Act I

Act I. Scene I. Windsor. Before Page's house.

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.

In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and

'Coram.'

Ay, cousin Slender, and 'Custalourum.

Ay, and 'Rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born,

master parson; who writes himself 'Armigero,' in any

bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.'

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Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three

hundred years.

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.

It is an old coat.

The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;

it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to

man, and signifies love.

The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.

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I may quarter, coz.

You may, by marrying.

It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

Not a whit.

Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat,

there is but three skirts for yourself, in my

simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir

John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto

you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my

benevolence to make atonements and compremises

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between you.

The council shall bear it; it is a riot.

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.

Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword

should end it.

It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it:

and there is also another device in my prain, which

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peradventure prings goot discretions with it: there

is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas

Page, which is pretty virginity.

Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks

small like a woman.

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

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old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles

and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master

Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.

Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.

I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.

Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.

Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?

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

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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.

What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

[Within] Who's there?

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.

I am glad to see your worships well.

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I thank you for my venison, Master 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.

Sir, I thank you.

Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.

I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he

was outrun on Cotsall.

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It could not be judged, sir.

You'll not confess, you'll not confess.

That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault;

'tis a good dog.

A cur, sir.

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?

Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good

office between you.

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It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

He hath wronged me, Master Page.

Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.

If it be confessed, it is not redress'd: is not that

so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he

hath, at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert

Shallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged.

Here comes Sir John.

Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king?

Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and

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broke open my lodge.

But not kissed your keeper's daughter?

Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

I will answer it straight; I have done all this.

That is now answered.

The council shall know this.

'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:

you'll be laughed at.

Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.

Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your

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head: what matter have you against me?

Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;

and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph,

Nym, and Pistol.

You Banbury cheese!

Ay, it is no matter.

How now, Mephostophilus!

Ay, it is no matter.

Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that's my humour.

Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?

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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.

We three, to hear it and end it between them.

Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-

book; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with

as great discreetly as we can.

Pistol!

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He hears with ears.

The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He

hears with ear'? why, it is affectations.

Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?

Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might

never come in mine own great chamber again else, of

seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward

shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two

pence apiece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

Is this true, Pistol?

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No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.

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!

By these gloves, then, 'twas he.

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.

By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for

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though I cannot remember what I did when you made me

drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

What say you, Scarlet and John?

Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk

himself out of his five sentences.

It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and

so conclusions passed the careires.

Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no

matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again,

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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.

So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.

O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.

How now, Mistress Ford!

Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met:

by your leave, good mistress.

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Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a

hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope

we shall drink down all unkindness.

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of

Songs and Sonnets here.

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?

Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice

Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight

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afore Michaelmas?

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?

Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so,

I shall do that that is reason.

Nay, but understand me.

So I do, sir.

Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will

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description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

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.

But that is not the question: the question is

concerning your marriage.

Ay, there's the point, sir.

Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.

Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any

reasonable demands.

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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?

Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that

would do reason.

Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak

possitable, if you can carry her your desires

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towards her.

That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

I will do a greater thing than that, upon your

request, cousin, in any reason.

Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do

is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

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;

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I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt:

but if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that

I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in

the ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our

meaning, 'resolutely:' his meaning is good.

Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

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The dinner is on the table; my father desires your

worships' company.

I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

The dinner attends you, sir.

I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,

sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my

cousin Shallow.

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A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his

friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy

yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I

live like a poor gentleman born.

I may not go in without your worship: they will not

sit till you come.

I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as

though I did.

I pray you, sir, walk in.

I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised

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my shin th' other day with playing at sword and

dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a

dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot

abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your

dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?

I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

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?

Ay, indeed, sir.

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That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen

Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by

the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so

cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women,

indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favored

rough things.

Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

Nay, pray you, lead the way.

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Come on, sir.

Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.

I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome.

You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!

Act I. Scene II. The same.

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.

Well, sir.

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

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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.

Act I. Scene III. A room in the Garter Inn.

Mine host of the Garter!

What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.

Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my

followers.

Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.

I sit at ten pounds a week.

Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I

will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall

tap: said I well, bully Hector?

10

Do so, good mine host.

I have spoke; let him follow.

Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow.

Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade:

an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered

serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.

