Array MyBooks Classics - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Illustrated edition (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

Evans. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the ord ‘dissolutely.’ The ort is (according to our meaning) ‘resolutely.’ His meaning is good.

Shal. Ay—I think my cousin meant well.

Slen. Ay, or else I would I might be hang’d, la!

Shal. Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

[Enter Anne Page.]

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

Anne. The dinner is on the table. My father desires your worships’ company.

Shal. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

Evans. ’Od’s plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt Shallow and Evans.]

Anne. Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?

Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

Anne. The dinner attends you, sir.

Slen. 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 sometime 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. I may not go in without your worship; they will not sit till you come.

Slen. I’ faith, I’ll eat nothing. I thank you as much as though I did.

Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in.

Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis’d my shin th’ other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence (three veneys for a dish of stew’d prunes) and by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i’ th’ town?

Anne. I think there are, sir, I heard them talk’d of.

Slen. 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. Ay indeed, sir.

Slen. 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 shriek’d at it, that it pass’d. But women, indeed, cannot abide ’em, they are very ill- favor’d rough things.

[Enter Page.]

Page. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

Slen. I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

Page. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

Slen. Nay, pray you lead the way.

Page. Come on, sir.

Slen. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Anne. Not I, sir, pray you keep on.

Slen. Truly I will not go first; truly la! I will not do you that wrong.

Anne. I pray you, sir.

Slen. I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong indeed la!

Exeunt.

¶

Robert Smirke , p. — John Peter Simon , e.

Enter Evans and Simple [from dinner].

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.

Sim. Well, sir.

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.

¶

Enter Falstaff, Host, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, [Robin, Falstaff’s] page.

Fal. Mine host of the Garter!

Host. What says my bully-rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.

Fal. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.

Host. Discard, bully Hercules, cashier; let them wag; trot, trot.

Fal. I sit at ten pounds a week.

Host. Thou’rt an emperor—Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap. Said I well, bully Hector?

Fal. 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.]

Fal. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade. An old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither’d servingman a fresh tapster. Go, adieu.

Bard. It is a life that I have desir’d. I will thrive.

Pist. O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?

[Exit Bardolph.]

Nym. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humor conceited?

Fal. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox; his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskillful singer, he kept not time.

Nym. The good humor is to steal at a minute’s rest.

Pist. ‘Convey,’ the wise it call. ‘Steal’? foh! a fico for the phrase!

Fal. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

Pist. Why then let kibes ensue.

Fal. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch, I must shift.

Pist. Young ravens must have food.

Fal. Which of you know Ford of this town?

Pist. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.

Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

Pist. Two yards, and more.

Fal. 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 English’d rightly) is, “I am Sir John Falstaff’s.”

Pist. He hath studied her [well], and translated her will, out of honesty into English.

Nym. The anchor is deep. Will that humor pass?

Fal. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband’s purse. He hath a legend of angels.

Pist. As many devils entertain; and “To her, boy,” say I.

Nym. The humor rises; it is good. Humor me the angels.

Fal. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here another to Page’s wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examin’d my parts with most judicious iliads; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

Pist. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

Nym. I thank thee for that humor.

Fal. O, she did so course o’er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me. They shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

Pist.

Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,

And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all!

Nym. I will run no base humor. Here, take the humor-letter; I will keep the havior of reputation.