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Slen. I hope I have your good will, father Page.

Page. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you: but my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.

Caius. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me. My nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

't.

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Host. What say you to young Master Fenton ? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May. He will carry 't, he will carry 't; is in his buttons; he will carry promise you. Page. Not by my consent, 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 [75 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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Ford. 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. 84 Shal. Well, fare you well. We shall have the freer wooing at Master Page's. [Exeunt Shal. and Slen. Caius. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon. [Exit Rugby.] Host. Farewell, my hearts. I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with [Exit. 89 Ford. [Aside.] I think I shall drink in pipewine first with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

him.

All. Have with you to see this monster.

[Exeunt.

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Mrs. Page. Come, come, come. Mrs. Ford. Here, set it down. Mrs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call [10 you, come forth, and without any pause 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.

Mrs. Page. You will do it?

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Mrs. Ford. I ha' told them over and over;

they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are call'd. [Exeunt Servants. » Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin. [Enter ROBIN.]

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

Rob. My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

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

Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your being here and hath threat'ned to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell [" you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away.

Mrs. Page. Thou 'rt a good boy. This se crecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I'll go hide me.

Mrs. Ford. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone. [Exit Robin.] Mistress Page, remember

you your cue.

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

[Exit.] Mrs. Ford. Go to, then. We'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion. We'll teach him to know turtles from

jays.

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Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. Have I caught" thee, "my heavenly jewel?" Why, now let me die, for I have [ liv'd long enough. This is the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!

Mrs. Ford. O sweet Sir John!

Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, 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.

Mrs. Ford. I your lady, Sir John! Alas, I should be a pitiful lady!

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Fal. 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.

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Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief, Sir John. My brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

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Mrs. Page. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

Mrs. Ford. What cause of suspicion? Mrs. Page. What cause of suspicion! Out upon you! How am I mistook in you!

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Mrs. Ford. Why, alas, what's the matter? Mrs. Page. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house by your consent, to take [115 an ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.

Mrs. Ford. 'Tis not so, I hope.

Mrs. Page. Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here, but 't is most certain your husband's coming, with half [120 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 amaz'd, call all your senses to you, [125 defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life forever.

you

Mrs. Ford. 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 [130 than a thousand pound he were out of the house. Mrs. Page. For shame! never stand " had rather" and "you had rather." Your husband's here at hand. Bethink you of some conveyance. In the house you cannot hide him. [135 O, how have you deceiv'd me! Look, here 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.

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Serv. To the laundress, forsooth. Mrs. Ford. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing.

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Ford. 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. [Exeunt Servants with the [170 basket.] Gentlemen, I have dream'd to-night; 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. [Locking the door.] So, now uncape.

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Page. Good Master Ford, be contented. You wrong yourself too much.

men.

Ford. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen; you shall see sport anon. Follow me, gentle[Exit.] 180 Evans. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. Caius. By gar, 't is no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.

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

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Evans. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

Caius. By gar, I see 't is an honest woman. Ford. Well, I promis'd you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park. I pray you, pardon me. I will hereafter make known to you [240 why I have done this. Come, wife; come, Mistress Page. I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me.

Page. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we 'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow [245 morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together. I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

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

Slen. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

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Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

Shal. He will maintain you like a gentle

woman.

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[Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.] Page. Now, Master Slender. Love him, daughter Anne.

Why, how now! What does Master Fenton here?

You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.

I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of. Fent. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

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Mrs. Page. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

Page. She is no match for you. Fent. Sir, will you hear me? Page. No, good Master Fenton. Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fen

ton. [Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.] 80 Quick. Speak to Mistress Page.

Fent. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and man

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Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night

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

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Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit Fenton.] A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I [110 can for them all three; for so I have promis'd, 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! 115 [Exit.

SCENE V. [A room in the Garter Inn.]

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.
Fal. Bardolph, I say!
Bard. Here, sir.

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack. Put a toast in 't. [Exit Bard.] Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the [ Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? Well, if I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues slided me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drown'd a blind [10 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 drown'd, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow, -a death that I abhor; for the water [15 swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack.] Bard. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

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

Bard. Come in, woman!

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.

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Ford. And sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook. Ford. How So, sir? Did she change her determination?

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Fal. 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 embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his [75 heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.

Ford. What, while you were there?
Fal. While I was there.

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

Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives [85 intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket.

Ford. A buck-basket!

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

Ford. And how long lay you there? 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, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane. [10 They took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who ask'd 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, or- [s daining 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 de- [118 tected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compass'd, like a good bilbo, in the cir cumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that, -aman [116 of my kidney, think of that, 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 [120 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.

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

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morn- [150 ing 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 [185 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. 140

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 buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I [145 am. I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he should. He cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box; but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search [150 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.

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[Exit.

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