not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my
door. Follow my heels, Rugby.
Exeunt DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY
MISTRESS QUICKLY You shall have An fool’s-head of your own. No, I
know Anne’s mind for that: never a woman in Windsor
knows more of Anne’s mind than I do; nor can do more
than I do with her, I thank heaven.
FENTON [Within]
Who’s within there? ho!
MISTRESS QUICKLY Who’s there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you.
Enter FENTON
FENTON How now, good woman? how dost thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.
FENTON What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?
MISTRESS QUICKLY In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you
that by the way; I praise heaven for it.
FENTON Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but
notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I’ll be sworn on a
book, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart
above your eye?
FENTON Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it is such
another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever
broke bread: we had an hour’s talk of that wart. I
shall never laugh but in that maid’s company! But
indeed she is given too much to allicholy and
musing: but for you–well, go to.
FENTON Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there’s money
for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if
thou seest her before me, commend me.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Will I? i’faith, that we will; and I will tell your
worship more of the wart the next time we have
confidence; and of other wooers.
FENTON Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Farewell to your worship.
Exit FENTON
Truly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not;
for I know Anne’s mind as well as another does. Out
upon’t! what have I forgot?
Exit
Act 2
Scene 1
Before PAGE’S house.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter
MISTRESS PAGE What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-
time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?
Let me see.
Reads
‘Ask me no reason why I love you; for though
Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him
not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more
am I; go to then, there’s sympathy: you are merry,
so am I; ha, ha! then there’s more sympathy: you
love sack, and so do I; would you desire better
sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,–at
the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,–
that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; ’tis
not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might
For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF’
What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked
world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with
age to show himself a young gallant! What an
unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard
picked–with the devil’s name!–out of my
conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?
Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What
should I say to him? I was then frugal of my
mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll exhibit a bill
in the parliament for the putting down of men. How
shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be,
as sure as his guts are made of puddings.
Enter MISTRESS FORD
MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.
MISTRESS PAGE And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very
ill.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, I’ll ne’er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.
MISTRESS PAGE Faith, but you do, in my mind.
MISTRESS FORD Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the
contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!
MISTRESS PAGE What’s the matter, woman?
MISTRESS FORD O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I
could come to such honour!
MISTRESS PAGE Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is
it? dispense with trifles; what is it?
MISTRESS FORD If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so,
I could be knighted.
MISTRESS PAGE What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights
will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the
article of thy gentry.
MISTRESS FORD We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I
might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of
men’s liking: and yet he would not swear; praised
women’s modesty; and gave such orderly and
well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I
would have sworn his disposition would have gone to
the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere
and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to
the tune of ‘Green Sleeves.’ What tempest, I trow,
threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his
belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged
on him? I think the best way were to entertain him
with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted
him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?
MISTRESS PAGE Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery
of ill opinions, here’s the twin-brother of thy
letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I
protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a
thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
different names–sure, more,–and these are of the
second edition: he will print them, out of doubt;
for he cares not what he puts into the press, when
he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess,
and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you
twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
MISTRESS FORD Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very
words. What doth he think of us?
MISTRESS PAGE Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to
wrangle with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain
myself like one that I am not acquainted withal;
for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I
know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
MISTRESS FORD ‘Boarding,’ call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him
above deck.
MISTRESS PAGE So will I
if he come under my hatches, I’ll never
to sea again. Let’s be revenged on him: let’s
appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in
his suit and lead him on with a fine-baited delay,
till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him,
that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,
that my husband saw this letter! it would give
eternal food to his jealousy.
MISTRESS PAGE Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he’s
as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause;
and that I hope is an unmeasurable distance.
MISTRESS FORD You are the happier woman.
MISTRESS PAGE Let’s consult together against this greasy knight.
Come hither.
They retire
Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM
FORD Well, I hope it be not so.
PISTOL Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.
FORD Why, sir, my wife is not young.
PISTOL He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.
FORD Love my wife!
PISTOL With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:
O, odious is the name!
FORD What name, sir?
PISTOL The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:
Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.
Exit
FORD [Aside]
I will be patient; I will find out this.
NYM [To PAGE]
And this is true; I like not the humour
of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I
should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I
have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity.
He loves your wife; there’s the short and the long.
My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; ’tis
true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.
Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,
and there’s the humour of it. Adieu.
Exit
PAGE ‘The humour of it,’ quoth a’! here’s a fellow