The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Word of denial in thy labras here,

  Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest.

  SLENDER (pointing to Nim) By these gloves, then, ’twas he.

  NIM Be advised, sir, and pass good humours. I will say ’marry, trap with you’ if you run the nuthook’s humour on me. That is the very note of it.

  SLENDER By this hat, then, he in the red face had it. For though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

  SIR JOHN (to Bardolph) What say you, Scarlet and John?

  BARDOLPH Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

  EVANS It is ‘his five senses’. Fie, what the ignorance is!

  BARDOLPH And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered. And so conclusions passed the careers.

  SLENDER Ay, you spake in Latin then, too. But ‘tis no matter. I’ll ne’er be drunk, whilst I live, again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I’ll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

  EVANS So Got ’udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

  SIR JOHN You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen, you hear it.

  Enter Anne Page, with wine

  PAGE Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we’ll drink within. Exit Anne

  SLENDER O heaven, this is Mistress Anne Page! ⌈Enter at another door Mistress Ford and Mistress Pagel⌉

  PAGE How now, Mistress Ford?

  SIR JOHN Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met. By your leave, good mistress.

  ⌈He kisses her⌉

  PAGE Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome.—Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner. Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

  Exeunt all but Slender

  SLENDER I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of songs and sonnets here.

  Enter Simple

  How now, Simple, where have you been? I must wait

  on myself, must I? You have not the book of riddles

  about you, have you?

  SIMPLE Book of riddles? Why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

  Enter Shallow and Evans

  SHALLOW (to Slender) Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. (Aside to him) A word with you, coz.

  He draws Slender aside

  Marry, this, coz: there is, as ’twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me?

  SLENDER Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable. If it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

  SHALLOW Nay, but understand me.

  SLENDER So I do, sir.

  EVANS Give ear to his motions. Master Slender, I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

  SLENDER Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says. I pray you pardon me. He’s a Justice of Peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

  EVANS But that is not the question. The question is concerning your marriage.

  SHALLOW Ay, there’s the point, sir.

  EVANS Marry, is it, the very point of it—to Mistress Anne Page.

  SLENDER Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

  EVANS But can you affection the ’oman ? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips—for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

  SHALLOW Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

  SLENDER I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

  EVANS Nay, Got’s lords and his ladies, you must speak positable if you can carry her your desires towards her.

  SHALLOW That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

  SLENDER I will do a greater thing than that upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

  SHALLOW Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz. What I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

  SLENDER I will marry her, sir, at your request. But if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say ‘marry her’, I will marry her. That I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

  EVANS It is a fery discretion answer, save the faul’ is in the ’ord ‘dissolutely’. The ’ort is, according to our meaning, ‘resolutely’. His meaning is good.

  SHALLOW Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

  SLENDER Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.

  Enter Anne Page

  SHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne.—Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne.

  ANNE The dinner is on the table. My father desires your worships’ company.

  SHALLOW I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

  EVANS ’Od’s plessed will, I will not be absence at the grace. Exeunt Shallow and Evans

  ANNE (to Slender) Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?

  SLENDER No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

  ANNE The dinner attends you, sir.

  SLENDER I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. (To Simple) Go, sirrah; for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow. Exit Simple A Justice of Peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

  ANNE I may not go in without your worship. They will not sit till you come.

  SLENDER I’faith, I’ll eat nothing. I thank you as much as though I did.

  ANNE I pray you, sir, walk in.

  ⌈Dogs bark within⌉

  SLENDER I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th‘other day, with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence—three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes—and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’th’ town?

  ANNE I think there are, sir. I heard them talked of.

  SLENDER I love the sport well—but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

  ANNE Ay, indeed, sir.

  SLENDER That’s meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain. But I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed. But women, indeed, cannot abide ’em. They are very ill-favoured, rough things.

  Enter Page

  PAGE Come, gentle Master Slender, come. We stay for you.

  SLENDER I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

  PAGE By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir. Come, come.

  SLENDER Nay, pray you lead the way.

  PAGE Come on, sir.

  SLENDER Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

  ANNE Not I, sir. Pray you keep on.

  SLENDER Truly, I will not go first, truly, la. I will not do you that wrong.

  ANNE I pray you, sir.

  SLENDER I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong, indeed, la.

  Exeunt ⌈Slender first, the others following⌉

  1.2 Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple, ⌈from dinner⌉

  EVANS Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius’ house which is the way. And there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his ’oman, or his dry-nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.

  SIMPLE Well, sir.

  EVANS Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter, for it is a ’oman that altogethers acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page. And the letter is to desire and require her to solicit your master’s desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you be gone. ⌈Exit Simple⌉ I will make an end of my dinner; there’s pippins and cheese to come. Exit

  1.3 Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nim, Pistol, and Robin

  SIR JOHN Mine Host of the Garter!


  Enter the Host of the Garter

  HOST What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.

  SIR JOHN Truly, mine Host, I must turn away some of my followers.

  HOST Discard, bully Hercules, cashier. Let them wag. Trot, trot.

  SIR JOHN I sit at ten pounds a week.

  HOST Thou’rt an emperor: Caesar, kaiser, and pheezer. I will entertain Bardolph. He shall draw, he shall tap. Said I well, bully Hector? 11

  SIR JOHN Do so, good mine Host.

  HOST I have spoke; let him follow. (To Bardolph) Let me see thee froth and lime. I am at a word: follow. Exit

  SIR JOHN Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade. An old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

  BARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired. I will thrive.

  ⌈Exit⌉

  PISTOL

  O base Hungarian wight, wilt thou the spigot wield?

  NIM He was gotten in drink; his mind is not heroic. Is not the humour conceited?

  SIR JOHN I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox. His thefts were too open. His filching was like an unskilful singer: he kept not time.

  Him The good humour is to steal at a minute’s rest.

  PISTOL

  ‘Convey’ the wise it call. ‘Steal’? Foh, a fico for the

  phrase!

  SIR JOHN Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

  PISTOL Why then, let kibes ensue.

  SIR JOHN There is no remedy: I must cony-catch, I must shift.

  PISTOL Young ravens must have food.

  SIR JOHN Which of you know Ford of this town?

  PISTOL I ken the wight. He is of substance good.

  SIR JOHN My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

  PISTOL Two yards and more.

  SIR JOHN No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about. But I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford’s wife. I spy entertainment in her. She discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation. I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is ‘I am Sir John Falstaff’s’.

  PISTOL He hath studied her well, and translated her will: out of honesty, into English.

  NIM The anchor is deep. Will that humour pass?

  SIR JOHN Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husband’s purse; he hath a legion of angels.

  PISTOL

  As many devils entertain, and ‘To her, boy!’ say I.

  NIM The humour rises; it is good. Humour me the angels!

  SIR JOHN (showing letters) I have writ me here a letter to her—and here another to Page’s wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

  PISTOL

  Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

  NIM I thank thee for that humour.

  SIR JOHN O, she did so course o’er my exteriors, with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse too. She is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me. They shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. (Giving a letter to Pistol) Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page, (giving a letter to Nim) and thou this to Mistress Ford. We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

  PISTOL (returning the letter)

  Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,

  And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all.

  NIM (returning the letter) I will run no base humour. Here, take the humour-letter. I will keep the haviour of reputation.

  SIR JOHN (to Robin)

  Hold, sirrah. Bear you these letters tightly.

  Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.

  He gives Robin the letters

  Rogues, hence, avaunt! Vanish like hailstones! Go!

  Trudge, plod, away o’th’ hoof, seek shelter, pack!

  Falstaff will learn the humour of the age:

  French thrift, you rogues—myself and skirted page.

  Exeunt Sir John and Robin

  PISTOL

  Let vultures gripe thy guts!—for gourd and fullam

  holds,

  And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.

  Tester I’ll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,

  Base Phrygian Turk!

  NIM

  I have operations which be humours of revenge.

  PISTOL

  Wilt thou revenge?

  NIM By welkin and her stars!

  PISTOL

  With wit or steel?

  NIM With both the humours, I.

  I will discuss the humour of this love to Ford.

  PISTOL

  And I to Page shall eke unfold

  How Falstaff, varlet vile,

  His dove will prove, his gold will hold,

  And his soft couch defile.

  NIM My humour shall not cool. I will incense Ford to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for this revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.

  PISTOL

  Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

  I second thee. Troop on. Exeunt

  1.4 Enter Mistress Quickly and Simple

  MISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby!

  Enter John Rugby

  I pray thee, go to the casement and see if you can see

  my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do,

  i’faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an

  old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.

  RUGBY I’ll go watch.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a seacoal fire.

  Exit Rugby

  An honest, willing, kind fellow as ever servant shall come in house withal; and, I warrant you, no telltale, nor no breedbate. His worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way—but nobody but has his fault. But let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?

  SIMPLE Ay, for fault of a better.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY And Master Slender’s your master ?

  SIMPLE Ay, forsooth.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover’s paring-knife?

  SIMPLE No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY A softly spirited man, is he not?

  SIMPLE Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head. He hath fought with a warrener.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY How say you?—O, I should remember him: does he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

  SIMPLE Yes, indeed does he.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish—

  Enter Rugby

  RUGBY Out, alas, here comes my master! ⌈Exit⌉

  MISTRESS QUICKLY We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; for God’s sake, go into this closet. He will not stay long.

  Simple steps into the closet

  What, John Rugby! John! What, John, I say!

  ⌈Enter Rugby⌉

  ⌈Speaking loudly⌉ Go, John, go enquire for my master. I

  doubt he be not well, that he comes not home.

  ⌈Exit Rugby⌉

  (Singing) ’And down, down, adown-a’ (etc.)

  Enter Doctor Caius

  CAIUS Vat is you sing? I do not like dese toys. Pray you go and vetch me in my closet un boîtier vert—a box, a green-a box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth, I’ll fetch it you. (Aside) I am glad he went not in himself. If he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

 
; She goes to fetch the box

  CAIUS Fe, fe, fe, fe! Ma foi, il fait fort chaud! Je m’en vais à la cour. La grande affaire.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Is it this, sir?

  CAIUS Oui. Mets-le à ma pochette. Dépêche, quickly! Vere is dat knave Rugby?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby! John!

  ⌈Enter Rugby⌉

  RUGBY Here, sir.

  CAIUS You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.

  RUGBY ’Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

  He fetches the rapier

  CAIUS By my trot, I tarry too long. ’Od’s me, qu’ai-j’oublié? Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY (aside) Ay me, he’ll find the young man there, and be mad.

  CAIUS (discovering Simple) O diable, diable! Vat is in my closet? Villainy, larron! Rugby, my rapier!

  He takes the rapier

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Good master, be content.

  CAIUS Wherefore shall I be content-a?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY The young man is an honest man.

  CAIUS What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it. He came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.

  CAIUS Vell.

  SIMPLE Ay, forsooth, to desire her to—

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace, I pray you.

  CAIUS Peace-a your tongue. (To Simple) Speak-a your tale.

  SIMPLE To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master in the way of marriage.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY This is all, indeed, la; but I’ll ne’er put my finger in the fire an need not.

  CAIUS Sir Hugh send-a you?—Rugby, baile me some paper.

  Rugby brings paper