The Merry Wives Of Windsor

1 Enter Mistress Page reading a letter.
2 MISTRESS PAGE.
3 What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and
4 am I now a subject for them? Let me see.
5 [_Reads_.] _Ask me no reason why I love you, for though Love use Reason
6 for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not
7 young, no more am I. Go to, then, there’s sympathy. You are merry, so
8 am I. Ha, ha, then there’s more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I.
9 Would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,
10 at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I
11 will not say, pity me—’tis not a soldier-like phrase—but I say love me.
12 By me,
13 Thine own true knight,
14 By day or night,
15 Or any kind of light,
16 With all his might,
17 For thee to fight,
18 John Falstaff._
19 What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world! One that is
20 well-nigh worn to pieces with age, to show himself a young gallant!
21 What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard picked—with the
22 devil’s name!—out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner
23 assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say
24 to him? I was then frugal of my mirth. Heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll
25 exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall
26 I be revenged on him? For revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are
27 made of puddings.
28 Enter Mistress Ford.
29 MISTRESS FORD.
30 Mistress Page! Trust me, I was going to your house.
31 MISTRESS PAGE.
32 And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.
33 MISTRESS FORD.
34 Nay, I’ll ne’er believe that. I have to show to the contrary.
35 MISTRESS PAGE.
36 Faith, but you do, in my mind.
37 MISTRESS FORD.
38 Well, I do, then. Yet I say I could show you to the contrary. O,
39 Mistress Page, give me some counsel.
40 MISTRESS PAGE.
41 What’s the matter, woman?
42 MISTRESS FORD.
43 O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such
44 honour!
45 MISTRESS PAGE.
46 Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What is it? Dispense with
47 trifles. What is it?
48 MISTRESS FORD.
49 If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be
50 knighted.
51 MISTRESS PAGE.
52 What? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou
53 shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.
54 MISTRESS FORD.
55 We burn daylight. Here, read, read. Perceive how I might be knighted. I
56 shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make
57 difference of men’s liking. And yet he would not swear; praised women’s
58 modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all
59 uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to
60 the truth of his words. But they do no more adhere and keep place
61 together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of “Greensleeves.” What
62 tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his
63 belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the
64 best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust
65 have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?
66 MISTRESS PAGE.
67 Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs! To thy
68 great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here’s the twin brother
69 of thy letter. But let thine inherit first, for I protest mine never
70 shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank
71 space for different names—sure, more, and these are of the second
72 edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not what he
73 puts into the press, when he would put us two. I had rather be a
74 giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty
75 lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
76 MISTRESS FORD.
77 Why, this is the very same—the very hand, the very words. What doth he
78 think of us?
79 MISTRESS PAGE.
80 Nay, I know not. It makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own
81 honesty. I’ll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted
82 withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain in me that I know not
83 myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
84 MISTRESS FORD.
85 “Boarding” call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.
86 MISTRESS PAGE.
87 So will I. If he come under my hatches, I’ll never to sea again. Let’s
88 be revenged on him. Let’s appoint him a meeting, give him a show of
89 comfort in his suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he
90 hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.
91 MISTRESS FORD.
92 Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that may not sully
93 the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! It
94 would give eternal food to his jealousy.
95 MISTRESS PAGE.
96 Why, look where he comes; and my good man too. He’s as far from
97 jealousy as I am from giving him cause, and that, I hope, is an
98 unmeasurable distance.
99 MISTRESS FORD.
100 You are the happier woman.
101 MISTRESS PAGE.
102 Let’s consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.
103 [_They retire._]
104 Enter Ford with Pistol, and Page with Nym.
105 FORD
106 Well, I hope it be not so.
107 PISTOL.
108 Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
109 Sir John affects thy wife.
110 FORD.
111 Why, sir, my wife is not young.
112 PISTOL.
113 He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
114 Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
115 He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
116 FORD.
117 Love my wife?
118 PISTOL.
119 With liver burning hot.
120 Prevent, or go thou like Sir Actaeon he,
121 With Ringwood at thy heels.
122 O, odious is the name!
123 FORD.
124 What name, sir?
125 PISTOL.
126 The horn, I say. Farewell.
127 Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night.
128 Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.—
129 Away, Sir Corporal Nym.—Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
130 [_Exit Pistol._]
131 FORD
132 [_Aside_.] I will be patient. I will find out this.
133 NYM.
134 [_To Page_.] And this is true, I like not the humour of lying. He hath
135 wronged me in some humours. I should have borne the humoured letter to
136 her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves
137 your wife; there’s the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym. I
138 speak, and I avouch ’tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your
139 wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese. Adieu.
140 [_Exit Nym._]
141 PAGE
142 [_Aside_.] “The humour of it,” quoth ’a! Here’s a fellow frights
143 English out of his wits.
144 FORD.
145 [_Aside_.] I will seek out Falstaff.
146 PAGE.
147 [_Aside_.] I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
148 FORD.
149 [_Aside_.] If I do find it—well.
150 PAGE.
151 [_Aside_.] I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o’ the
152 town commended him for a true man.
153 FORD.
154 [_Aside_.] ’Twas a good sensible fellow—well.
155 Mistress Page and Mistress Ford come forward.
156 PAGE.
157 How now, Meg?
158 MISTRESS PAGE.
159 Whither go you, George? Hark you.
160 MISTRESS FORD.
161 How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
162 FORD.
163 I melancholy? I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.
164 MISTRESS FORD.
165 Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.—Will you go, Mistress
166 Page?
167 MISTRESS PAGE.
168 Have with you. You’ll come to dinner, George?
169 [_Aside to Mistress Ford_.] Look who comes yonder. She shall be our
170 messenger to this paltry knight.
171 MISTRESS FORD.
172 [_Aside to Mistress Page_.] Trust me, I thought on her. She’ll fit it.
173 Enter Mistress Quickly.
174 MISTRESS PAGE.
175 You are come to see my daughter Anne?
176 MISTRESS QUICKLY.
177 Ay, forsooth. And, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
178 MISTRESS PAGE.
179 Go in with us and see. We’d have an hour’s talk with you.
180 [_Exeunt Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Mistress Quickly._]
181 PAGE
182 How now, Master Ford?
183 FORD.
184 You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
185 PAGE.
186 Yes, and you heard what the other told me?
187 FORD.
188 Do you think there is truth in them?
189 PAGE.
190 Hang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it, but these
191 that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his
192 discarded men, very rogues, now they be out of service.
193 FORD.
194 Were they his men?
195 PAGE.
196 Marry, were they.
197 FORD.
198 I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?
199 PAGE.
200 Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I
201 would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp
202 words, let it lie on my head.
203 FORD.
204 I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath to turn them together.
205 A man may be too confident. I would have nothing lie on my head. I
206 cannot be thus satisfied.
207 Enter Host.
208 PAGE.
209 Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes. There is either liquor
210 in his pate or money in his purse when he looks so merrily.—How now,
211 mine host?
212 HOST.
213 How now, bully rook? Thou’rt a gentleman.—Cavaliero Justice, I say!
214 Enter Shallow.
215 SHALLOW.
216 I follow, mine host, I follow.—Good even and twenty, good Master Page.
217 Master Page, will you go with us? We have sport in hand.
218 HOST.
219 Tell him, Cavaliero Justice; tell him, bully rook.
220 SHALLOW.
221 Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and
222 Caius the French doctor.
223 FORD.
224 Good mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you.
225 HOST.
226 What say’st thou, my bully rook?
227 [_Ford and the Host talk apart._]
228 SHALLOW
229 [_To Page_.] Will you go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had
230 the measuring of their weapons, and, I think, hath appointed them
231 contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark,
232 I will tell you what our sport shall be.
233 [_Shallow and Page talk apart. Ford and the Host come forward._]
234 HOST
235 Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest cavaliero?
236 FORD.
237 None, I protest. But I’ll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me
238 recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brook, only for a jest.
239 HOST.
240 My hand, bully. Thou shalt have egress and regress—said I well?—and thy
241 name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. Will you go, myn-heers?
242 SHALLOW.
243 Have with you, mine host.
244 PAGE.
245 I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.
246 SHALLOW.
247 Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on
248 distance—your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what. ’Tis the heart,
249 Master Page; ’tis here, ’tis here. I have seen the time, with my long
250 sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
251 HOST.
252 Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
253 PAGE.
254 Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.
255 [_Exeunt Host, Shallow and Page._]
256 FORD
257 Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his wife’s
258 frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily. She was in his
259 company at Page’s house, and what they made there I know not. Well, I
260 will look further into ’t, and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If
261 I find her honest, I lose not my labour. If she be otherwise, ’tis
262 labour well bestowed.
263 [_Exit._]