William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

FORD

In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more.

FALSTAFF

Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from her another embassy of meeting; ‘twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.

FORD

‘Tis past eight already, sir.

FALSTAFF

Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed, and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

FORD

Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There’s a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ‘tis to be married; this ‘tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he is at my house. He cannot scape me; ‘tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper box; but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame; if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me; I’ll be horn-mad.

[Exit.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The street

[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM.]

MRS. PAGE

Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?

QUICKLY

Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.

MRS. PAGE

I’ll be with her by and by; I’ll but bring my young man here to school. Look where his master comes; ‘tis a playing day, I see.

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS.]

How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?

EVANS

No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.

QUICKLY

Blessing of his heart!

MRS. PAGE

Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you ask him some questions in his accidence.

EVANS

Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.

MRS. PAGE

Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master; be not afraid.

EVANS

William, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM

Two.

QUICKLY

Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say “Od’s nouns.”

EVANS

Peace your tattlings! What is “fair,” William?

WILLIAM

Pulcher.

QUICKLY

Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

EVANS

You are a very simplicity ‘oman; I pray you, peace. What is “lapis,” William?

WILLIAM

A stone.

EVANS

And what is “a stone,” William?

WILLIAM

A pebble.

EVANS

No, it is “lapis”; I pray you remember in your prain.

WILLIAM

Lapis.

EVANS

That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?

WILLIAM

Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.

EVANS

Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?

WILLIAM

Accusativo, hinc.

EVANS

I pray you, have your remembrance, child. Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.

QUICKLY

“Hang-hog” is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

EVANS

Leave your prabbles, ‘oman. What is the focative case, William?

WILLIAM

O vocativo, O.

EVANS

Remember, William: focative is caret.

QUICKLY

And that’s a good root.

EVANS

‘Oman, forbear.

MRS. PAGE

Peace.

EVANS

What is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM

Genitive case?

EVANS

Ay.

WILLIAM

Genitive: horum, harum, horum.

QUICKLY

Vengeance of Jenny’s case; fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

EVANS

For shame, ‘oman.

QUICKLY

You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves; and to call “horum;” fie upon you!

EVANS

‘Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

MRS. PAGE

Prithee, hold thy peace.

EVANS

Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

WILLIAM

Forsooth, I have forgot.

EVANS

It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your “quis”, your “quaes”, and your “quods”, you must be preeches. Go your ways and play; go.

MRS. PAGE

He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

EVANS

He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

MRS. PAGE

Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

[Exit SIR HUGH.]

Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. A room in Ford’s house

[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD.]

FALSTAFF

Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MRS. FORD

He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MRS. PAGE

[Within] What ho! gossip Ford, what ho!

MRS. FORD

Step into the chamber, Sir John.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

[Enter MISTRESS PAGE.]

MRS. PAGE

How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?

MRS. FORD

Why, none but mine own people.

MRS. PAGE

Indeed!

MRS. FORD

No, certainly. —

[Aside to her] Speak louder.

MRS. PAGE

Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MRS. FORD

Why?

MRS. PAGE

Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying “Peer out, peer out!” that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MRS. FORD

Why, does he talk of him?

MRS. PAGE

Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

MRS. FORD

How near is he, Mistress Page?

MRS. PAGE

Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.

MRS. FORD

I am undone! the knight is here.

MRS. PAGE

Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder.

MRS. FORD

Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

[Re-enter FALSTAFF.]

FALSTAFF

No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MRS. PAGE

Alas! three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

FALSTAFF

What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

MRS. FORD

There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.

MRS. PAGE

Creep into the kiln-hole.

FALSTAFF

Where is it?