O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?

He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?

I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his

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thefts were too open; his filching was like an

unskilful singer; he kept not time.

The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.

'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico

for the phrase!

Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

Why, then, let kibes ensue.

There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.

Young ravens must have food.

Which of you know Ford of this town?

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I ken the wight: he is of substance good.

My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

Two yards, and more.

No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two

yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about

thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's

wife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses,

she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I

can construe the action of her familiar style; and

the hardest voice of her behavior, to be Englished

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rightly, is, 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'

He hath studied her will, and translated her will,

out of honesty into English.

The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?

Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her

husband's purse: he hath a legion of angels.

As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.

The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.

I have writ me here a letter to her: and here

another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good

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eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious

oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my

foot, sometimes my portly belly.

Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

I thank thee for that humour.

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

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be cheater to them both, and they shall be

exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West

Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou

this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to

Mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,

And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all!

I will run no base humour: here, take the

humour-letter: I will keep the havior of reputation.

[To Robin] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;

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Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.

Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;

Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack!

Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,

French thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page.

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!

I have operations which be humours of revenge.

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Wilt thou revenge?

By welkin and her star!

With wit or steel?

With both the humours, I:

I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.

And I to Ford shall eke unfold

How Falstaff, varlet vile,

His dove will prove, his gold will hold,

And his soft couch defile.

My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to

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deal with poison; I will possess him with

yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous:

that is my true humour.

Thou art the Mars of malecontents: I second thee; troop on.

Act I. Scene IV. A room in Doctor Caius' house.

What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement,

and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor

Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find any

body in the house, here will be an old abusing of

God's patience and the king's English.

I'll go watch.

Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in

faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.

An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant

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shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no

tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,

that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish

that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let

that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?

Ay, for fault of a better.

And Master Slender's your master?

Ay, forsooth.

Does he not wear a great round beard, like a

glover's paring-knife?

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No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a

little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard.

A softly-sprighted man, is he not?

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.

How say you? O, I should remember him: does he not

hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

Yes, indeed, does he.

Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell

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Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your

master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish--

Out, alas! here comes my master.

We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man;

go into this closet: he will not stay long.

What, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say!

Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt

he be not well, that he comes not home.

And down, down, adown-a, & c.

Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you,

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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.

Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you.

I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found

the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je

m'en vais a la cour--la grande affaire.

Is it this, sir?

Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere

is dat knave Rugby?

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What, John Rugby! John!

Here, sir!

You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come,

take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.

'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me!

Qu'ai-j'oublie! dere is some simples in my closet,

dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.

Ay me, he'll find the young man here, and be mad!

O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron!

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Rugby, my rapier!

Good master, be content.

Wherefore shall I be content-a?

The young man is an honest man.

What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is

no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth

of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.

Vell.

Ay, forsooth; to desire her to--

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Peace, I pray you.

Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.

To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to

speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my

master in the way of marriage.

This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my

finger in the fire, and need not.

Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper.

Tarry you a little-a while.

[Aside to Simple] I am glad he is so quiet: if he

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had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him

so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding,

man, I'll do you your master what good I can: and

the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my

master,--I may call him my master, look you, for I

keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake,

scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds and do

all myself,--

[Aside to Mistress Quickly] 'Tis a great charge to

come under one body's hand.

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[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.

You jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by

gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in dee

park; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest

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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:

Alas, he speaks but for his friend.

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.

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Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We

must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!

Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have

not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my

door. Follow my heels, Rugby.

You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I

know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor

knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more

than I do with her, I thank heaven.

[Within] Who's within there? ho!

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Who's there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you.

How now, good woman? how dost thou?

The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.

What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?

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.

Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?

Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but

notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a

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book, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart

above your eye?

Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

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.

Well, I shall see her today. Hold, there's money

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for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if

thou seest her before me, commend me.

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.

Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.

Farewell to your worship.

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?

Act II

Act II. Scene I. Before Page'S house.

What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-

time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?

Let me see.

