Читать книгу The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Страница 15
ОглавлениеSCENE II. A street in Windsor
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN.]
MRS. PAGE
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?
ROBIN
I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than follow him like a dwarf.
MRS. PAGE
O! you are a flattering boy: now I see you’ll be a courtier.
[Enter FORD.]
FORD
Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?
MRS. PAGE
Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?
FORD
Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.
MRS. PAGE
Be sure of that — two other husbands.
FORD
Where had you this pretty weathercock?
MRS. PAGE
I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of. What do you call your knight’s name, sirrah?
ROBIN
Sir John Falstaff.
FORD
Sir John Falstaff!
MRS. PAGE
He, he; I can never hit on’s name. There is such a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at home indeed?
FORD
Indeed she is.
MRS. PAGE
By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.
[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN.]
FORD
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 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. [Clock strikes.] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me 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.
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS, CAIUS, and RUGBY.]
SHALLOW, PAGE, &c
Well met, Master Ford.
FORD
Trust me, a good knot; I have good cheer at home, and I pray you all go with me.
SHALLOW
I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
SLENDER
And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I’ll speak of.
SHALLOW
We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.
SLENDER
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.
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; ‘tis in his buttons; he will carry ‘t.
PAGE
Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and Pointz; 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.
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.
SHALLOW
Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer wooing at Master Page’s.
[Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER.]
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 him.
[Exit HOST.]
FORD
[Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him. I’ll make him dance.
Will you go, gentles?
ALL
Have with you to see this monster.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. A room in Ford’s house
[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. FORD
What, John! what, Robert!
MRS. PAGE
Quickly, quickly: — Is the buck-basket —
MRS. FORD
I warrant. What, Robin, I say!
[Enter SERVANTS with a basket.]
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 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?
MRS. FORD
I have told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.
[Exeunt SERVANTS.]
MRS. PAGE
Here comes little Robin.
[Enter ROBIN.]
MRS. FORD
How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?
ROBIN
My Master Sir John is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.
MRS. PAGE
You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
ROBIN
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.
MRS. PAGE
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.
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 MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. FORD
Go to, then; we’ll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion; we’ll teach him to know turtles from jays.
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF
“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!
MRS. FORD
O, sweet Sir John!
FALSTAFF
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.
FALSTAFF
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.
MRS. FORD
A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.
FALSTAFF
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 semicircled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.
MRS. FORD
Believe me, there’s no such thing in me.
FALSTAFF
What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I 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.
MRS. FORD
Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love Mistress Page.
FALSTAFF
Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a limekiln.
MRS. FORD
Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it.
FALSTAFF
Keep in that mind; I’ll deserve it.
MRS. FORD
Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind.
ROBIN
[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.
FALSTAFF
She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras.
MRS. FORD
Pray you, do so; she’s a very tattling woman.
[FALSTAFF hides himself.]
[Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN.]
What’s the matter? How now!
MRS. PAGE
O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you are overthrown, you are undone for ever!
MRS. FORD
What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
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!
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 an ill advantage of his absence: you are undone.
MRS. FORD
[Aside] Speak louder.
‘Tis not so, I hope.
MRS. PAGE
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 amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.
MRS. FORD
What shall I do? — There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.
MRS. PAGE
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 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.
MRS. FORD
He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?
FALSTAFF
[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.
MRS. PAGE
What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?
FALSTAFF
I love thee and none but thee; help me away: let me creep in here. I’ll never —
[He gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen.]
MRS. PAGE
Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!
MRS. FORD
What, John! Robert! John!
[Exit ROBIN.]
[Re-enter SERVANTS.]
Go, take up these clothes here, quickly; where’s the cowl-staff? Look how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-Mead; quickly, come.
[Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
FORD
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?
SERVANT
To the laundress, forsooth.
MRS. FORD
Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing.
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 basket.]
Gentlemen, I have dreamed tonight; 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.
PAGE
Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.
FORD
True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport anon; follow me, gentlemen.
[Exit FORD.]
EVANS
This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
CAIUS
By gar, ‘tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.
PAGE
Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.
[Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS.]
MRS. PAGE
Is there not a double excellency in this?
MRS. FORD
I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.
MRS. PAGE
What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket!
MRS. FORD
I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
MRS. PAGE
Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.
MRS. FORD
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.
MRS. PAGE
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.
MRS. FORD
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?
