the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my
powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a
received belief, in despite of the teeth of all
rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now
how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when ’tis upon
ill employment!
SIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
FORD Well said, fairy Hugh.
SIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.
FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art
able to woo her in good English.
FALSTAFF Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that
it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as
this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I
have a coxcomb of frize? ‘Tis time I were choked
with a piece of toasted cheese.
SIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.
FALSTAFF ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’! have I lived to stand at the
taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This
is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking
through the realm.
MISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders
and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
FORD What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
MISTRESS PAGE A puffed man?
PAGE Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?
FORD And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
PAGE And as poor as Job?
FORD And as wicked as his wife?
SIR HUGH EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack
and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and
swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
FALSTAFF Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I
am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh
flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me: use
me as you will.
FORD Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one
Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to
whom you should have been a pander: over and above
that you have suffered, I think to repay that money
will be a biting affliction.
PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to
laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
Master Slender hath married her daughter.
MISTRESS PAGE [Aside]
Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.
Enter SLENDER
SLENDER Whoa ho! ho, father Page!
PAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
SLENDER Dispatched! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire
know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else.
PAGE Of what, son?
SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,
and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been
i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he
should have swinged me. If I did not think it had
been Anne Page, would I might never stir!–and ’tis
a postmaster’s boy.
PAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
SLENDER What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took
a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for
all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had
him.
PAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
you should know my daughter by her garments?
SLENDER I went to her in white, and cried ‘mum,’ and she
cried ‘budget,’ as Anne and I had appointed; and yet
it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.
MISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;
turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is
now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS
DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha’
married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;
it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.
MISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green?
DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.
Exit
FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
PAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
How now, Master Fenton!
ANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
PAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
MISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid?
FENTON You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed;
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to
strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
PAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew’d must be embraced.
FALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.
MISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
Exeunt