Part 5
_Fal._ Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.
_Mrs Ford._ Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it. 70
_Fal._ 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.
_Rob._ [_Within_] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here’s Mistress Page at the door, sweating, and blowing, and 75 looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
_Fal._ 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._ 80
_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’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever!
_Mrs Ford._ What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
_Mrs Page._ O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an 85 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! 90
_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. 95
_Mrs Ford._ ’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, 100 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 105 my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.
_Mrs Page._ For shame! never stand ‘you had rather’ and ‘you had rather:’ your husband’s here at hand; bethink 110 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 115 men to Datchet-mead.
_Mrs Ford._ He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?
_Fal._ [_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 120 counsel. --I’ll in.
_Mrs Page._ What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?
_Fal._ I love thee. --Help me away. --Let me creep in here. --I’ll never-- 125
[_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 130 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?
_Serv._ To the laundress, forsooth. 135
_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._] 140
Gentlemen, I have dreamed 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. 145
_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._
_Evans._ This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. 150
_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 Page, Caius, and Evans._
_Mrs Page._ Is there not a double excellency in this? 155
_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; 160 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 165 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 170 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 to-morrow, eight o’clock, to have amends. 175
_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._ You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
_Ford._ Ay, I do so. 180
_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. 185
_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 judgement!
_Caius._ By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies.
_Page._ Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? 190 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 195 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 200 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 to-morrow morning to my 205 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. 210
_Caius._ If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
_Ford._ Pray you, go, Master Page.
_Evans._ I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy knave, mine host.
_Caius._ Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart! 215
_Evans._ A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries! [_Exeunt._
NOTES: III, 3
## SCENE III.] SCENE VII. Pope.
7, 8: Mrs Ford. _Marry ... Robert_] omitted in Q3. 20: _your_] _the_ Q3. 36: SCENE VIII. Pope. _thee_] Ff Q3 om. (Q1 Q2) Dyce. 38: _my_] om. Q3. 41: _Mistress_] _Master_ Q3. 49: _tire-valiant_] Ff Q3. _tire-vellet_ (Q1 Q2). _tire-vailant_ Warburton. _tire-velvet_ Heath conj. _tire-volant_ Becket conj. _tire of Venetian admittance_] Ff Q3. _Venetian attire_ (Q1 Q2) Pope. _tire of Venetian addition_ Hanmer. 52: _By the Lord, thou art a traitor_] (Q1 Q2) Singer. _Thou art a tyrant_ Ff Q3. _Thou art a traitor_ Warburton. _By the Lord, thou art a tyrant_ Collier. 53: _fixture_] F1 Q3. _fixure_ F2 F3 F4. 55, 56: _foe were not, Nature_] F2 F3 F4. _foe, were not Nature_ F1 Q3. _foe were not; Nature is_ Capell. 58: _persuade thee there’s_] _persuade thee There’s_ (Q1 Q2). _persuade Thee. There’s_ Ff Q3. 62: _simple_] F1 Q3 F2. _simpling_ F3 F4. 74: [Within] F2. Re-enter Robin. Capell. 75: _sweating_] F1 Q3. _swearing_ F2 F3 F4. 81: SCENE IX. Pope. Re-enter...] Enter Mis. Page. F2. 96: _’Tis not so_] _Speak louder. ’Tis not so_ Theobald (from Q1 Q2). 110: _and_] om. Q3. 119: [Coming forward] Enter F. Rowe. [Starting from his concealment. Capell. 124: _I love thee_] Ff Q3. _I love thee and none but thee_ (Q1 Q2) Malone. 125: [Gets ... linen.] Rowe. 128: _John! Robert_] _John Rugby_ Q3. [Exit Robin.] Malone. 132: SCENE X. Pope. 134: _How now!_] _How now? who goes here?_ Halliwell (from Q1 Q2). _How now! what’s here?_ S. Verges conj. 140: [Exeunt ... basket.] Rowe. 144: [Locking the door.] Capell. 144, 145: _So, now uncape_] om. Pope. _So, now uncouple_ Hanmer. 155: SCENE XI. Pope. 159: _who_] _what_ Grant White (Ritson conj.). 170: _foolish_] F2 F3 F4. _foolishion_ F1 Q3. _foolish eye on--carry on_ Jackson conj. 174: _to-morrow, eight_] F1 Q3. _to-morrow by eight_ F2 F3 F4. 178: [Aside to Mrs Ford] Capell. 179: _You use..._] _I, I; peace;--You use..._ Theobald (from Q1 Q2). 180: _Ay, I_] _I, I_ F1 Q3 F2. _I, I, I_ F3 F4. 181: _you_] _me_ Capell conj. 188: _at the day of judgement_] F1 Q3. om. F2 F3 F4. 211: Theobald inserts (from Q1 Q2) Evans. _In your teeth: for shame!_
## SCENE IV. _A room in PAGE’S house._
_Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE._
_Fent._ I see I cannot get thy father’s love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
_Anne._ Alas, how then?
_Fent._ Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object I am too great of birth; And that, my state being gall’d with my expense, 5 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. 10
_Anne._ May be he tells you true.
_Fent._ No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth Was the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value 15 Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed 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 20 Cannot attain it, why, then,--hark you hither! [_They converse apart._
_Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY._
_Shal._ Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.
_Sle._ I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on’t: ’slid, ’tis but venturing. 25
_Shal._ Be not dismayed.
_Slen._ No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard.
_Quick._ Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you. 30
_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!
_Quick._ And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you. 35
_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, 40 good uncle.
_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 gentlewoman. 45
_Slen._ Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.
_Shal._ He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
_Anne._ Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself. 50
_Shal._ 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,--
_Slen._ Now, good Mistress Anne,--
_Anne._ What is your will? 55
_Slen._ 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? 60
_Slen._ 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. 65
_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 disposed of.
_Fent._ Nay, Master Page, be not impatient. 70
_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 Fenton. 75
[_Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen._
_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 manners, I must advance the colours of my love, 80 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.
_Quick._ That’s my master, master doctor.
_Anne._ Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ the earth, 85 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. 90 Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in; Her father will be angry.
_Fent._ Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.
[_Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne._
_Quick._ This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on 95 Master Fenton:’ this is my doing.
_Fent._ I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring: there’s for thy pains.
_Quick._ Now heaven send thee good fortune! [_Exit Fenton._] A kind heart he hath: a woman would run 100 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; 105 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._
NOTES: III, 4
## SCENE IV.] SCENE XII. Pope.
7: _Besides these, other_] Ff Q3. _Besides, these other_ S. Walker conj. 12: _my_] _the_ Capell (altered to _my_ in his own hand). 20: _opportunity_] _importunity_ Hanmer. 22: SCENE XIII. Pope. 28: _but that_] F1 Q3 F2. _but_ F3 F4. 40: _pen_] _henloft_ (Q1 Q2) Halliwell. 62: _my_] om. Q3. _hath_] _have_ F4. 65: _ask_] om. Q3. 66: SCENE XIV. Pope. 67: _Fenton_] _Fenter_ F1. 75: _mind_] _wind_ F2. 80: _of_] _or_ Q3. 85, 86: Anne. _Alas_, ... _turnips!_] Anne. _Alas, ... earth._ Quick. _And ... turnips_ Warburton. 92: _angry_] _angry else_ S. Verges conj. 93: _gentle_] _my gentle_ Capell. 95: _and_] _or_ Hanmer.
## 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 lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, 5 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 10 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 15 have been a mountain of mummy.
_Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack._
_Bard._ Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
_Fal._ Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. 20
_Bard._ Come in, woman!
_Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY._
_Quick._ By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow.
_Fal._ Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely. 25
_Bard._ With eggs, sir?
_Fal._ Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [_Exit Bardolph._] How now!
_Quick._ Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford. 30
_Fal._ Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
_Quick._ Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. 35
_Fal._ So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.
_Quick._ 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 40 between eight and nine: I must carry her word quickly: she’ll make you amends, I warrant you.
_Fal._ 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. 45
_Quick._ I will tell her.
_Fal._ Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
_Quick._ Eight and nine, sir.
_Fal._ Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
_Quick._ Peace be with you, sir. [_Exit._ 50
_Fal._ 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._
_Ford._ Bless you, sir!
_Fal._ Now, Master Brook,--you come to know what 55 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 sped you, sir? 60
_Fal._ Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
_Ford._ How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
_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 65 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. 70
_Ford._ What, while you were there?
_Fal._ While I was there.
_Ford._ And did he search for you, and could not find you?
_Fal._ You shall hear. As good luck would have it, 75 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!
_Fal._ By the Lord, a buck-basket!--rammed me in with 80 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 85 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, 90 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 95 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 100 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 105 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; 110 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 morning gone a-birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; ’twixt eight and 115 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 120 crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [_Exit._