'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though

Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him

not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more

am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry,

so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you

love sack, and so do I; would you desire better

10

sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at

the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,--

that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis

not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,

Thine own true knight,

By day or night,

Or any kind of light,

With all his might

For thee to fight, JOHN Falstaff'

What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked

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world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with

age to show himself a young gallant! What an

unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard

picked--with the devil's name!--out of my

conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?

Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What

should I say to him? I was then frugal of my

mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill

in the parliament for the putting down of men. How

shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be,

30

as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.

And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very

ill.

Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.

Faith, but you do, in my mind.

Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the

contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

What's the matter, woman?

O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I

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could come to such honour!

Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is

it? dispense with trifles; what is it?

If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so,

I could be knighted.

What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights

will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the

article of thy gentry.

We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I

might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat

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men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of

men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised

women's modesty; and gave such orderly and

well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I

would have sworn his disposition would have gone to

the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere

and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to

the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' What tempest, I trow,

threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his

belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged

60

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?

Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and

Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery

of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy

letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I

protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a

thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for

different names--sure, more,--and these are of the

70

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.

Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very

words. What doth he think of us?

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;

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for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I

know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him

above deck.

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.

Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him,

90

that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,

that my husband saw this letter! it would give

eternal food to his jealousy.

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.

You are the happier woman.

Let's consult together against this greasy knight.

Come hither.

Well, I hope it be not so.

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Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:

Sir John affects thy wife.

Why, sir, my wife is not young.

He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,

Both young and old, one with another, Ford;

He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.

Love my wife!

With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,

Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:

O, odious is the name!

110

What name, sir?

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.

[Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this.

[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

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have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity.

He loves your wife; there's the short and the long.

My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis

true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.

Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,

and there's the humour of it. Adieu.

'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow

frights English out of his wits.

I will seek out Falstaff.

I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

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If I do find it: well.

I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest

o' the town commended him for a true man.

'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.

How now, Meg!

Whither go you, George? Hark you.

How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,

will you go, Mistress Page?

140

Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George.

Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger

to this paltry knight.

[Aside to Mistress Page] Trust me, I thought on her:

she'll fit it.

You are come to see my daughter Anne?

Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with

you.

How now, Master Ford!

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You heard what this knave told me, did you not?

Yes: and you heard what the other told me?

Do you think there is truth in them?

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.

Were they his men?

Marry, were they.

I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at

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the Garter?

Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage

towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and

what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it

lie on my head.

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.

Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes:

there is either liquor in his pate or money in his

170

purse when he looks so merrily.

How now, mine host!

How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.

Cavaleiro-justice, I say!

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.

Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh

the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

180

Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.

What sayest thou, my bully-rook?

[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.

Hast thou no suit against my knight, my

guest-cavaleire?

None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of

190

burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him

my name is Brook; only for a jest.

My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;

--said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is

a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?

Have with you, mine host.

I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in

his rapier.

Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times

you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and

200

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.

Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?

Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.

Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly

on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my

opinion so easily: she was in his company at Page's

house; and what they made there, I know not. Well,

I will look further into't: and I have a disguise

210

to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not

my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed.

Act II. Scene II. A room in the Garter Inn.

I will not lend thee a penny.

Why, then the world's mine oyster.

Which I with sword will open.

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

10

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.

Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?

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

20

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!

I do relent: what would thou more of man?

30

Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.

Let her approach.

Give your worship good morrow.

Good morrow, good wife.

Not so, an't please your worship.

Good maid, then.

I'll be sworn,

As my mother was, the first hour I was born.

I do believe the swearer. What with me?

Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

40

Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee

the hearing.

There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a

little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master

Doctor Caius,--

Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,--

Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,

come a little nearer this ways.

I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine

own people.

50

Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!

Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?

Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your

worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all

of us, I pray!

Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,--

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

60

to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and

lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant

you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift

after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so

rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in

such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of

the best and the fairest, that would have won any

woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never

get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels

given me this morning; but I defy all angels, in

70

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.

But what says she to me? be brief, my good

she-Mercury.

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

80

house between ten and eleven.

Ten and eleven?

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.

Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will

not fail her.

90

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.

100

Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my

good parts aside I have no other charms.

Blessing on your heart for't!

But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and

Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?

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

110

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.

Why, I will.

Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and

go between you both; and in any case have a

120

nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and

the boy never need to understand any thing; for

'tis not good that children should know any

wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion,

as they say, and know the world.

Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's

my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with

this woman.

This news distracts me!

This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:

130

Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights:

Give fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!

Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make

more of thy old body than I have done. Will they

yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense

of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I

thank thee. Let them say 'tis grossly done; so it be

fairly done, no matter.

Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain

speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath

140

sent your worship a morning's draught of sack.

Brook is his name?

Ay, sir.

Call him in.

Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such

liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page

have I encompassed you? go to; via!

Bless you, sir!

And you, sir! Would you speak with me?

I make bold to press with so little preparation upon

150

you.

You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.

Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.

Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.

Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you;

for I must let you understand I think myself in

better plight for a lender than you are: the which

hath something embolden'd me to this unseasoned

intrusion; for they say, if money go before, all

ways do lie open.

160

Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.

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.

Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.

I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.

Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be

your servant.

Sir, I hear you are a scholar,--I will be brief

with you,--and you have been a man long known to me,

170

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.

Very well, sir; proceed.

There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's

180

name is Ford.

Well, sir.

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

190

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.'

Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?

Never.

Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

200

Never.

Of what quality was your love, then?

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.

To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

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

210

John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a

gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable

discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your

place and person, generally allowed for your many

war-like, court-like, and learned preparations.

O, sir!

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

220

Ford's wife: use your art of wooing; win her to

consent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as

any.

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.

O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on

the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my

soul dares not present itself: she is too bright to

be looked against. Now, could I could come to her

230

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?

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.

O good sir!

240

I say you shall.

Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.

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.

250

I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,

sir?

Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:

yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the

jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the

which his wife seems to me well-favored. I will

use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer;

and there's my harvest-home.

I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him

if you saw him.

260

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.

What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is

270

ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is

improvident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the

hour is fixed; the match is made. Would any man

have thought this? See the hell of having a false

woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers

ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not

only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under

the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that

does me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds

well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are

280

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

290

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!

Act II. Scene III. A field near Windsor.

Jack Rugby!

Sir?

Vat is de clock, Jack?

'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.

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.

He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill

him, if he came.

10

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.

Alas, sir, I cannot fence.

Villany, take your rapier.

Forbear; here's company.

Bless thee, bully doctor!

Save you, Master Doctor Caius!

Now, good master doctor!

Give you good morrow, sir.

Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?

20

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?

By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he

is not show his face.

Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!

30

I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or

seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

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?

Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great

fighter, though now a man of peace.

Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of

the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to

40

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.

'Tis true, Master 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.

Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.

50

Mock-vater! vat is dat?

Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de

Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me

vill cut his ears.

He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?

That is, he will make thee amends.

By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me;

for, by gar, me vill have it.

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And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.

Me tank you for dat.

And, moreover, bully,--but first, master guest, and

Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you

through the town to Frogmore.

Sir Hugh is there, is he?

He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will

bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

We will do it.

Adieu, good master doctor.

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By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a

jack-an-ape to Anne Page.

Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold

water on thy choler: go about the fields with me

through Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress

Anne Page is, at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou

shalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well?

By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you;

and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl,

de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

80

For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne

Page. Said I well?

By gar, 'tis good; vell said.

Let us wag, then.

Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

Act III

Act III. Scene I. A field near Frogmore.

I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man,

and friend Simple by your name, which way have you

looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?

Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every

way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town

way.

I most fehemently desire you you will also look that

way.

I will, sir.

10

'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!

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--

20

Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.

Melodious birds sing madrigals--

When as I sat in Pabylon--

And a thousand vagram posies.

To shallow & c.

Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.

He's welcome.

To shallow rivers, to whose falls-

Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?

No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master

30

Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over

the stile, this way.

Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms.

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.

[Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!

'Save you, good Sir Hugh!

'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!

What, the sword and the word! do you study them

40

both, master parson?

And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this

raw rheumatic day!

There is reasons and causes for it.

We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.

Fery well: what is it?

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.

50

I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never

heard a man of his place, gravity and learning, so

wide of his own respect.

What is he?

I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the

renowned French physician.

Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as

lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.

Why?

He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,

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--and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you

would desires to be acquainted withal.