MRS. PAGE
We will do it; let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock, to have amends.
[Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
FORD
I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass.
MRS. PAGE
[Aside to MRS. FORD] Heard you that?
MRS. FORD
[Aside to MRS. PAGE] Ay, ay, peace. —
You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
FORD
Ay, I do so.
MRS. FORD
Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
FORD
Amen!
MRS. PAGE
You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
FORD
Ay, ay; I must bear it.
EVANS
If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!
CAIUS
Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.
PAGE
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.
FORD
‘Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.
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 ‘tis an honest woman.
FORD
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.
PAGE
Let’s go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we’ll mock him. I do invite you tomorrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we’ll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?
FORD
Any thing.
EVANS
If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
CAIUS
If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
FORD
Pray you go, Master Page.
EVANS
I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host.
CAIUS
Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.
EVANS
A lousy knave! to have his gibes and his mockeries!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A room in Page’s house
[Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.]
FENTON
I see I cannot get thy father’s love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
ANNE
Alas! how then?
FENTON
Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object, I am too great of birth;
And that my state being gall’d with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me ‘tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.
ANNE
May be he tells you true.
FENTON
No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth
Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne:
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealèd bags;
And ‘tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.
ANNE
Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir.
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why then, — hark you hither.
[They converse apart.]
[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
SHALLOW
Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.
SLENDER
I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on ‘t. ‘Slid, ‘tis but venturing.
SHALLOW
Be not dismayed.
SLENDER
No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard.
QUICKLY
Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.
ANNE
I come to him.
[Aside] This is my father’s choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
QUICKLY
And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.
SHALLOW
She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
SLENDER
I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.
SHALLOW
Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
SLENDER
Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.
SHALLOW
He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
SLENDER
Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.
SHALLOW
He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
ANNE
Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
SHALLOW
Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz; I’ll leave you.
ANNE
Now, Master Slender.
SLENDER
Now, good Mistress Anne. —
ANNE
What is your will?
SLENDER
My will! ‘od’s heartlings, that’s a pretty jest indeed! I ne’er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
ANNE
I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
SLENDER
Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask your father; here he comes.
[Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.]
PAGE
Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos’d of.
FENTON
Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
MRS. PAGE
Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
PAGE
She is no match for you.
FENTON
Sir, will you hear me?
PAGE
No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
QUICKLY
Speak to Mistress Page.
FENTON
Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love
And not retire: let me have your good will.
ANNE
Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
MRS. PAGE
I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
QUICKLY
That’s my master, Master doctor.
ANNE
Alas! I had rather be set quick i’ the earth.
And bowl’d to death with turnips.
MRS. PAGE
Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected.
Till then, farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
Her father will be angry.
FENTON
Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.
[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.]
QUICKLY
This is my doing now: “Nay,” said I, “will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.” This is my doing.
FENTON
I thank thee; and I pray thee, once tonight
Give my sweet Nan this ring. There’s for thy pains.
QUICKLY
Now Heaven send thee good fortune!
[Exit FENTON.]
A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I’ll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it!
[Exit.]
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.]
FALSTAFF
Bardolph, I say, —
BARDOLPH
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in ‘t.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher’s offal? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year’s gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ the litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack.]
BARDOLPH
Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF
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.
BARDOLPH
Come in, woman.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY
By your leave. I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF
Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.
BARDOLPH
With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF
Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
How now!
QUICKLY
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
QUICKLY
Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
FALSTAFF
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.
QUICKLY
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF
Well, I will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her think what a man is; let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.
QUICKLY
I will tell her.
FALSTAFF
Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
QUICKLY
Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF
Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
QUICKLY
Peace be with you, sir.
[Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
FALSTAFF
I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. O! here he comes.
[Enter FORD disguised.]
FORD
Bless you, sir!
FALSTAFF
Now, Master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?
FORD
That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF
Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me.
FORD
And how sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF
Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
FORD
How so, sir? did she change her determination?
FALSTAFF
No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ‘larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.
FORD
What! while you were there?
FALSTAFF
While I was there.
FORD
And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
FORD
A buck-basket!
FALSTAFF
By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
FORD
And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF
Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane; they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door; who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that; a man of my kidney, think of that, that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to ‘scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot, think of that, Master Brook!
FORD
In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more.
FALSTAFF
Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from her another embassy of meeting; ‘twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.
FORD
‘Tis past eight already, sir.
