William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

MRS. FORD

He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.

FALSTAFF

I’ll go out then.

MRS. PAGE

If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised, —

MRS. FORD

How might we disguise him?

MRS. PAGE

Alas the day! I know not! There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.

FALSTAFF

Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief.

MRS. FORD

My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has a gown above.

MRS. PAGE

On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is; and there’s her thrummed hat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.

MRS. FORD

Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.

MRS. PAGE

Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight; put on the gown the while.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

MRS. FORD

I would my husband would meet him in this shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

MRS. PAGE

Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

MRS. FORD

But is my husband coming?

MRS. PAGE

Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

MRS. FORD

We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.

MRS. PAGE

Nay, but he’ll be here presently; let’s go dress him like the witch of Brainford.

MRS. FORD

I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.

[Exit MISTRESS FORD.]

MRS. PAGE

Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.

We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,

Wives may be merry and yet honest too.

We do not act that often jest and laugh;

‘Tis old but true: “Still swine eats all the draff.”

[Exit.]

[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS.]

MRS. FORD

Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders; your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch.

[Exit MISTRESS FORD.]

FIRST SERVANT

Come, come, take it up.

SECOND SERVANT

Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again.

FIRST SERVANT

I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.

[Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

FORD

Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!

PAGE

Why, this passes, Master Ford! you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

EVANS

Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog.

SHALLOW

Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

FORD

So say I too, sir. —

[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.]

Come hither, Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, Mistress, do I?

MRS. FORD

Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

FORD

Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah. [Pulling clothes out of the basket]

PAGE

This passes!

MRS. FORD

Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORD

I shall find you anon.

EVANS

‘Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come away.

FORD

Empty the basket, I say!

MRS. FORD

Why, man, why?

FORD

Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.

MRS. FORD

If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.

PAGE

Here’s no man.

SHALLOW

By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.

EVANS

Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.

FORD

Well, he’s not here I seek for.

PAGE

No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

[Servants carry away the basket.]

FORD

Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me “As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.” Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.

MRS. FORD

What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

FORD

Old woman? what old woman’s that?

MRS. FORD

Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brainford.

FORD

A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say!

MRS. FORD

Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman’s clothes, led by MISTRESS PAGE.]

MRS. PAGE

Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

FORD

I’ll prat her. — [Beats him.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

MRS. PAGE

Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MRS. FORD

Nay, he will do it. ‘Tis a goodly credit for you.

FORD

Hang her, witch!

EVANS. By yea and no, I think the ‘oman is a witch indeed; I like not when a ‘oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler.

FORD

Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow; see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

PAGE

Let’s obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen.

[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and EVANS.]

MRS. PAGE

Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

MRS. FORD

Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully methought.

MRS. PAGE

I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

MRS. FORD

What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.

MRS. FORD

Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

MRS. PAGE

Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

MRS. FORD

I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

MRS. PAGE