have been, when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. Re-enter Bardolph, with the wine. Ford. What, while you were there? Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you? Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence with you. Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Bard. Come in, woman. Enter Mrs. Quickly. Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good-morrow. Fal. Take away these chalices:1 go brew me pottle of sack finely. Bard. With eggs, sir? a Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-Exit Bardolph.]-How now? Ford. A buck-basket! Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foui shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell, that ever Joffended nostril. Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave, their master, in the door; who asked them once or twice what they Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I had in their basket. I quaked for fear, lest the was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate ford. Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford. Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault; she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. 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, Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous woman's promise. rotten-bell-wether: next, to be compassed like a Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband point, heel to head: and then, to be stopped in, like goes this morning a birding; she desires you once a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretmore to come to her between eight and nine: I must ted in their own grease: think of that,-a man of carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, my kidney,-think of that; that am as subject to I warrant you. heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and Fal. Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid thaw; it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And her think, what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. Quick. I will tell her. Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her. Enter Ford. Ford. Bless you, sir! Fal. Now, master Brook; you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife? Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business. Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And how speed you, sir? in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, ? in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that;hissing hot,-think of that, master Brook. Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate; you'll undertake her no more. Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into the Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, master Brook. Ford. 'Tis past eight already, sir. Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: adieu. You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit. Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her deter- Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? mination? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, master Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornu- Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, master to, her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a con- Ford. This 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen, tinual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant and buck-baskets!-Well, I will proclaim myself of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of house he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his com- should; he cannot creep into a half-penny purse, panions, thither provoked and instigated by his dis- nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that temper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his guides him should aid him, I will search impossible wife's love. places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to (1) Cups. (2) Bilboa, where the best blades are made,` (3) Seriousness, (4) Make myself ready. 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. [Exit. How now, sir Hugh? no school to-day? Eva. No; master Slender is let the boys leave to play. Quick. Blessing of his heart! Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my son profits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. Eva. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. Eva. Ay. Will. Genitive,-horum, harum, horum. Quick. 'Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie un her!-never name her, child, if she be a whore. Eva. For shame, 'oman. Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call horum:fie upon you! Eva. Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders?" Thou art as foolish Christian crea tures as I would desires. Mrs. Page. Pr'ythee, hold thy peace. Eva. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. Will. Forsooth, I have forgot. Eva. It is ki, kæ, cod; if you forget your kies, your kas, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go. Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was. Eva. He is a good sprag' memory. mistress Page. Mrs. Page. Adieu, good sir Hugh. Hugh.] Get you home, boy.-Come, too long. Farewell, [Exit Sir we stay Exeunt. Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah; hold up your SCENE II-A room in Ford's house. Enter head; answer your master, be not afraid. Eva. William, how many numbers is in nouns? Will. Two. Falstaff and Mrs. Ford. Fal. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one my sufferance: I see, you are obsequious" in your number more; because they say, od's nouns. love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not Eva. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, Wil-only, mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but liam? in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now? Mrs. Ford. He's a birding, sweet sir John. Mrs. Page. [Within.] What hoa, gossip Ford! what hoa! J Mrs. Ford. Step into the chamber, sir John. [Exit Falstaff. Enter Mrs. Page. Mrs. Page. How now, sweetheart? who's at. home beside yourself? Mrs. Ford. Why, none but mine own people. Mrs. Ford. No, certainly;-speak louder. [Aside. body here. Mrs. Ford. Why? his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with Mrs. Page. Why, woman, your husband is in my husband; so rails against all married mankind; soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, so curses all Eve's daughters, of wnat complexion crying, peer out, peer out! that any madness ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, am glad the fat knight is not here. and patience, to this his distemper he is in now: Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs. Page. Of none but him; and swears, he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband, he is now (6) As children call on a snail to push forth his (1) Outrageous. (2) Breeched, i. e. flogged. Fal. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: may I not go out, ere he come ? Mrs. Page. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none should issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney. Mrs. Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces: creep into the kiln-hole. Fal. Where is it? Mrs. Ford. I'll first direct my men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring liner Exit. for him straight. Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Re-enter Mrs. Ford, with two servants. Mrs. Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders; your master is hard at door: if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, despatch. Exit. 1 Serv. Come, come, take it up. 2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of the knight again. 1 Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Sir Hugh Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?-Set down the basket, villain :-Somebody call my wife:- -You, youth in a basket, come out here! Mrs. Ford. He will seek there on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, 1 say! come, places, and goes to them by his note: there is no come forth; behold what honest clothes you send hiding you in the house. forth to bleaching. Fal. I'll go out then. Mrs. Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, sir John. Unless you go out disguised, Mrs. Ford. How might we disguise him? Mrs. Page. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape. Fal. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief. Mrs. Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. Mrs. Page. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too: run up, sir John. Mrs. Ford. Go, go, sweet sir John; mistress Page and I will look soine linen for your head. Mrs. Page. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [Exit Fal. Mrs. Ford. I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears, she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her. Mrs. Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! Mrs. Ford. But is my husband coming? Mrs. Page, Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. Mrs. Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. (1) Short note of, (2) Seriousness, Page. Why, this passes; Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad Shal. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indced. dog! Enter Mrs. Ford. Ford. So say I too, Sir.-Come hither, mistress Ford; mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!-I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? Mrs. Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if [Pulls the clothes out of the basket. Page. This passes! Mrs. Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. Ford. I shall find you anon. Eva. 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. Ford. Empty the basket, I say. Ford. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. Page. Here's no man. (3) Gang. (4) Surpasses, to go beyond bounds, Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master licly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no Ford; this wrongs you. period to the jest, should he not be publicly Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not shamed. follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for. Page. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. Ford. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport: let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it then, shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt. SCENE III-A room in the Garter Inn. Enter Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him. Host. What duke should that be, comes so se. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come cretly? I hear not of him in the court: Let me you, and the old woman down; my husband will speak with the gentlemen; they speak English? come into the chamber. Bard. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you. Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it's my maid's aunt of Brent- them pay, I'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'll sauce them: Come. ford. Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing.- -Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say. Mrs. Ford. Nay, good sweet husband;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman. Enter Falstaff in women's clothes, led by Mrs. Page. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Pratt, come, give me your hand. [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A room in Ford's House. Enter Eva. 'Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'omán as ever I did look upon." Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant? I Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. stand, rather will suspect the sun with cold, Ford. I'll prat her:-Out of my door, you Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour witch! [beats him.] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out! out! I'll conjure you, In him that was of late a heretic, [Exit Falstaff. As firm as faith. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think, you__ Page. have kill'd the poor woman. I'll fortune-tell you. "Tis well, 'tis well; no more. Be not as éxtreme in submission, Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it:-'Tis a goodly As in offence; credit for you. Ford. Hang her, witch! Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler. Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if ery out thus upon no trail,3 never trust me when I open again. Page. Let's obey his humour a little further; Come, gentlemen. [Ex. Page, Ford, Shal. and Eva. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? But let our plot go forward: let our wives in spoke of. Page. How! to send him word they'll meet him the park at midnight! fie, fie; he'll never come. Eva. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman; methinks, there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires. Page. So think I too. Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him when And let us two devise to bring him thither. Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle; Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a have served him? chain Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to In a most hideous and dreadful manner. scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If You have heard of such a spirit; and well you they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous know, fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will The superstitious idle-headed eld Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age, still be the ministers. Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him pub- This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth. (1) Lover. (2) Scab. (3) Scent, (4) Cry out. (5) Strikes, (6) Old age. Page. Why, yet there want not many, that do fear thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak; quick, snap. But what of this? Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device; That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us, Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender. Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head. his standing-bed, and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an Anthropo phaginians unto thee: Knock, I say. Sim. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone What shall be done with him? what is your plot? Mrs. Page. That likewise have we thought up-up into his chamber; I'll be so bold as to stay, sir, till she come down: I come to speak with her, indeed. on, and thus: Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, Mrs. Ford. And till he tell the truth, Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,3 The children must Ford. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards. Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies, Finely attired in a robe of white. Page. That silk will I go buy ;-and in that time Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside. And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight. Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook: He'll tell me all his purpose: sure he'll come. Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go, get us properties,4 And tricking for our fairies. Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. [Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans. I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will, [Exit. SCENE V.-A room in the Garter Inn. Enter Host. What would'st thou have, boor? what, Elfs, hobgoblins. (2) Wild, discordant. Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully sir John! speak from thy lungs military: Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. Fal. [Above.] How now, mine host? Host. Here's a Bohemian Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman: Let her descend, bully, let her descend: my chambers are honourable: Fie! privacy? fie! Enter Falstaff. Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. Sim. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford? Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell; What would you with her? Sim. My master, sir, my 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 chain, or no. Fal. I spake with the old woman about it. Fal. Marry, she says, that the very same man, that beguiled master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it. Sim. I would, I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him. Fal. What are they? let us know. Sim. I may not conceal them, sir. Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about mistress Anne Page; to know, if it were my master's fortune to have her, or no. Fal. "Tis, 'tis his fortune. Sim. What, sir? Fal. To have her,-or no: Go; say, the woman told me so. Sim. May I be so bold to say so, sir? Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning. Enter Bardolph. Bard. Out, alas, sir! cozenage! meer cozenage! Host. Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto. Bard. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon (6) Cunning woman, a fortune-teller. |