William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

MRS. 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.

MRS. PAGE

What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?

FALSTAFF

I love thee and none but thee; help me away: let me creep in here. I’ll never —

[He gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen.]

MRS. PAGE

Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!

MRS. 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-Mead; quickly, come.

[Enter FORD, PAGE, 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.

MRS. 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 tonight; 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 FORD.]

EVANS

This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

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 EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS.]

MRS. PAGE

Is there not a double excellency in this?

MRS. FORD

I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.

MRS. PAGE

What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket!

MRS. FORD

I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

MRS. PAGE

Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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.

MRS. 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?

MRS. PAGE

We will do it; let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock, to have amends.

[Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

FORD

I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass.

MRS. PAGE

[Aside to MRS. FORD] Heard you that?

MRS. FORD

[Aside to MRS. PAGE] Ay, ay, peace. —

You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

FORD

Ay, I do so.

MRS. FORD

Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

FORD

Amen!

MRS. PAGE

You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

FORD

Ay, ay; I must bear it.

EVANS

If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!

CAIUS

Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.

PAGE

Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha’ your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

FORD

‘Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.

EVANS

You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a ‘omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

CAIUS

By gar, I see ‘tis an honest woman.

FORD

Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park: I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come, Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me.

PAGE

Let’s go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we’ll mock him. I do invite you tomorrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we’ll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

FORD

Any thing.

EVANS

If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

CAIUS

If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

FORD

Pray you go, Master Page.

EVANS

I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host.

CAIUS

Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.

EVANS

A lousy knave! to have his gibes and his mockeries!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. A room in Page’s house

[Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.]

FENTON

I see I cannot get thy father’s love;

Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.

ANNE

Alas! how then?

FENTON

Why, thou must be thyself.

He doth object, I am too great of birth;

And that my state being gall’d with my expense,

I seek to heal it only by his wealth.

Besides these, other bars he lays before me,

My riots past, my wild societies;

And tells me ‘tis a thing impossible

I should love thee but as a property.

ANNE

May be he tells you true.

FENTON

No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!

Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth

Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne:

Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value

Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealèd bags;

And ‘tis the very riches of thyself

That now I aim at.

ANNE

Gentle Master Fenton,

Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir.

If opportunity and humblest suit

Cannot attain it, why then, — hark you hither.

[They converse apart.]

[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

SHALLOW

Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.

SLENDER

I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on ‘t. ‘Slid, ‘tis but venturing.

SHALLOW

Be not dismayed.

SLENDER

No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard.

QUICKLY

Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.

ANNE

I come to him.

[Aside] This is my father’s choice.

O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults

Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

QUICKLY

And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

SHALLOW

She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

SLENDER

I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

SHALLOW

Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

SLENDER

Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

SHALLOW

He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

SLENDER

Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.

SHALLOW

He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

ANNE

Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

SHALLOW

Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz; I’ll leave you.