The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

MISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing, so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

  MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

  MISTRESS 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.

  MISTRESS 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.

  MISTRESS 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?

  MISTRESS PAGE We will do it. Let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock, to have amends.

  Enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Evans

  FORD I cannot find him. Maybe the knave bragged of that he could not compass.

  MISTRESS PAGE (aside to Mistress Ford) Heard you that?

  MISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

  FORD Ay, I do so.

  MISTRESS FORD Heaven make me better than your thoughts!

  FORD Amen.

  MISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

  FORD Ay, ay, I must bear it.

  EVANS If there be anypody 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 Be Gar, nor I too. There is nobodies.

  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 (to Caius and Evans) Let’s go in, gentlemen. (Aside to them) But trust me, we’ll mock him. (To Ford, Caius, and Evans) 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 Anything.

  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.

  Exeunt fall but Evans and Caius⌉

  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

  3.4 Enter Master Fenton and Anne Page

  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 galled 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 Maybe 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—

  Enter Justice Shallow, Master Slender ⌈richly dressedl, and Mistress Quickly

  Hark you hither.

  They talk apart

  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.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY (to Anne) Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word with you.

  ANNE

  I come to him. (To Fenton) This is my father’s choice.

  O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults

  Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year I

  MISTRESS QUICKLY And how does good Master Fenton?

  Pray you, a word with you.

  She draws Fenton aside

  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, by God, 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.

  He stands aside

  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 God; I am not such a sickly creature, I give God 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.

  Enter Master Page and Mistress Page

  You may ask your father: here he comes.

  PAGE

  Now, Master Stender.—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.

  FENTON

  Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

  MISTRESS 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 Penton.—

  Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.—

  Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

  Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender

  MISTRESS QUICKLY (to Fenton) 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 yon fool.

  MISTRESS PAGE I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY ⌈aside to Anne⌉ That’s my master, Master Doctor.

  ANNE

  Alas, I had rather be set quick i’th’ earth

  And bowled to death with turnips.

  MISTRESS PA
GE

  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 Mistress Page and Anne

  MISTRESS 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, (giving her a ring) and I pray thee, once

  tonight

  Give my sweet Nan this ring. (Giving money) There’s

  for thy pains.

  MISTRESS 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

  3.5 Enter Sir John Falstaff

  SIR JOHN Bardolph, I say!

  Enter Bardolph

  BARDOLPH Here, sir.

  SIR JOHN Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t.

  Exit Bardolph

  Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? 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. ’Sblood, the rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’th’ 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 I had been swelled? By the Lord, a mountain of mummy!

  Enter Bardolph, with ⌈two large cups of ⌉ sack

  BARDOLPH Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

  SIR JOHN 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.

  He drinks

  Call her in.

  BARDOLPH Come in, woman!

  Enter Mistress Quickly

  MISTRESS QUICKLY (to Sir John) By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow!

  SIR JOHN (⌈drinking, then⌉ speaking to Bardolph) Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack, finely.

  BARDOLPH With eggs, sir?

  SIR JOHN Simple of itself. I’ll no pullet-sperms in my brewage. Exit Bardolph, ⌈with cups⌉

  How now?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, sir, I come to your worship from

  Mistress Ford.

  SIR JOHN Mistress Ford? I have had ford enough: I was thrown into the ford, I have my belly full of ford.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault. She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

  SIR JOHN So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.

  MISTRESS 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.

  SIR JOHN 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.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY I will tell her.

  SIR JOHN Do so. Between nine and ten, sayst thou?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir.

  SIR JOHN Well, be gone. I will not miss her.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace be with you, sir. Exit

  SIR JOHN I marvel I hear not of Master Brooke; he sent me word to stay within. I like his money well.

  Enter Master Ford, disguised as Brooke

  By the mass, here he comes.

  FORD God bless you, sir.

  SIR JOHN Now, Master Brooke, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife.

  FORD That indeed, Sir John, is my business.

  SIR JOHN Master Brooke, I will not lie to you. I was at her house the hour she appointed me.

  FORD And sped you, sir?

  SIR JOHN Very ill-favouredly, Master Brooke.

  FORD How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

  SIR JOHN No, Master Brooke, but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brooke, 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?

  SIR JOHN While I was there.

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

  SIR JOHN You shall hear. As God would have it, comes in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford’s approach, and, by her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket—

  FORD A buck-basket?

  SIR JOHN By the Lord, a buck-basket!—rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brooke, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

  FORD And how long lay you there?

  SIR JOHN Nay, you shall hear, Master Brooke, 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 Brooke. 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 horseshoe. Think of that—hissing hot—think of that, Master Brooke!

  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?

  SIR JOHN Master Brooke, 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 Brooke.

  FORD ’Tis past eight already, sir.

  SIR JOHN 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 Brooke; Master Brooke, you shall cuckold Ford.

  Exit

  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-bas
kets! 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 pepperbox. 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

  4.1 Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Quickly, and William Page

  MISTRESS PAGE Is he at Mistress Ford’s already, thinkest thou?

  MISTRESS 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.

  MISTRESS PAGE I’ll be with her by and by. I’ll but bring my young man here to school.

  Enter Sir Hugh Evans

  Look where his master comes. ’Tis a playing day, I see.—How now, Sir Hugh, no school today?

  EVANS No, Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart!

  MISTRESS 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.

  MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah. Hold up your head.

  Answer your master; be not afraid.

  EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns?

  WILLIAM TWO.

  MISTRESS 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’.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats? There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

  EVANS You are a very simplicity ‘oman. I pray you peace.—What is ‘lapis’, William?