I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder:

here comes Doctor Caius.

Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.

So do you, good master doctor.

Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep

their limbs whole and hack our English.

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I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.

Vherefore vill you not meet-a me?

[Aside to Doctor Caius] Pray you, use your patience:

in good time.

By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.

[Aside to Doctor Caius] Pray you let us not be

laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you

in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.

I will knog your urinals about your knave's cockscomb

for missing your meetings and appointments.

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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?

As I am a Christians soul now, look you, this is the

place appointed: I'll be judgement by mine host of

the Garter.

Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,

soul-curer and body-curer!

Ay, dat is very good; excellent.

Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I

90

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;

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follow, follow, follow.

Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of

us, ha, ha?

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.

By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me

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where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.

Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow.

Act III. Scene II. A street.

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?

I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man

than follow him like a dwarf.

O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you'll be a courtier.

Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?

Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want

10

of company. I think, if your husbands were dead,

you two would marry.

Be sure of that,--two other husbands.

Where had you this pretty weather-cock?

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my

husband had him of. What do you call your knight's

name, sirrah?

Sir John Falstaff.

Sir John Falstaff!

He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such a

20

league between my good man and he! Is your wife at

home indeed?

Indeed she is.

By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.

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

30

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.

The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me

40

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.

Well met, Master Ford.

Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home;

and I pray you all go with me.

I must excuse myself, Master Ford.

And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with

Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for

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more money than I'll speak of.

We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and

my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

I hope I have your good will, father Page.

You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you:

but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a

Quickly tell me so mush.

What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he

dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he

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speaks holiday, he smells April and May: he will

carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he

will carry't.

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.

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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.

Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing

at Master Page's.

Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight

Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

[Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe wine first

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with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

Have with you to see this monster.

Act III. Scene III. A room in Ford's house.

What, John! What, Robert!

Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket--

I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

Come, come, come.

Here, set it down.

Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

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

10

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.

You will do it?

I ha' told them over and over; they lack no

direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.

Here comes little Robin.

How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?

My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door,

20

Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?

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.

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.

Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.

30

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.

Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity,

this gross watery pumpion; we'll teach him to know

turtles from jays.

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!

O sweet Sir John!

Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,

40

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.

I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady!

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.

A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing

50

else; nor that well neither.

By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou

wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm

fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion

to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see

what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature

thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

Believe me, there is no such thing in me.

What made me love thee? let that persuade thee

there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I

60

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.

Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.

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.

Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one

70

day find it.

Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.

Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not

be in that mind.

[Within] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's

Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and

looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras.

Pray you, do so: she's a very tattling woman.

What's the matter? how now!

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O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed,

you're overthrown, you're undone for ever!

What's the matter, good Mistress Page?

O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man

to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

What cause of suspicion?

What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I

mistook in you!

Why, alas, what's the matter?

Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the

90

officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that

he says is here now in the house by your consent, to

take an ill advantage of his assence: you are undone.

'Tis not so, I hope.

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

100

amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your

reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.

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.

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

110

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.

He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?

[Coming forward] Let me see't, let me see't, O, let

me see't! I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's

counsel. I'll in.

What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?

I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.

120

I'll never--

Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,

Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!

What, John! Robert! John!

Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the

cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to

the laundress in Datchet-meat; quickly, come.

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?

130

To the laundress, forsooth.

Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You

were best meddle with buck-washing.

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.

Gentlemen, I have dreamed toight; 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.

140

So, now uncape.

Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.

True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see

sport anon: follow me, gentlemen.

This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not

jealous in France.

Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.

Is there not a double excellency in this?

I know not which pleases me better, that my husband

150

is deceived, or Sir John.

What a taking was he in when your husband asked who

was in the basket!

I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so

throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same

strain were in the same distress.

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.

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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.

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?

We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow,

eight o'clock, to have amends.

I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that

170

he could not compass.

[Aside to Mistress Ford] Heard you that?

You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

Ay, I do so.

Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Amen!

You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

Ay, ay; I must bear it.

If there be any pody in the house, and in the

chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses,

180

heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!

By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies.

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.

'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.

You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as

honest a 'omans as I will desires among five

thousand, and five hundred too.

190

By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.

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.

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?

200

Any thing.

If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

Pray you, go, Master Page.

I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy

knave, mine host.

Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart!

A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!

Act III. Scene IV. A room in Page's house.

I see I cannot get thy father's love;

Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.

Alas, how then?

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;

10

And tells me 'tis a thing impossible

I should love thee but as a property.

May be he tells you true.

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.

20

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!

Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall

speak for himself.

I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but

venturing.

Be not dismayed.

No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,

30

but that I am afeard.

Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.

I come to him.

This is my father's choice.

O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults

Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!

And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

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.

Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in

Gloucestershire.

He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the

degree of a squire.

He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

50

Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good

comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you.

Now, Master Slender,--

Now, good Mistress Anne,--

What is your will?

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.

I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?

Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing

60

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.

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.

Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

70

She is no match for you.

Sir, will you hear me?

No, good Master Fenton.

Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.

Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

Speak to Mistress Page.

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

80

And not retire: let me have your good will.

Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

That's my master, master doctor.

Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth

And bowl'd to death with turnips!

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.

90

Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;

Her father will be angry.

Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.

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.

I thank thee; and I pray thee, once toight

Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.

Now heaven send thee good fortune!

A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through

100

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!

Act III. Scene V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Bardolph, I say,--

Here, sir.

Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.

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

10

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.

Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my

20

belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for

pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Come in, woman!

By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship

good morrow.

Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of

sack finely.

With eggs, sir?

Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.

How now!

30

Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.

Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown

into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.

Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:

she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

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

40

quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.

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.

I will tell her.

Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Eight and nine, sir.

Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

Peace be with you, sir.

I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word

50

to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.

Bless you, sir!

Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed

between me and Ford's wife?

That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her

house the hour she appointed me.

And sped you, sir?

Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.

How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

60

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.

What, while you were there?

While I was there.

70

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

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.

A buck-basket!

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.

80

And how long lay you there?

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

90

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

100

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.

In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you

110

have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;

you'll undertake her no more?

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.

'Tis past eight already, sir.

Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.

Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall

120

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.

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

130

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.

Act IV

Act IV. Scene I. A street.

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

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.

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.

How now, Sir Hugh! no school today?

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

10

Blessing of his heart!

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.

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

Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your

master, be not afraid.

William, how many numbers is in nouns?

Two.

Truly, I thought there had been one number more,

20

because they say, ''Od's nouns.'

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

Pulcher.

Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace.

What is 'lapis,' William?

A stone.

And what is 'a stone,' William?

A pebble.

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

30

Lapis.

That is a good William. What is he, William, that

does lend articles?

Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus

declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.

Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:

genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?

Accusativo, hinc.

I pray you, have your remembrance, child,

accusative, hung, hang, hog.

40

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

Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative

case, William?

O,--vocativo, O.

Remember, William; focative is caret.

And that's a good root.

'Oman, forbear.

Peace!

What is your genitive case plural, William?

Genitive case!

50

Ay.

Genitive,--horum, harum, horum.

Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name

her, child, if she be a whore.

For shame, 'oman.

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!

'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no

understandings for thy cases and the numbers of the

60

genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as

I would desires.

Prithee, hold thy peace.

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

Forsooth, I have forgot.

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.

He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

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

70

Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

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

Act IV. Scene II. A room in Ford's house.

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?

He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.

[Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

10

Step into the chamber, Sir John.

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

Why, none but mine own people.

Indeed!

No, certainly.

Speak louder.

Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

Why?

Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again:

he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails

20

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.

Why, does he talk of him?

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

30

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.

How near is he, Mistress Page?

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

I am undone! The knight is here.

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.

Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?

40

Shall I put him into the basket again?

No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go

out ere he come?

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?

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

There they always use to discharge their

birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

Where is it?

50

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.

I'll go out then.

If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir

John. Unless you go out disguised--

How might we disguise him?

Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's gown

big enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat,

60

a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape.

Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather

than a mischief.

My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a

gown above.

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.

Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will

look some linen for your head.

70

Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put

on the gown the while.

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.

Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the

devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

But is my husband coming?

Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket

80

too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

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.

Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him

like the witch of Brentford.

I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the

basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.

Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.

We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,

90

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.

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.

