Complete Plays, The

Home > Fiction > Complete Plays, The > Page 297
Complete Plays, The Page 297

by William Shakespeare


  ’Oman, forbear.

  Mistress Page

  Peace!

  Sir Hugh Evans

  What is your genitive case plural, William?

  William Page

  Genitive case!

  Sir Hugh Evans

  Ay.

  William Page

  Genitive,— horum, harum, horum.

  Mistress Quickly

  Vengeance of Jenny’s case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  For shame, ’oman.

  Mistress 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!

  Sir Hugh 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.

  Mistress Page

  Prithee, hold thy peace.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

  William Page

  Forsooth, I have forgot.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your ’quies,’ your ‘quaes,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.

  Mistress Page

  He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

  Mistress Page

  Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

  Exit Sir Hugh Evans

  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?

  Mistress Ford

  He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

  Mistress Page

  [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

  Mistress Ford

  Step into the chamber, Sir John.

  Exit Falstaff

  Enter Mistress Page

  Mistress Page

  How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?

  Mistress Ford

  Why, none but mine own people.

  Mistress Page

  Indeed!

  Mistress Ford

  No, certainly.

  Aside to her

  Speak louder.

  Mistress Page

  Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

  Mistress Ford

  Why?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  Why, does he talk of him?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  How near is he, Mistress Page?

  Mistress Page

  Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

  Mistress Ford

  I am undone! The knight is here.

  Mistress 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.

  Ford

  Which way should be 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?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

  Falstaff

  Where is it?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Page

  If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir

  John. Unless you go out disguised —

  Mistress Ford

  How might we disguise him?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.

  Mistress Page

  Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while.

  Exit Falstaff

  Mistress Ford

  I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she’s a witch; forbade her my house and hath threatened to beat her.

  Mistress Page

  Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

  Mistress Ford

  But is my husband coming?

  Mistress Page

  Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Page

  Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.

  Mistress 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 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 eat all the draff.

  Exit

  Re-enter Mistress Ford with two Servants

  Mistress 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

  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 as lief bear so much lead.

  Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Doctor Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans

&nbs
p; 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.

  Sir Hugh 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; 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?

  Mistress 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!

  Mistress Ford

  Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

  Ford

  I shall find you anon.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  ’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come away.

  Ford

  Empty the basket, I say!

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress 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.

  Sir Hugh 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.

  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, Chat searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.

  Mistress Ford

  What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

  Ford

  Old woman! what old woman’s that?

  Mistress Ford

  Nay, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

  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!

  Mistress Ford

  Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

  Re-enter Falstaff in woman’s clothes, and Mistress Page

  Mistress Page

  Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

  Ford

  I’ll prat her.

  Beating him

  Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

  Exit Falstaff

  Mistress Page

  Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

  Mistress Ford

  Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.

  Ford

  Hang her, witch!

  Sir Hugh Evans

  By the 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 his 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, Doctor Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans

  Mistress Page

  Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

  Mistress Ford

  Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

  Mistress Page

  I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

  Mistress Ford

  What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress Ford

  Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress 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.

  Mistress 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 to-morrow 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

  Sir Hugh 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?

  Mistress 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.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has been grievously peaten as an old ’oman: methinks there should be terro
rs in him that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.

  Page

  So think I too.

  Mistress Ford

  Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes,

  And let us two devise to bring him thither.

  Mistress 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?

  Mistress Ford

  Marry, this is our device;

  That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

  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?

  Mistress 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, ouphes 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 diffused song: upon their sight,

  We two in great amazedness 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.

  Mistress Ford

  And till he tell the truth,

  Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound

  And burn him with their tapers.

  Mistress 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 practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.

  Sir Hugh Evans

  I will teach the children their behaviors; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

 

‹ Prev