FALSTAFF
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed, and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
FORD
Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There’s a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ‘tis to be married; this ‘tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he is at my house. He cannot scape me; ‘tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper box; but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame; if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me; I’ll be horn-mad.
[Exit.]
ACT IV
SCENE I. The street
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM.]
MRS. PAGE
Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?
QUICKLY
Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
MRS. PAGE
I’ll be with her by and by; I’ll but bring my young man here to school. Look where his master comes; ‘tis a playing day, I see.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS.]
How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?
EVANS
No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
QUICKLY
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.
EVANS
Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.
MRS. PAGE
Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master; be not afraid.
EVANS
William, how many numbers is in nouns?
WILLIAM
Two.
QUICKLY
Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say “Od’s nouns.”
EVANS
Peace your tattlings! What is “fair,” William?
WILLIAM
Pulcher.
QUICKLY
Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats, sure.
EVANS
You are a very simplicity ‘oman; I pray you, peace. What is “lapis,” William?
WILLIAM
A stone.
EVANS
And what is “a stone,” William?
WILLIAM
A pebble.
EVANS
No, it is “lapis”; I pray you remember in your prain.
WILLIAM
Lapis.
EVANS
That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?
WILLIAM
Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.
EVANS
Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
WILLIAM
Accusativo, hinc.
EVANS
I pray you, have your remembrance, child. Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.
QUICKLY
“Hang-hog” is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
EVANS
Leave your prabbles, ‘oman. What is the focative case, William?
WILLIAM
O vocativo, O.
EVANS
Remember, William: focative is caret.
QUICKLY
And that’s a good root.
EVANS
‘Oman, forbear.
MRS. PAGE
Peace.
EVANS
What is your genitive case plural, William?
WILLIAM
Genitive case?
EVANS
Ay.
WILLIAM
Genitive: horum, harum, horum.
QUICKLY
Vengeance of Jenny’s case; fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.
EVANS
For shame, ‘oman.
QUICKLY
You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves; and to call “horum;” fie upon you!
EVANS
‘Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
MRS. PAGE
Prithee, hold thy peace.
EVANS
Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
WILLIAM
Forsooth, I have forgot.
EVANS
It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your “quis”, your “quaes”, 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 sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
MRS. PAGE
Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
[Exit SIR HUGH.]
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A room in Ford’s house
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD.]
FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?
MRS. FORD
He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.
MRS. PAGE
[Within] What ho! gossip Ford, what ho!
MRS. FORD
Step into the chamber, Sir John.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. PAGE
How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?
MRS. FORD
Why, none but mine own people.
MRS. PAGE
Indeed!
MRS. FORD
No, certainly. —
[Aside to her] Speak louder.
MRS. PAGE
Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
MRS. FORD
Why?
MRS. PAGE
Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying “Peer out, peer out!” that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.
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 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.
MRS. FORD
I am undone! the knight is here.
MRS. PAGE
Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder.
MRS. FORD
Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?
[Re-enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF
No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?
MRS. PAGE
Alas! three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?
FALSTAFF
What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.
MRS. FORD
There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.
MRS. PAGE
Creep into the kiln-hole.
FALSTAFF
Where is it?
MRS. FORD
He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.
FALSTAFF
I’ll go out then.
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.
FALSTAFF
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 thrummed 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.
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 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 Brainford.
MRS. FORD
I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.
[Exit MISTRESS FORD.]
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 eats 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 MISTRESS FORD.]
FIRST SERVANT
Come, come, take it up.
SECOND SERVANT
Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again.
FIRST SERVANT
I hope not; I had lief as 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, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!
PAGE
Why, this passes, Master Ford! you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.
EVANS
Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog.
SHALLOW
Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
FORD
So say I too, sir. —
[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.]
Come hither, Mistress Ford, 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 you suspect me in any dishonesty.
FORD
Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah. [Pulling clothes out of the basket]
PAGE
This passes!
MRS. FORD
Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.
FORD
I shall find you anon.
EVANS
‘Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come away.
FORD
Empty the basket, I say!
MRS. FORD
Why, man, why?
FORD
Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.
MRS. FORD
If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.
PAGE
Here’s no man.
SHALLOW
By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.
EVANS
Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.
FORD
Well, he’s not here I seek for.
PAGE
No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
[Servants carry away the basket.]
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 searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.” Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.
MRS. FORD
What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.
FORD
Old woman? what old woman’s that?
MRS. FORD
Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brainford.
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.
[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman’s clothes, led by MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. PAGE
Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
FORD
I’ll prat her. — [Beats him.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
MRS. PAGE
Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.
MRS. FORD
Nay, he will do it. ‘Tis a goodly credit for you.
FORD
Hang her, witch!
EVANS. 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 I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.
PAGE
Let’s obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen.
[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and EVANS.]
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?
MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
MRS. FORD
Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?
MRS. PAGE
Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.
MRS. FORD
I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.
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 HOST and BARDOLPH.]
BARDOLPH
Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the Duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.
HOST
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?
BARDOLPH
Ay, sir; I’ll call them to you.
HOST
They shall have my horses, but I’ll make 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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A room in Ford’s house
[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
EVANS
‘Tis one of the best discretions of a ‘oman as ever I did look upon.
PAGE
And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
MRS. PAGE
Within a quarter of an hour.
FORD
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.
PAGE
‘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.
FORD
There is no better way than that they spoke of.
PAGE
How? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie! he’ll never come!
EVANS
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 he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
MRS. PAGE
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
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.
PAGE
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
But what of this?
MRS. FORD
Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguis’d, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
PAGE
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?
MRS. PAGE
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
Like urchins, ouphs, 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 diffusèd song; upon their sight
We two in great amazèdness 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,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
MRS. FORD
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
MRS. PAGE
The truth being known,
We’ll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
FORD
The children must
Be practis’d well to this or they’ll ne’er do ‘t.
EVANS
I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
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.
[Aside] And in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
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
And tricking for our fairies.
EVANS
Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.
[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS.]
MRS. PAGE
Go, Mistress Ford.
Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
[Exit MRS. FORD.]
I’ll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
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.
[Exit.]
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter HOST and SIMPLE.]
HOST
What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thickskin? Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
SIMPLE
Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.
HOST
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; he’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee; knock, I say.
SIMPLE
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.
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.
FALSTAFF
[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 honourible. Fie! privacy? fie!
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF
There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with, me; but she’s gone.
SIMPLE
Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brainford?
FALSTAFF
Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
SIMPLE
My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.
FALSTAFF
I spake with the old woman about it.
SIMPLE
And what says she, I pray, sir?
FALSTAFF
Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.
SIMPLE
I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.
FALSTAFF
What are they? Let us know.
HOST
Ay, come; quick.
SIMPLE
I may not conceal them, sir.
FALSTAFF
Conceal them, or thou diest.
SIMPLE
Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page: to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.
FALSTAFF
‘Tis, ‘tis his fortune.
SIMPLE
What sir?
FALSTAFF
To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.
SIMPLE
May I be bold to say so, sir?
FALSTAFF
Ay, Sir Tike; like who more bold?
SIMPLE
I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad with these tidings.
[Exit SIMPLE.]
HOST
Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?
FALSTAFF
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.]
BARDOLPH
Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!
HOST
Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
BARDOLPH
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.
HOST
They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS.]
EVANS
Where is mine host?
HOST
What is the matter, sir?
EVANS
Have a care of your entertainments: there is a 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-stogs, and ‘tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.
[Exit EVANS.]
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
CAIUS
Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
HOST
Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.
CAIUS
I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I tell you for good will: Adieu.
[Exit DOCTOR CAIUS.]
HOST
Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone!
[Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH.]
FALSTAFF
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 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.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
Now! whence come you?
QUICKLY
From the two parties, forsooth.
FALSTAFF
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 villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.
QUICKLY
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.
FALSTAFF
What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. 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 stocks, i’ the common stocks, for a witch.
QUICKLY
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.
FALSTAFF
Come up into my chamber.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn
[Enter FENTON and HOST.]
HOST
Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I will give over all.
FENTON
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.
HOST
I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least, keep your counsel.
FENTON
From time to time I have acquainted you
With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page,
Who, mutually, hath answered 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; wherein fat Falstaff
Hath a great scare: the image of the jest
I’ll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:
Tonight at Herne’s oak, just ‘twixt twelve and one,
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, even 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;
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 —
That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob’d,
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.
HOST
Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
FENTON
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,
To give our hearts united ceremony.
HOST
Well, husband your device; I’ll to the vicar.
Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
FENTON
So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
Besides, I’ll make a present recompense.
[Exeunt.]
ACT V
SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
FALSTAFF
Prithee, no more prattling; go: I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away! go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!