Come, come, take it up.

Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

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

Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any

100

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!

Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go

loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

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

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

110

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?

Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in

any dishonesty.

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

This passes!

Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

120

I shall find you anon.

'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's

clothes? Come away.

Empty the basket, I say!

Why, man, why?

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.

130

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

Here's no man.

By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this

wrongs you.

Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the

imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.

Well, he's not here I seek for.

No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

Help to search my house this one time. If I find

not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let

140

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.

What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman

down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Old woman! what old woman's that?

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

A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not

forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does

150

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!

Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him

not strike the old woman.

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

I'll prat her.

160

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.

Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the

poor woman.

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

Hang her, witch!

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.

170

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.

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

gentlemen.

Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most

unpitifully, methought.

I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the

altar; it hath done meritorious service.

180

What think you? may we, with the warrant of

womanhood and the witness of a good conscience,

pursue him with any further revenge?

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.

Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the

figures out of your husband's brains. If they can

190

find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight

shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be

the ministers.

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.

Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would

not have things cool.

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

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.

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?

Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.

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.

Act IV. Scene IV. A room in Ford's house.

'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever

I did look upon.

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

Within a quarter of an hour.

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.

10

'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.

There is no better way than that they spoke of.

How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park

at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.

20

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.

So think I too.

Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.

There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,

30

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.

Why, yet there want not many that do fear

40

In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:

But what of this?

Marry, this is our device;

That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

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?

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

50

Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,

And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,

As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,

Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once

With some diffused song: upon their sight,

We two in great amazedness will fly:

Then let them all encircle him about

And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,

And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,

60

In their so sacred paths he dares to tread

In shape profane.

And till he tell the truth,

Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound

And burn him with their tapers.

The truth being known,

We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,

And mock him home to Windsor.

The children must

Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

70

I will teach the children their behaviors; and I

will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the

knight with my taber.

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

My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,

Finely attired in a robe of white.

That silk will I go buy.

And in that time

Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away

And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.

80

Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook

He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.

Fear not you that. Go get us properties

And tricking for our fairies.

Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery

honest knaveries.

Go, Mistress Ford,

Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.

I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,

And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.

90

That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;

And he my husband best of all affects.

The doctor is well money'd, and his friends

Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

Act IV. Scene V. A room in the Garter Inn.

What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?

speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff

from Master Slender.

There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his

standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about

with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go

knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian

unto thee: knock, I say.

10

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.

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.

[Above] How now, mine host!

Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of

thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her

20

descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?

fie!

There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with

me; but she's gone.

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

Brentford?

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

My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing

her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether

one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the

30

chain or no.

I spake with the old woman about it.

And what says she, I pray, sir?

Marry, she says that the very same man that

beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of

it.

I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;

I had other things to have spoken with her too from

him.

What are they? let us know.

40

Ay, come; quick.

I may not conceal them, sir.

Conceal them, or thou diest.

Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne

Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to

have her or no.

'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

What, sir?

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

May I be bold to say so, sir?

50

Ay, sir; like who more bold.

I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad

with these tidings.

Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was

there a wise woman with thee?

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.

Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!

60

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

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.

They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not

say they be fled; Germans are honest men.

Where is mine host?

What is the matter, sir?

Have a care of your entertainments: there is a

70

friend of mine come to town tells me there is three

cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of

Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and

money. I tell you for good will, look you: you

are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and

'tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.

Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat

you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by

80

my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to

come. I tell you for good vill: adieu.

Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am

undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone!

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

90

they would whip me with their fine wits till I were

as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered

since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my

wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.

Now, whence come you?

From the two parties, forsooth.

The devil take one party and his dam the other! and

so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more

for their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy

of man's disposition is able to bear.

100

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.

What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was

beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow;

and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of

Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit,

my counterfeiting the action of an old woman,

delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the

110

stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.

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.

Come up into my chamber.

Act IV. Scene VI. Another room in the Garter Inn.

Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I

will give over all.

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.

I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the

least keep your counsel.

From time to time I have acquainted you

With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;

10

Who mutually hath answer'd my affection,

So far forth as herself might be her chooser,

Even to my wish: I have a letter from her

Of such contents as you will wonder at;

The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,

That neither singly can be manifested,

Without the show of both; fat Falstaff

Hath a great scene: the image of the jest

I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host.

Toight at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,

20

Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;

The purpose why, is here: in which disguise,

While other jests are something rank on foot,

Her father hath commanded her to slip

Away with Slender and with him at Eton

Immediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir,

Her mother, ever strong against that match

And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed

That he shall likewise shuffle her away,

While other sports are tasking of their minds,

30

And at the deanery, where a priest attends,

Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot

She seemingly obedient likewise hath

Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests:

Her father means she shall be all in white,

And in that habit, when Slender sees his time

To take her by the hand and bid her go,

She shall go with him: her mother hath intended,

The better to denote her to the doctor,

For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,

40

That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,

With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;

And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,

To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,

The maid hath given consent to go with him.

Which means she to deceive, father or mother?

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,

50

To give our hearts united ceremony.

Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar:

Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

So shall I evermore be bound to thee;

Besides, I'll make a present recompense.

Act V

Act V. Scene I. A room in the Garter Inn.

Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is

the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd

numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in

odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!

I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to

get you a pair of horns.

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

How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter

will be known toight, or never. Be you in the

10

Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall

see wonders.

Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me

you had appointed?

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

20

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 toight I will be revenged, and I

will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow.

Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.

Act V. Scene II. Windsor Park.

Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we

see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,

my daughter.

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.

That's good too: but what needs either your 'mum'

or her 'budget?' the white will decipher her well

10

enough. It hath struck ten o'clock.

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.

Act V. Scene III. A street leading to the Park.

Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you

see your time, take her by the band, away with her

to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before

into the Park: we two must go together.

I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

Fare you well, sir.

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

10

chiding than a great deal of heart-break.

Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the

Welsh devil Hugh?

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.

That cannot choose but amaze him.

If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be

amazed, he will every way be mocked.

20

We'll betray him finely.

Against such lewdsters and their lechery

Those that betray them do no treachery.

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

Act V. Scene IV. Windsor Park.

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.

Act V. Scene V. Another part of the Park.

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

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then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think

on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot

backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a

Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the

forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can

blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my

doe?

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

My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain

potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green

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Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let

there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will

keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow

of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.

Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter?

Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes

restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!

Alas, what noise?

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Heaven forgive our sins

What should this be?

Away, away!

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.

Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,

You moonshine revellers and shades of night,

You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,

Attend your office and your quality.

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Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:

I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.

Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,

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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.

About, about;

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:

That it may stand till the perpetual doom,

In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,

Worthy the owner, and the owner it.

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The several chairs of order look you scour

With juice of balm and every precious flower:

Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,

With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!

And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:

The expressure that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;

And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;

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Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,

Our dance of custom round about the oak

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

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.

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Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he

transform me to a piece of cheese!

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

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.

A trial, come.

Come, will this wood take fire?

Oh, Oh, Oh!

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Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!

About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;

And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

SONG.

Fie on sinful fantasy!

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

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Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?

See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes

Become the forest better than the town?

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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.

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.

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

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

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!

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Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your

desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Well said, fairy Hugh.

And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.

I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art

able to woo her in good English.

Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that

it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as

this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I

have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked

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with a piece of toasted cheese.

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

'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.

Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the

virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders

and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,

that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

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

A puffed man?

Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?

And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

And as poor as Job?

And as wicked as his wife?

And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack

and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and

swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I

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am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh

flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use

me as you will.

Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one

Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to

whom you should have been a pander: over and above

that you have suffered, I think to repay that money

will be a biting affliction.

Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset

toight at my house; where I will desire thee to

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laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her

Master Slender hath married her daughter.

[Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my

daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

Whoa ho! ho, father Page!

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

Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire

know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.

Of what, son?

I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,

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and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been

i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he

should have swinged me. If I did not think it had

been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis

a postmaster's boy.

Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

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.

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Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how

you should know my daughter by her garments?

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.

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.

Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'

married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;

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it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

Why, did you take her in green?

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

This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.

How now, Master Fenton!

Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

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

Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.

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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.

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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.

I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to

strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

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

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!

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Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;

Sir John and all.

Let it be so. Sir John,

To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word

For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.