frights English out of his wits.
FORD I will seek out Falstaff.
PAGE I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
FORD If I do find it: well.
PAGE I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest
o’ the town commended him for a true man.
FORD ‘Twas a good sensible fellow: well.
PAGE How now, Meg!
MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward
MISTRESS PAGE Whither go you, George? Hark you.
MISTRESS FORD How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?
FORD I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.
MISTRESS FORD Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,
will you go, Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE Have with you. You’ll come to dinner, George.
Aside to MISTRESS FORD
Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger
to this paltry knight.
MISTRESS FORD [Aside to MISTRESS PAGE]
Trust me, I thought on her:
she’ll fit it.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
MISTRESS PAGE You are come to see my daughter Anne?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
MISTRESS PAGE Go in with us and see: we have an hour’s talk with
you.
Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS QUICKLY
PAGE How now, Master Ford!
FORD You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
PAGE Yes: and you heard what the other told me?
FORD Do you think there is truth in them?
PAGE Hang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would
offer it: but these that accuse him in his intent
towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men;
very rogues, now they be out of service.
FORD Were they his men?
PAGE Marry, were they.
FORD I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at
the Garter?
PAGE Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and
what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it
lie on my head.
FORD I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to
turn them together. A man may be too confident: I
would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus satisfied.
PAGE Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes:
there is either liquor in his pate or money in his
purse when he looks so merrily.
Enter Host
How now, mine host!
Host How now, bully-rook! thou’rt a gentleman.
Cavaleiro-justice, I say!
Enter SHALLOW
SHALLOW I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and
twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go
with us? we have sport in hand.
Host Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.
SHALLOW Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
FORD Good mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you.
Drawing him aside
Host What sayest thou, my bully-rook?
SHALLOW [To PAGE]
Will you go with us to behold it? My
merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons;
and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places;
for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester.
Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.
They converse apart
Host Hast thou no suit against my knight, my
guest-cavaleire?
FORD None, I protest: but I’ll give you a pottle of
burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him
my name is Brook; only for a jest.
Host My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;
–said I well?–and thy name shall be Brook. It is
a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?
SHALLOW Have with you, mine host.
PAGE I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in
his rapier.
SHALLOW Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times
you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and
I know not what: ’tis the heart, Master Page; ’tis
here, ’tis here. I have seen the time, with my long
sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
Host Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?
PAGE Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.
Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE
FORD Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly
on his wife’s frailty, yet I cannot put off my
opinion so easily: she was in his company at Page’s
house; and what they made there, I know not. Well,
I will look further into’t: and I have a disguise
to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not
my labour; if she be otherwise, ’tis labour well bestowed.
Exit
Scene 2
A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL
FALSTAFF I will not lend thee a penny.
PISTOL Why, then the world’s mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open.
FALSTAFF Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should
lay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon my
good friends for three reprieves for you and your
coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through
the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in
hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were
good soldiers and tall fellows; and when Mistress
Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took’t upon
mine honour thou hadst it not.
PISTOL Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?
FALSTAFF Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I’ll
endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more
about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go. A short knife
and a throng! To your manor of Pickt-hatch! Go.
You’ll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you
stand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable
baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the
terms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself
sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand
and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to
shuffle, to hedge and to lurch; and yet you, rogue,
will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain
looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your
bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your
honour! You will not do it, you!
PISTOL I do relent: what would thou more of man?
Enter ROBIN
ROBIN Sir, here’s a woman would speak with you.
FALSTAFF Let her approach.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
MISTRESS QUICKLY Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF Good morrow, good wife.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Not so, an’t please your worship.
FALSTAFF Good maid, then.
MISTRESS QUICKLY I’ll be sworn,
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
FALSTAFF I do believe the swearer. What with me?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
FALSTAFF Two thousand, fair woman: and I’ll vouchsafe thee
the hearing.
MISTRESS QUICKLY There is one Mistress Ford, sir:–I pray, come a
little nearer this ways:–I myself dwell with master
Doctor Caius,–
FALSTAFF Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,–
MISTRESS QUICKLY Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,
come a little nearer this ways.
FALSTAFF I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine
own people.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!
FALSTAFF Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, sir, she’s a good creature. Lord Lord! your
worship’s a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all
of us, I pray!
FALSTAFF Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,–
MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you
have brought her into such a canaries as ’tis
wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the
court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her
to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and
lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant
you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift
after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so
rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in
such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of
the best and the fairest, that would have won any
woman’s heart; and, I warrant you, they could never
get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels
given me this morning; but I defy all angels, in
any such sort, as they say, but in the way of
honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get
her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of
them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which
is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
FALSTAFF But what says she to me? be brief, my good
she-Mercury.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, she hath received your letter, for the which
she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you
to notify that her husband will be absence from his
house between ten and eleven.
FALSTAFF Ten and eleven?
MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the
picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford,