MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:
she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
FALSTAFF 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.
FALSTAFF 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.
FALSTAFF Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace be with you, sir.
Exit
FALSTAFF 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!
FALSTAFF Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed
between me and Ford’s wife?
FORD That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.
FORD And sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.
FORD How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
FALSTAFF 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 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?
FALSTAFF While I was there.
FORD And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF You shall hear. As good luck would have it, 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!
FALSTAFF By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with 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?
FALSTAFF Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, 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 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 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 horse-shoe; think of
that,–hissing hot,–think of that, Master Brook.
FORD In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you
have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;
you’ll undertake her no more?
FALSTAFF 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 nine is the hour, Master Brook.
FORD ‘Tis past eight already, sir.
FALSTAFF 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 Brook; Master Brook, 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-baskets! 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 pepper-box: 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
Act 4
Scene 1
A street.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE
MISTRESS PAGE Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st 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. Look, where his master comes;
’tis a playing-day, I see.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS
How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?
SIR HUGH 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.
MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your
master, be not afraid.
SIR HUGH EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns?
WILLIAM PAGE Two.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more,
because they say, ”Od’s nouns.’
SIR HUGH EVANS Peace your tattlings! What is ‘fair,’ William?
WILLIAM PAGE Pulcher.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.
SIR HUGH EVANS You are a very simplicity ‘oman: I pray you peace.
What is ‘lapis,’ William?
WILLIAM PAGE A stone.
SIR HUGH EVANS And what is ‘a stone,’ William?
WILLIAM PAGE A pebble.
SIR HUGH EVANS No, it is ‘lapis:’ I pray you, remember in your prain.
WILLIAM PAGE Lapis.
SIR HUGH EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that
does lend articles?
WILLIAM PAGE Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus
declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.
SIR HUGH EVANS Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:
genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
WILLIAM PAGE Accusativo, hinc.
SIR HUGH EVANS I pray you, have your remembrance, child,
accusative, hung, hang, hog.
MISTRESS QUICKLY ‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
SIR HUGH EVANS Leave your prabbles, ‘oman. What is the focative
case, William?
WILLIAM PAGE O,–vocativo, O.
SIR HUGH EVANS Remember, William; focative is caret.
MISTRESS QUICKLY And that’s a good root.
SIR HUGH EVANS ‘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.