SIR HUGH EVANS So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
FALSTAFF You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.
Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following
PAGE Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we’ll drink within.
Exit ANNE PAGE
SLENDER O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
PAGE How now, Mistress Ford!
FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met:
by your leave, good mistress.
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 except SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS
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 All-hallowmas last, a fortnight
afore Michaelmas?
SHALLOW Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with
you, coz; 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.
SIR HUGH 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS But that is not the question: the question is
concerning your marriage.
SHALLOW Ay, there’s the point, sir.
SIR HUGH 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.
SIR HUGH 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS Nay, Got’s lords and his ladies! you must speak
possitable, 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in
the ort ‘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!
SHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne.
Re-enter ANNE PAGE
Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!
ANNE PAGE The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
worships’ company.
SHALLOW I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.
SIR HUGH EVANS Od’s plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS
ANNE PAGE Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?
SLENDER No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
ANNE PAGE The dinner attends you, sir.
SLENDER I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my
cousin Shallow.
Exit SIMPLE
A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding 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 PAGE 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 PAGE I pray you, sir, walk in.
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’ the town?
ANNE PAGE 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 PAGE 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-favored
rough things.
Re-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 PAGE Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.
SLENDER I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome.
You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!
Exeunt
Scene 2
The same.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE
SIR HUGH 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 nurse, or his dry
nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and
his wringer.
SIMPLE Well, sir.
SIR HUGH EVANS Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it
is a ‘oman that altogether’s 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: I will
make an end of my dinner; there’s pippins and cheese to come.
Exeunt
Scene 3
A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF, Host, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN
FALSTAFF Mine host of the Garter!
Host What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.
FALSTAFF Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
followers.
Host Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.
FALSTAFF I sit at ten pounds a week.
Host Thou’rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I
will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall
tap: said I well, bully Hector?
FALSTAFF 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
FALSTAFF Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade:
an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered
serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.
BARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.
PISTOL O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
Exit BARDOLPH
NYM He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?
FALSTAFF 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.
NYM The good humour is to steal at a minute’s rest.
PISTOL ‘Convey,’ the wise it call. ‘Steal!’ foh! a fico
for the phrase!
FALSTAFF Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
PISTOL Why, then, let kibes ensue.
FALSTAFF There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.
PISTOL Young ravens must have food.
FALSTAFF Which of you know Ford of this town?
PISTOL I ken the wight: he is of substance good.
FALSTAFF My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
PISTOL Two yards, and more.
FALSTAFF 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 behavior, to be Englished
rightly, is, ‘I am Sir John Falstaff’s.’