William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

SHALLOW

We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

SLENDER

I hope I have your good will, father Page.

PAGE

You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you. But my wife, Master doctor, is for you altogether.

CAIUS

Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

HOST

What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry ‘t, he will carry ‘t; ‘tis in his buttons; he will carry ‘t.

PAGE

Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and Pointz; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

FORD

I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.

SHALLOW

Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer wooing at Master Page’s.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER.]

CAIUS

Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

[Exit RUGBY.]

HOST

Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

[Exit HOST.]

FORD

[Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him. I’ll make him dance.

Will you go, gentles?

ALL

Have with you to see this monster.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. A room in Ford’s house

[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]

MRS. FORD

What, John! what, Robert!

MRS. PAGE

Quickly, quickly: — Is the buck-basket —

MRS. FORD

I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

[Enter SERVANTS with a basket.]

MRS. PAGE

Come, come, come.

MRS. FORD

Here, set it down.

MRS. PAGE

Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

MRS. FORD

Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and, without any pause or staggering, take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

MRS. PAGE

You will do it?

MRS. FORD

I have told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.

[Exeunt SERVANTS.]

MRS. PAGE

Here comes little Robin.

[Enter ROBIN.]

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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.

MRS. FORD

Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.

[Exit ROBIN.]

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

MRS. PAGE

I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.

[Exit MISTRESS PAGE.]

MRS. 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!

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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 semicircled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

MRS. FORD

Believe me, there’s 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.

MRS. 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 limekiln.

MRS. FORD

Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it.

FALSTAFF

Keep in that mind; I’ll deserve it.

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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!

MRS. PAGE

O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you are overthrown, you are undone for ever!

MRS. FORD

What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

MRS. PAGE

O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

MRS. FORD

What cause of suspicion?

MRS. PAGE

What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! how am I mistook in you!

MRS. FORD

Why, alas, what’s the matter?

MRS. 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 absence: you are undone.

MRS. FORD

[Aside] Speak louder.

‘Tis not so, I hope.

MRS. 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.

MRS. FORD

What shall I do? — There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.

MRS. 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.