my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,-a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; [and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.]

Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack.

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

21

Ford. 'Bless you, sir!

Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Burd. Come in, woman!

60

Fal. No, Master Brook; but the peaking? cornuto husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok'd and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. Ford. What, while you were there? Fal. While I was there. Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?

80

Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds,1 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 quak'd for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have search'd 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 suffer'd the pangs of three several deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compass'd, like a good bilbo,2 in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted3 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 stew'd in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of

that, hissing hot,-think of that, Master Brook. [Throws himself into chair.

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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. [Rises] 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:4 I have receiv'd from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.

Ford. 'Tis past eight already, sir.

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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 crown'd with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit.

Ford. Hum,-ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake! awake, Master Ford! there's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 't is to be married! this 't is to have linen and buckbaskets!"—Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot scape me; 't is 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 me mad, let the proverb go with me,— I'll be horn-mad. [Exit.

Evans. 'Oman, art thou lunaties? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers and the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs. Page. Prithee, hold thy peace. Evans. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Evans. It is qui, quæ, quod: if you forgot your quies, your quas, and your quods, you must be preeches.' Go your ways, and play; go. Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

Evans. He is a good sprag2 memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

Mrs. Page. Adieu, good Sir Hugh. [Exit Sir Hugh.]-Get you home, boy.-Come, we (stay too long. [Exeunt.]

30

Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs. Page. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

Mrs. Ford. How near is he, Mistress Page?

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

41

Mrs. Ford. I am undone!-the knight is here.

Mrs. Page. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you!-Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder.

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

5 Lunes, mad freaks.

6 "Peer out, peer out!" an exclamation in a children's game.

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,3 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 Brainford, has a gown above.

Mrs. Page. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too.-Run up, Sir John.

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

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Mrs. Page. Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [Exit Falstaff. Mrs. Ford. I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threaten'd to beat her.

1 Birding-pieces, fowling-pieces.

2 Abstract memorandum.

3 Muffler, a kind of veil which covered the face.

4 Thrumm'd hat, i.e. a hat made of thrums, or ends of a weaver's warp.

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

We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act that often jest and laugh; 'Tis old, but true,-Still swine eat all the draff. [Exit. Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants. 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, dispatch. [Exit.

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First Serv. Come, come, take it up. Sec. Serv. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

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

Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.

Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villains!-Somebody call my wife.-Youth in a basket!—O you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging,5 a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be sham'd.-What, wife, I say! come, come forth! behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!

Page. Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinion'd.

5 Ginggang, a number, company.