QUICKLY
I’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.
FALSTAFF
Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and mince.
[Exit MRS. QUICKLY.]
[Enter FORD.]
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known tonight, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.
FORD
Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?
FALSTAFF
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 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 tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Windsor Park
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
PAGE
Come, come; we’ll couch i’ the castle-ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
SLENDER
Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nayword how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry “mum”; she cries “budget,” and by that we know one another.
SHALLOW
That’s good too; but what needs either your “mum” or her “budget”? The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.
PAGE
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. The street in Windsor
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS.]
MRS. PAGE
Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park; we two must go together.
CAIUS
I know vat I have to do; adieu.
MRS. PAGE
Fare you well, sir.
[Exit CAIUS.]
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 chiding than a great deal of heart break.
MRS. FORD
Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil, Hugh?
MRS. PAGE
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.
MRS. FORD
That cannot choose but amaze him.
MRS. PAGE
If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.
MRS. FORD
We’ll betray him finely.
MRS. PAGE
Against such lewdsters and their lechery,
Those that betray them do no treachery.
MRS. FORD
The hour draws on: to the oak, to the oak!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. Windsor Park
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies.]
EVANS
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. Another part of the Park
[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE with a buck’s head on.]
FALSTAFF
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 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?
[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. FORD
Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
FALSTAFF
My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of “Greensleeves”; hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.
[Embracing her]
MRS. FORD
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF
Divide me like a brib’d 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!
[Noise within]
MRS. PAGE
Alas! what noise?
MRS. FORD
Heaven forgive our sins!
FALSTAFF
What should this be?
MRS. FORD
Away, away!
MRS. PAGE
Away, away!
[They run off.]
FALSTAFF
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.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a Satyr, PISTOL as a Hobgoblin, ANNE PAGE as the the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brothers and Others, as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.]
ANNE
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixèd destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL
Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys!
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find’st unrak’d, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
FALSTAFF
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
[Lies down upon his face.]
EVANS
Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Rein 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.
ANNE
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.
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;
Like 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.
EVANS
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glowworms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
FALSTAFF
Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
PISTOL
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.
ANNE
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.
PISTOL
A trial! come.
EVANS
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.]
FALSTAFF
Oh, oh, oh!
ANNE
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.
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.
[During this song the Fairies pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck’s head, and rises.]
[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD. They lay hold on FALSTAFF.]
PAGE
Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch’d you now:
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
MRS. PAGE
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?
FORD
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.
MRS. FORD
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.
FALSTAFF
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD
Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
FALSTAFF
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!
EVANS
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
FORD
Well said, fairy Hugh.
EVANS
And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
FORD
I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.
FALSTAFF
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 frieze? ‘Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.
EVANS
Seese is not good to give putter: your belly is all putter.
FALSTAFF
“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.
MRS. PAGE
Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust 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?
FORD
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
MRS. PAGE
A puffed man?
PAGE
Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?
FORD
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
PAGE
And as poor as Job?
FORD
And as wicked as his wife?
EVANS
And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
FALSTAFF
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me; use me as you will.
FORD
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.
MRS. FORD
Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;
Forget that sum, so we’ll all be friends.
FORD
Well, here’s my hand: all is forgiven at last.
PAGE
Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset tonight at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, Master Slender hath married her daughter.
MRS. PAGE
[Aside] Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.
[Enter SLENDER.]
SLENDER
Whoa, ho! ho! father Page!
PAGE
Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
SLENDER
Dispatched! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else!
PAGE
Of what, son?
SLENDER
I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, 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.
PAGE
Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
SLENDER
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.
PAGE
Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?
SLENDER
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.
EVANS
Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see put marry poys?
PAGE
O I am vexed at heart: what shall I do?
MRS. PAGE
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.
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
CAIUS
Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha’ married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.
MRS. PAGE
Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS
Ay, by gar, and ‘tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.
[Exit DOCTOR CAIUS.]
FORD
This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
PAGE
My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.
[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE.]
How now, Master Fenton!
ANNE
Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
PAGE
Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
MRS. PAGE
Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
FENTON
You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
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 cursèd hours,
Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD
Stand not amaz’d: here is no remedy:
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF
I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
PAGE
Well, what remedy? — Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew’d must be embrac’d.
FALSTAFF
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas’d.
MRS. PAGE
Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, tonight, shall lie with Mistress Ford.
[Exeunt.]
THE END
