF Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook. FORD How so, sir? Did she change her determination? FALSTAFF No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. FORD What, while you were there? FALSTAFF While I was there. FORD And did he search for you, and could not find you? FALSTAFF You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. FORD A buck-basket! FALSTAFF By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril. FORD And how long lay you there? FALSTAFF Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well: on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,--a man of my kidney,--think of that,--that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,--hissing hot,--think of that, Master Brook. FORD In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate; you'll undertake her no more? FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook. FORD 'Tis past eight already, sir. FALSTAFF Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit] FORD Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford awake! awake, Master Ford! there's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me: I'll be horn-mad. [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE I A street. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but, truly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly. MISTRESS PAGE I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, I see. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS] How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day? SIR HUGH EVANS No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play. MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart! MISTRESS PAGE Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. SIR HUGH EVANS Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid. SIR HUGH EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns? WILLIAM PAGE Two. MISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ''Od's nouns.' SIR HUGH EVANS Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William? WILLIAM PAGE Pulcher. MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure. SIR HUGH EVANS You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace. What is 'lapis,' William? WILLIAM PAGE A stone. SIR HUGH EVANS And what is 'a stone,' William? WILLIAM PAGE A pebble. SIR HUGH EVANS No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain. WILLIAM PAGE Lapis. SIR HUGH EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles? WILLIAM PAGE Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc. SIR HUGH EVANS Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case? WILLIAM PAGE Accusativo, hinc. SIR HUGH EVANS I pray you, have your remembrance, child, accusative, hung, hang, hog. MISTRESS QUICKLY 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. SIR HUGH EVANS Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William? WILLIAM PAGE O,--vocativo, O. SIR HUGH EVANS Remember, William; focative is caret. MISTRESS QUICKLY And that's a good root. SIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, forbear. MISTRESS PAGE Peace! SIR HUGH EVANS What is your genitive case plural, William? WILLIAM PAGE Genitive case! SIR HUGH EVANS Ay. WILLIAM PAGE Genitive,--horum, harum, horum. MISTRESS QUICKLY Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore. SIR HUGH EVANS For shame, 'oman. MISTRESS QUICKLY You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call 'horum:' fie upon you! SIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires. MISTRESS PAGE Prithee, hold thy peace. SIR HUGH EVANS Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. WILLIAM PAGE Forsooth, I have forgot. SIR HUGH EVANS It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your 'quies,' your 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go. MISTRESS PAGE He is a better scholar than I thought he was. SIR HUGH EVANS He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page. MISTRESS PAGE Adieu, good Sir Hugh. [Exit SIR HUGH EVANS] Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE II A room in FORD'S house. [Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD] FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now? MISTRESS FORD He's a-birding, sweet Sir John. MISTRESS PAGE [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho! MISTRESS FORD Step into the chamber, Sir John. [Exit FALSTAFF] [Enter MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself? MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people. MISTRESS PAGE Indeed! MISTRESS FORD No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder. MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here. MISTRESS FORD Why? MISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, 'Peer out, peer out!' that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility and patience, to this his distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here. MISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him? MISTRESS PAGE Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery. MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. MISTRESS FORD I am undone! The knight is here. MISTRESS PAGE Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you!--Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder. FORD Which way should be go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? [Re-enter FALSTAFF] FALSTAFF No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go out ere he come? MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? FALSTAFF What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney. MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole. FALSTAFF Where is it? MISTRESS FORD He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house. FALSTAFF I'll go out then. MISTRESS PAGE If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised-- MISTRESS FORD How might we disguise him? MISTRESS PAGE Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's gown big enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape. FALSTAFF Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief. MISTRESS FORD My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrummed hat and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John. MISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [Exit FALSTAFF] MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath threatened to beat her. MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! MISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming? MISTRESS PAGE Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. MISTRESS FORD We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. MISTRESS FORD I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit] MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act that often jest and laugh; 'Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff. [Exit] [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants] MISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch. [Exit] First Servant Come, come, take it up. Second Servant Pray heaven it be not full of knight again. First Servant I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. [Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching! PAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. SIR HUGH EVANS Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed. FORD So say I too, sir. [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD] Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? MISTRESS FORD Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty. FORD Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah! [Pulling clothes out of the basket] PAGE This passes! MISTRESS FORD Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. FORD I shall find you anon. SIR HUGH EVANS 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. FORD Empty the basket, I say! MISTRESS FORD Why, man, why? FORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen. MISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. PAGE Here's no man. SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you. SIR HUGH EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. FORD Well, he's not here I seek for. PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain. FORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, 'As jealous as Ford, Chat searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. MISTRESS FORD What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber. FORD Old woman! what old woman's that? MISTRESS FORD Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. FORD A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say! MISTRESS FORD Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman. [Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand. FORD I'll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon! out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFF] MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman. MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you. FORD Hang her, witch! SIR HUGH EVANS By the yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under his muffler. FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. PAGE Let's obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen. [Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] MISTRESS PAGE Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. MISTRESS FORD Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. MISTRESS PAGE I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. MISTRESS FORD What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? MISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. MISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? MISTRESS PAGE Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. MISTRESS FORD I'll warrant they'll have him publicly shamed: and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed. MISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt]