Enter ROBIN
MISTRESS FORD How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?
ROBIN My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door,
Mistress Ford, and requests your company.
MISTRESS PAGE You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
ROBIN Ay, I’ll be sworn. My master knows not of your
being here and hath threatened to put me into
everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he
swears he’ll turn me away.
MISTRESS PAGE Thou’rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be
a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet
and hose. I’ll go hide me.
MISTRESS FORD Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.
Exit ROBIN
Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
MISTRESS PAGE I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Exit
MISTRESS FORD Go to, then: we’ll use this unwholesome humidity,
this gross watery pumpion; we’ll teach him to know
turtles from jays.
Enter FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let
me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the
period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!
MISTRESS FORD O sweet Sir John!
FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,
Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would
thy husband were dead: I’ll speak it before the
best lord; I would make thee my lady.
MISTRESS FORD I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady!
FALSTAFF Let the court of France show me such another. I see
how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast
the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the
ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of
Venetian admittance.
MISTRESS FORD A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing
else; nor that well neither.
FALSTAFF By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou
wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm
fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion
to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see
what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature
thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.
MISTRESS FORD Believe me, there is no such thing in me.
FALSTAFF What made me love thee? let that persuade thee
there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I
cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a
many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like
women in men’s apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury
in simple time; I cannot: but I love thee; none
but thee; and thou deservest it.
MISTRESS FORD Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.
FALSTAFF Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the
Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek
of a lime-kiln.
MISTRESS FORD Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one
day find it.
FALSTAFF Keep in that mind; I’ll deserve it.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not
be in that mind.
ROBIN [Within]
Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here’s
Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and
looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
FALSTAFF She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras.
MISTRESS FORD Pray you, do so: she’s a very tattling woman.
FALSTAFF hides himself
Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN
What’s the matter? how now!
MISTRESS PAGE O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed,
you’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever!
MISTRESS FORD What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man
to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
MISTRESS FORD What cause of suspicion?
MISTRESS PAGE What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I
mistook in you!
MISTRESS FORD Why, alas, what’s the matter?
MISTRESS PAGE Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the
officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that
he says is here now in the house by your consent, to
take an ill advantage of his assence: you are undone.
MISTRESS FORD ‘Tis not so, I hope.
MISTRESS PAGE Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man
here! but ’tis most certain your husband’s coming,
with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a
one. I come before to tell you. If you know
yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you
have a friend here convey, convey him out. Be not
amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your
reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.
MISTRESS FORD What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear
friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his
peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were
out of the house.
MISTRESS PAGE For shame! never stand ‘you had rather’ and ‘you
had rather:’ your husband’s here at hand, bethink
you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot
hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here
is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he
may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as
if it were going to bucking: or–it is whiting-time
–send him by your two men to Datchet-mead.
MISTRESS FORD He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?
FALSTAFF [Coming forward]
Let me see’t, let me see’t, O, let
me see’t! I’ll in, I’ll in. Follow your friend’s
counsel. I’ll in.
MISTRESS PAGE What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?
FALSTAFF I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.
I’ll never–
Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen
MISTRESS PAGE Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,
Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!
MISTRESS FORD What, John! Robert! John!
Exit ROBIN
Re-enter Servants
Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the
cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to
the laundress in Datchet-meat; quickly, come.
Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS
FORD Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause,
why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest;
I deserve it. How now! whither bear you this?
Servant To the laundress, forsooth.
MISTRESS FORD Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You
were best meddle with buck-washing.
FORD Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!
Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck;
and of the season too, it shall appear.
Exeunt Servants with the basket
Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I’ll tell you my
dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my
chambers; search, seek, find out: I’ll warrant
we’ll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.
Locking the door
So, now uncape.
PAGE Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.
FORD True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see
sport anon: follow me, gentlemen.
Exit
SIR HUGH EVANS This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, ’tis no the fashion of France; it is not
jealous in France.
PAGE Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.
Exeunt PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS
MISTRESS PAGE Is there not a double excellency in this?
MISTRESS FORD I know not which pleases me better, that my husband
is deceived, or Sir John.
MISTRESS PAGE What a taking was he in when your husband asked who
was in the basket!
MISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so
throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same
strain were in the same distress.
MISTRESS FORD I think my husband hath some special suspicion of
Falstaff’s being here; for I never saw him so gross
in his jealousy till now.
MISTRESS PAGE I will lay a plot to try that; and we will yet have
more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will
scarce obey this medicine.
MISTRESS FORD Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress
Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the
water; and give him another hope, to betray him to
another punishment?
MISTRESS PAGE We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow,
eight o’clock, to have amends.
Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS
FORD I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that
he could not compass.
MISTRESS PAGE [Aside to MISTRESS FORD]
Heard you that?
MISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
FORD Ay, I do so.
MISTRESS FORD Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
FORD Amen!
MISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
FORD Ay, ay; I must bear it.
SIR HUGH EVANS If there be any pody in the house, and in the
chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses,