William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

[Aside to MRS. FORD] Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.

MRS. FORD

[Aside to MRS. PAGE] Trust me, I thought on her: she’ll fit it.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

MRS. PAGE

You are come to see my daughter Anne?

QUICKLY

Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

MRS. PAGE

Go in with us and see; we’d 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 toward 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 and SHALLOW.]

How now, mine host!

HOST

How now, bully-rook! Thou’rt a gentleman. Cavaliero-justice, I say!

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, cavaliero-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.

HOST

What say’st thou, my bully-rook?

[They go aside.]

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-cavaliero?

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, mynheers?

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 had rather hear them scold than fight.

[Exeunt HOST, SHALLOW, and PAGE.]

FORD

Though Page be a secure fool, and 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 II. 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.

I will retort the sum in equipage.

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 Picht-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 wouldst thou more of man?

[Enter ROBIN.]

ROBIN

Sir, here’s a woman would speak with you.

FALSTAFF

Let her approach.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

QUICKLY

Give your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFF

Good morrow, good wife.

QUICKLY

Not so, an’t please your worship.

FALSTAFF

Good maid, then.

QUICKLY

I’ll be sworn;

As my mother was, the first hour I was born.

FALSTAFF

I do believe the swearer. What with me?

QUICKLY

Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

FALSTAFF

Two thousand, fair woman; and I’ll vouchsafe thee the hearing.

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, —

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.

QUICKLY

Are they so? God bless them, and make them His servants!

FALSTAFF

Well: Mistress Ford, what of her?

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 —

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.

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.