ACT I
SCENE I. Windsor. Before PAGE's house.
Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS
- SHALLOW
- Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-
- chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John
- Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.
- SLENDER
- In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and
- 'Coram.'
- SHALLOW
- Ay, cousin Slender, and 'Custalourum.
- SLENDER
- Ay, and 'Rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born,
- master parson; who writes himself 'Armigero,' in any
- bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.'
- SHALLOW
- Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three
- hundred years.
- SLENDER
- All his successors gone before him hath done't; and
- all his ancestors that come after him may: they may
- give the dozen white luces in their coat.
- SHALLOW
- It is an old coat.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;
- it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to
- man, and signifies love.
- SHALLOW
- The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.
- SLENDER
- I may quarter, coz.
- SHALLOW
- You may, by marrying.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
- SHALLOW
- Not a whit.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat,
- there is but three skirts for yourself, in my
- simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir
- John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto
- you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my
- benevolence to make atonements and compremises
- between you.
- SHALLOW
- The council shall bear it; it is a riot.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no
- fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall
- desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a
- riot; take your vizaments in that.
- SHALLOW
- Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword
- should end it.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it:
- and there is also another device in my prain, which
- peradventure prings goot discretions with it: there
- is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas
- Page, which is pretty virginity.
- SLENDER
- Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks
- small like a woman.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as
- you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys,
- and gold and silver, is her grandsire upon his
- death's-bed — Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!
- — give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years
- old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles
- and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master
- Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.
- SLENDER
- Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
- SLENDER
- I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.
- SHALLOW
- Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?
 I do despise a liar as I do
- despise one that is false, or as I despise one that
- is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I
- beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will
- peat the door for Master Page.
- Knocks
- What, hoa! Got pless your house here!
- PAGE
- Within Who's there?
Enter PAGE
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice
- Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that
- peradventures shall tell you another tale, if
- matters grow to your likings.
- PAGE
- I am glad to see your worships well.
- I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.
- SHALLOW
- Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it
- your good heart! I wished your venison better; it
- was ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page? — and I
- thank you always with my heart, la! with my heart.
- PAGE
- Sir, I thank you.
- SHALLOW
- Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.
- PAGE
- I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
- SLENDER
- How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he
- was outrun on Cotsall.
- PAGE
- It could not be judged, sir.
- SLENDER
- You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
- SHALLOW
- That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault;
- 'tis a good dog.
- PAGE
- A cur, sir.
- SHALLOW
- Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be
- more said? he is good and fair. Is Sir John
- Falstaff here?
- PAGE
- Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good
- office between you.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
- SHALLOW
- He hath wronged me, Master Page.
- PAGE
- Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
- SHALLOW
- If it be confessed, it is not redress'd: is not that
- so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he
- hath, at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert
- Shallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged.
- PAGE
- Here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL
- FALSTAFF
- Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king?
- SHALLOW
- Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and
- broke open my lodge.
- FALSTAFF
- But not kissed your keeper's daughter?
- SHALLOW
- Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.
- FALSTAFF
- I will answer it straight; I have done all this.
- That is now answered.
- SHALLOW
- The council shall know this.
- FALSTAFF
- 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:
- you'll be laughed at.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.
- FALSTAFF
- Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your
- head: what matter have you against me?
- SLENDER
- Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;
- and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph,
- Nym, and Pistol.
- BARDOLPH
- You Banbury cheese!
- SLENDER
- Ay, it is no matter.
- PISTOL
- How now, Mephostophilus!
- SLENDER
- Ay, it is no matter.
- NYM
- Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that's my humour.
- SLENDER
- Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is
- three umpires in this matter, as I understand; that
- is, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is
- myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is,
- lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.
- PAGE
- We three, to hear it and end it between them.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-
- book; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with
- as great discreetly as we can.
- FALSTAFF
- Pistol!
- PISTOL
- He hears with ears.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He
- hears with ear'? why, it is affectations.
- FALSTAFF
- Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?
- SLENDER
- Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might
- never come in mine own great chamber again else, of
- seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward
- shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two
- pence apiece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.
- FALSTAFF
- Is this true, Pistol?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
- PISTOL
- Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and Master mine,
- I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
- Word of denial in thy labras here!
- Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!
- SLENDER
- By these gloves, then, 'twas he.
- NYM
- Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say
- 'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's
- humour on me; that is the very note of it.

- FALSTAFF
- What say you, Scarlet and John?
- BARDOLPH
- Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk
- himself out of his five sentences.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!
- BARDOLPH
- And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and
- so conclusions passed the careires.
- SLENDER
- Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no
- matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again,
- but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick:
- if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have
- the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
- FALSTAFF
- You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.
Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; MISTRESS FORD
and MISTRESS PAGE, following
- PAGE
- Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
Exit ANNE PAGE
- SLENDER
- O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
- PAGE
- How now, Mistress Ford!
- FALSTAFF
- Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met:
- by your leave, good mistress.
Kisses her
- PAGE
- Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a
- hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope
- we shall drink down all unkindness.
Exeunt all except SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS
- SLENDER
- I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
- Songs and Sonnets here.
- Enter SIMPLE
- How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait
- on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles
- about you, have you?
- SIMPLE
- Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice
- Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight
- afore Michaelmas?
- SHALLOW
- Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with
- you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a
- tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh
- here. Do you understand me?
- SLENDER
- Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so,
- I shall do that that is reason.
- SHALLOW
- Nay, but understand me.
- SLENDER
- So I do, sir.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will
- description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.
- SLENDER
- Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray
- you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his
- country, simple though I stand here.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- But that is not the question: the question is
- concerning your marriage.
- SHALLOW
- Ay, there's the point, sir.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.
- SLENDER
- Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any
- reasonable demands.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to
- know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers
- philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the
- mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your
- good will to the maid?
- SHALLOW
- Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
- SLENDER
- I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
- would do reason.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak
- possitable, if you can carry her your desires
- towards her.
- SHALLOW
- That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?
- SLENDER
- I will do a greater thing than that, upon your
- request, cousin, in any reason.
- SHALLOW
- Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do
- is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?
- SLENDER
- I will marry her, sir, at your request: but if there
- be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may
- decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are
- married and have more occasion to know one another;
- I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt:
- but if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that
- I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in
- the ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our
- meaning, 'resolutely:' his meaning is good.
- SHALLOW
- Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
- SLENDER
- Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!
- SHALLOW
- Here comes fair Mistress Anne.
- Re-enter ANNE PAGE
- Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!
- ANNE PAGE
- The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
- worships' company.
- SHALLOW
- I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS
- ANNE PAGE
- Will't please your worship to come in, sir?
- SLENDER
- No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
- ANNE PAGE
- The dinner attends you, sir.
- SLENDER
- I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
- sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my
- cousin Shallow.
- Exit SIMPLE
- A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his
- friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy
- yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I
- live like a poor gentleman born.
- ANNE PAGE
- I may not go in without your worship: they will not
- sit till you come.
- SLENDER
- I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
- though I did.
- ANNE PAGE
- I pray you, sir, walk in.
- SLENDER
- I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised
- my shin th' other day with playing at sword and
- dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a
- dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot
- abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your
- dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?
- ANNE PAGE
- I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.
- SLENDER
- I love the sport well but I shall as soon quarrel at
- it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see
- the bear loose, are you not?
- ANNE PAGE
- Ay, indeed, sir.
- SLENDER
- That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen
- Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by
- the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so
- cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women,
- indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favored
- rough things.
Re-enter PAGE
- PAGE
- Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.
- SLENDER
- I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

- SLENDER
- Nay, pray you, lead the way.
- PAGE
- Come on, sir.
- SLENDER
- Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
- ANNE PAGE
- Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.
- SLENDER
- I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome.
- You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!
Exeunt
SCENE II. The same.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which
- is the way: and there dwells one Mistress Quickly,
- which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry
- nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and
- his wringer.
- SIMPLE
- Well, sir.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it
- is a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with
- Mistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire
- and require her to solicit your master's desires to
- Mistress Anne Page. I pray you, be gone: I will
- make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come.
Exeunt
SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF, Host, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL,
and ROBIN
- FALSTAFF
- Mine host of the Garter!
- Host
- What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.
- FALSTAFF
- Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
- followers.
- Host
- Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.
- FALSTAFF
- I sit at ten pounds a week.
- Host
- Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I
- will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall
- tap: said I well, bully Hector?
- FALSTAFF
- Do so, good mine host.
- Host
- I have spoke; let him follow.
- To BARDOLPH
- Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow.
Exit
- FALSTAFF
- Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade:
- an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered
- serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.
- BARDOLPH
- It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.
- PISTOL
- O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
Exit BARDOLPH
- NYM
- He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?
- FALSTAFF
- I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his
- thefts were too open; his filching was like an
- unskilful singer; he kept not time.
- NYM
- The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.
- PISTOL
- 'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico
- for the phrase!
- FALSTAFF
- Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
- PISTOL
- Why, then, let kibes ensue.
- FALSTAFF
- There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.
- PISTOL
- Young ravens must have food.
- FALSTAFF
- Which of you know Ford of this town?
- PISTOL
- I ken the wight: he is of substance good.
- FALSTAFF
- My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
- PISTOL
- Two yards, and more.
- FALSTAFF
- No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two
- yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about
- thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's
- wife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses,
- she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I
- can construe the action of her familiar style; and
- the hardest voice of her behavior, to be Englished
- rightly, is, 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'
- PISTOL
- He hath studied her will, and translated her will,
- out of honesty into English.
- NYM
- The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?
- FALSTAFF
- Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her
- husband's purse: he hath a legion of angels.
- PISTOL
- As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.
- NYM
- The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.
- FALSTAFF
- I have writ me here a letter to her: and here
- another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good
- eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious
- oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my
- foot, sometimes my portly belly.
- PISTOL
- Then did the sun on dunghill shine.
- NYM
- I thank thee for that humour.
- FALSTAFF
- O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a
- greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did
- seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's
- another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she
- is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will
- be cheater to them both, and they shall be
- exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West
- Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou
- this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to
- Mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.
- PISTOL
- Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
- And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all!
- NYM
- I will run no base humour: here, take the
- humour-letter: I will keep the havior of reputation.
- FALSTAFF
- To ROBIN Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;
- Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
- Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
- Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack!
- Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,
- French thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN
- PISTOL
- Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds,
- And high and low beguiles the rich and poor:
- Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
- Base Phrygian Turk!
- NYM
- I have operations which be humours of revenge.
- PISTOL
- Wilt thou revenge?
- NYM
- By welkin and her star!
- PISTOL
- With wit or steel?
- NYM
- With both the humours, I:
- I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.
- PISTOL
- And I to Ford shall eke unfold
- How Falstaff, varlet vile,
- His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
- And his soft couch defile.
- NYM
- My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to
- deal with poison; I will possess him with
- yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous:
- that is my true humour.
- PISTOL
- Thou art the Mars of malecontents: I second thee; troop on.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. A room in DOCTOR CAIUS' house.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement,
- and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor
- Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find any
- body in the house, here will be an old abusing of
- God's patience and the king's English.
- RUGBY
- I'll go watch.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
- faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.
- Exit RUGBY
- An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant
- shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no
- tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,
- that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
- that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let
- that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?
- SIMPLE
- Ay, for fault of a better.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- And Master Slender's your master?
- SIMPLE
- Ay, forsooth.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Does he not wear a great round beard, like a
- glover's paring-knife?

- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
- SIMPLE
- Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands
- as any is between this and his head; he hath fought
- with a warrener.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- How say you? O, I should remember him: does he not
- hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?
- SIMPLE
- Yes, indeed, does he.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell
- Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your
- master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish —
Re-enter RUGBY
- RUGBY
- Out, alas! here comes my master.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man;
- go into this closet: he will not stay long.
- Shuts SIMPLE in the closet
- What, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say!
- Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt
- he be not well, that he comes not home.
- Singing
- And down, down, adown-a, etc..
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you,
- go and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert, a box,
- a green-a box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you.
- Aside
- I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found
- the young man, he would have been horn-mad.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je
- m'en vais a la cour — la grande affaire.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Is it this, sir?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere
- is dat knave Rugby?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- What, John Rugby! John!
- RUGBY
- Here, sir!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come,
- take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.
- RUGBY
- 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me!
- Qu'ai-j'oublie! dere is some simples in my closet,
- dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Ay me, he'll find the young man here, and be mad!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron!
- Pulling SIMPLE out
- Rugby, my rapier!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Good master, be content.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Wherefore shall I be content-a?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- The young man is an honest man.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is
- no honest man dat shall come in my closet.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth
- of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vell.
- SIMPLE
- Ay, forsooth; to desire her to —
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Peace, I pray you.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.
- SIMPLE
- To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to
- speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my
- master in the way of marriage.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my
- finger in the fire, and need not.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper.
- Tarry you a little-a while.
Writes
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Aside to SIMPLE I am glad he is so quiet: if he
- had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him
- so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding,
- man, I'll do you your master what good I can: and
- the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my
- master — I may call him my master, look you, for I
- keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake,
- scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds and do
- all myself —
- SIMPLE
- Aside to MISTRESS QUICKLY 'Tis a great charge to
- come under one body's hand.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Aside to SIMPLE Are you avised o' that? you
- shall find it a great charge: and to be up early
- and down late; but notwithstanding — to tell you in
- your ear; I would have no words of it — my master
- himself is in love with Mistress Anne Page: but
- notwithstanding that, I know Anne's mind — that's
- neither here nor there.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- You jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by
- gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in dee
- park; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest
- to meddle or make. You may be gone; it is not good
- you tarry here. By gar, I will cut all his two
- stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to throw
- at his dog:
Exit SIMPLE
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- It is no matter-a ver dat: do not you tell-a me
- dat I shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I
- vill kill de Jack priest; and I have appointed mine
- host of de Jarteer to measure our weapon. By gar, I
- will myself have Anne Page.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We
- must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have
- not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my
- door. Follow my heels, Rugby.
Exeunt DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I
- know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor
- knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more
- than I do with her, I thank heaven.
- FENTON
- Within Who's within there? ho!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Who's there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you.
Enter FENTON
- FENTON
- How now, good woman? how dost thou?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.
- FENTON
- What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
- gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you
- that by the way; I praise heaven for it.
- FENTON
- Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but
- notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a
- book, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart
- above your eye?
- FENTON
- Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Well, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it is such
- another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever
- broke bread: we had an hour's talk of that wart. I
- shall never laugh but in that maid's company! But
- indeed she is given too much to allicholy and
- musing: but for you — well, go to.
- FENTON
- Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money
- for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if
- thou seest her before me, commend me.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Will I? i'faith, that we will; and I will tell your
- worship more of the wart the next time we have
- confidence; and of other wooers.
- FENTON
- Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Farewell to your worship.
- Exit FENTON
- Truly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not;
- for I know Anne's mind as well as another does. Out
- upon't! what have I forgot?
Exit
ACT II
SCENE I. Before PAGE'S house.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter
- MISTRESS PAGE
- What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-
- time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?
- Let me see.
- Reads
- 'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though
- Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him
- not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more
- am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry,
- so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you
- love sack, and so do I; would you desire better
- sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page — at
- the least, if the love of soldier can suffice —
- that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis
- not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,
- Thine own true knight,
- By day or night,
- Or any kind of light,
- With all his might
- For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF'
- What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked
- world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with
- age to show himself a young gallant! What an
- unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard
- picked — with the devil's name! — out of my
- conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?
- Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What
- should I say to him? I was then frugal of my
- mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill
- in the parliament for the putting down of men. How
- shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be,
- as sure as his guts are made of puddings.
Enter MISTRESS FORD
- MISTRESS FORD
- Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very
- ill.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Faith, but you do, in my mind.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the
- contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- What's the matter, woman?
- MISTRESS FORD
- O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I
- could come to such honour!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is
- it? dispense with trifles; what is it?

- MISTRESS PAGE
- What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights
- will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the
- article of thy gentry.
- MISTRESS FORD
- We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I
- might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
- men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of
- men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised
- women's modesty; and gave such orderly and
- well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I
- would have sworn his disposition would have gone to
- the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere
- and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to
- the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' What tempest, I trow,
- threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his
- belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged
- on him? I think the best way were to entertain him
- with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted
- him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
- Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery
- of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy
- letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I
- protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a
- thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
- different names — sure, more — and these are of the
- second edition: he will print them, out of doubt;
- for he cares not what he puts into the press, when
- he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess,
- and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you
- twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very
- words. What doth he think of us?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to
- wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain
- myself like one that I am not acquainted withal;
- for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I
- know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
- MISTRESS FORD
- 'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
- above deck.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- So will I if he come under my hatches, I'll never
- to sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's
- appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in
- his suit and lead him on with a fine-baited delay,
- till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him,
- that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,
- that my husband saw this letter! it would give
- eternal food to his jealousy.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he's
- as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause;
- and that I hope is an unmeasurable distance.

- MISTRESS PAGE
- Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
- Come hither.
They retire
Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM
- FORD
- Well, I hope it be not so.
- PISTOL
- Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
- Sir John affects thy wife.
- FORD
- Why, sir, my wife is not young.
- PISTOL
- He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,
- Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
- He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.
- FORD
- Love my wife!
- PISTOL
- With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
- Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:
- O, odious is the name!
- FORD
- What name, sir?
- PISTOL
- The horn, I say. Farewell.
- Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:
- Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
- Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
- Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.
Exit
- FORD
- Aside I will be patient; I will find out this.
- NYM
- To PAGE And this is true; I like not the humour
- of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I
- should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I
- have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity.
- He loves your wife; there's the short and the long.
- My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis
- true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.
- Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,
- and there's the humour of it. Adieu.
Exit
- PAGE
- 'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow
- frights English out of his wits.
- FORD
- I will seek out Falstaff.
- PAGE
- I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
- FORD
- If I do find it: well.
- PAGE
- I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest
- o' the town commended him for a true man.
- FORD
- 'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.
- PAGE
- How now, Meg!
MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Whither go you, George? Hark you.
- MISTRESS FORD
- How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?
- FORD
- I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,
- will you go, Mistress Page?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George.
- Aside to MISTRESS FORD
- Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger
- to this paltry knight.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Aside to MISTRESS PAGE Trust me, I thought on her:
- she'll fit it.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
- MISTRESS PAGE
- You are come to see my daughter Anne?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Go in with us and see: we 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
- towards 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
- How now, mine host!
- Host
- How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.
- Cavaleiro-justice, I say!
Enter SHALLOW
- 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, cavaleiro-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.
Drawing him aside
- Host
- What sayest thou, my bully-rook?
- 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-cavaleire?
- 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, An-heires?
- 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 would rather hear them scold than fight.
Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE
- FORD
- Though Page be a secure fool, an 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.
- 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 Pickt-hatch! Go.
 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 would thou more of man?
Enter ROBIN
- ROBIN
- Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.
- FALSTAFF
- Let her approach.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Give your worship good morrow.
- FALSTAFF
- Good morrow, good wife.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Not so, an't please your worship.
- FALSTAFF
- Good maid, then.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- I'll be sworn,
- As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
- FALSTAFF
- I do believe the swearer. What with me?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
- FALSTAFF
- Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee
- the hearing.
- MISTRESS 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 —
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!
- FALSTAFF
- Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?
- MISTRESS 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 —
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- FALSTAFF
- Ten and eleven?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the
- picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford,
- her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet
- woman leads an ill life with him: he's a very
- jealousy man: she leads a very frampold life with
- him, good heart.
- FALSTAFF
- Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will
- not fail her.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to
- your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty
- commendations to you too: and let me tell you in
- your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and
- one, I tell you, that will not miss you morning nor
- evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the
- other: and she bade me tell your worship that her
- husband is seldom from home; but she hopes there
- will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon
- a man: surely I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth.
- FALSTAFF
- Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my
- good parts aside I have no other charms.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Blessing on your heart for't!
- FALSTAFF
- But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and
- Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?
 Never a wife in
- Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what
- she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go
- to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as
- she will: and truly she deserves it; for if there
- be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one.
- FALSTAFF
- Why, I will.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and
- go between you both; and in any case have a
- nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and
- the boy never need to understand any thing; for
- 'tis not good that children should know any
- wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion,
- as they say, and know the world.
- FALSTAFF
- Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's
- my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with
- this woman.
- Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN
- This news distracts me!
- PISTOL
- This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:
- Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights:
- Give fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!
Exit
- FALSTAFF
- Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make
- more of thy old body than I have done. Will they
- yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense
- of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I
- thank thee. Let them say 'tis grossly done; so it be
- fairly done, no matter.
Enter BARDOLPH
- BARDOLPH
- Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain
- speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath
- sent your worship a morning's draught of sack.
- FALSTAFF
- Brook is his name?
- BARDOLPH
- Ay, sir.
- FALSTAFF
- Call him in.
- Exit BARDOLPH
- Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such
- liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
- have I encompassed you? go to; via!
Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised
- FORD
- Bless you, sir!
 Would you speak with me?
- FORD
- I make bold to press with so little preparation upon
- you.
- FALSTAFF
- You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.
Exit BARDOLPH
- FORD
- Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.
- FALSTAFF
- Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.
- FORD
- Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you;
- for I must let you understand I think myself in
- better plight for a lender than you are: the which
- hath something embolden'd me to this unseasoned
- intrusion; for they say, if money go before, all
- ways do lie open.
- FALSTAFF
- Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.
- FORD
- Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me:
- if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or
- half, for easing me of the carriage.
- FALSTAFF
- Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.
- FORD
- I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.
- FALSTAFF
- Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be
- your servant.
- FORD
- Sir, I hear you are a scholar — I will be brief
- with you — and you have been a man long known to me,
- though I had never so good means, as desire, to make
- myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a
- thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine
- own imperfection: but, good Sir John, as you have
- one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded,
- turn another into the register of your own; that I
- may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you
- yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.
- FALSTAFF
- Very well, sir; proceed.
- FORD
- There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's
- name is Ford.
- FALSTAFF
- Well, sir.
- FORD
- I have long loved her, and, I protest to you,
- bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting
- observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her;
- fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly
- give me sight of her; not only bought many presents
- to give her, but have given largely to many to know
- what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued
- her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the
- wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have
- merited, either in my mind or, in my means, meed,
- I am sure, I have received none; unless experience
- be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite
- rate, and that hath taught me to say this:
- 'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
- Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'
- FALSTAFF
- Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?
- FORD
- Never.
- FALSTAFF
- Have you importuned her to such a purpose?
- FORD
- Never.
- FALSTAFF
- Of what quality was your love, then?
- FORD
- Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so
- that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place
- where I erected it.
- FALSTAFF
- To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?
- FORD
- When I have told you that, I have told you all.
- Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in
- other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that
- there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir
- John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a
- gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable
- discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your
- place and person, generally allowed for your many
- war-like, court-like, and learned preparations.
- FALSTAFF
- O, sir!
- FORD
- Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend
- it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only
- give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as
- to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this
- Ford's wife: use your art of wooing; win her to
- consent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as
- any.
- FALSTAFF
- Would it apply well to the vehemency of your
- affection, that I should win what you would enjoy?
- Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.
- FORD
- O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on
- the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my
- soul dares not present itself: she is too bright to
- be looked against. Now, could I could come to her
- with any detection in my hand, my desires had
- instance and argument to commend themselves: I
- could drive her then from the ward of her purity,
- her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand
- other her defences, which now are too too strongly
- embattled against me. What say you to't, Sir John?
- FALSTAFF
- Master Brook, I will first make bold with your
- money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a
- gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.
- FORD
- O good sir!
- FALSTAFF
- I say you shall.
- FORD
- Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.
- FALSTAFF
- Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want
- none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her
- own appointment; even as you came in to me, her
- assistant or go-between parted from me: I say I
- shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at
- that time the jealous rascally knave her husband
- will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall
- know how I speed.
- FORD
- I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,
- sir?
- FALSTAFF
- Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:
- yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the
- jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the
- which his wife seems to me well-favored. I will
- use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer;
- and there's my harvest-home.
- FORD
- I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him
- if you saw him.
- FALSTAFF
- Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue!  Master Brook, thou shalt know I
- will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt
- lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night.
- Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style;
- thou, Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and
- cuckold. Come to me soon at night.
Exit
- FORD
- What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is
- ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is
- improvident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the
- hour is fixed; the match is made. Would any man
- have thought this?  My bed shall be abused, my coffers
- ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not
- only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under
- the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that
- does me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds
- well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are
- devils' additions, the names of fiends: but
- Cuckold! Wittol! — Cuckold! the devil himself hath
- not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass: he
- will trust his wife; he will not be jealous. I will
- rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh
- the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my
- aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling
- gelding, than my wife with herself; then she plots,
- then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they
- think in their hearts they may effect, they will
- break their hearts but they will effect. God be
- praised for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour.
- I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on
- Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it;
- better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
- Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!
Exit
SCENE III. A field near Windsor.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Jack Rugby!
- RUGBY
- Sir?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vat is de clock, Jack?
- RUGBY
- 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.

- RUGBY
- He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill
- him, if he came.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him.

- RUGBY
- Alas, sir, I cannot fence.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Villany, take your rapier.
- RUGBY
- Forbear; here's company.
Enter Host, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE
- Host
- Bless thee, bully doctor!
- SHALLOW
- Save you, Master Doctor Caius!
- PAGE
- Now, good master doctor!
- SLENDER
- Give you good morrow, sir.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?
- Host
- To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee
- traverse; to see thee here, to see thee there; to
- see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy
- distance, thy montant.  What says my
- AEsculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is
- he dead, bully stale? is he dead?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he
- is not show his face.
- Host
- Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or
- seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

- Is it not true, Master Page?
- PAGE
- Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great
- fighter, though now a man of peace.
- SHALLOW
- Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of
- the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to
- make one. Though we are justices and doctors and
- churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our
- youth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page.
- PAGE
- 'Tis true, Master Shallow.
- SHALLOW
- It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor
- Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of
- the peace: you have showed yourself a wise
- physician, and Sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise
- and patient churchman. You must go with me, master doctor.
- Host
- Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Mock-vater! vat is dat?
- Host
- Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de
- Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me
- vill cut his ears.
- Host
- He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?
- Host
- That is, he will make thee amends.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me;
- for, by gar, me vill have it.
- Host
- And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Me tank you for dat.
- Host
- And, moreover, bully — but first, master guest, and
- Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you
- through the town to Frogmore.
Aside to them
- PAGE
- Sir Hugh is there, is he?
- Host
- He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will
- bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?
- SHALLOW
- We will do it.
- PAGE
- SHALLOW
- SLENDER
- Adieu, good master doctor.
Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a
- jack-an-ape to Anne Page.
- Host
- Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold
- water on thy choler: go about the fields with me
- through Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress
- Anne Page is, at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou
- shalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you;
- and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl,
- de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.
- Host
- For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne
- Page. Said I well?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, 'tis good; vell said.
- Host
- Let us wag, then.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.
Exeunt
ACT III
SCENE I. A field near Frogmore.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man,
- and friend Simple by your name, which way have you
- looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?
- SIMPLE
- Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every
- way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town
- way.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- I most fehemently desire you you will also look that
- way.
- SIMPLE
- I will, sir.
Exit
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- 'Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and
- trempling of mind! I shall be glad if he have
- deceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog
- his urinals about his knave's costard when I have
- good opportunities for the ork. 'Pless my soul!
- Sings
- To shallow rivers, to whose falls
- Melodious birds sings madrigals;
- There will we make our peds of roses,
- And a thousand fragrant posies.
- To shallow —
- Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.
- Sings
- Melodious birds sing madrigals —
- When as I sat in Pabylon —
- And a thousand vagram posies.
- To shallow &c.
Re-enter SIMPLE
- SIMPLE
- Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- He's welcome.
- Sings
- To shallow rivers, to whose falls-
- Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?
- SIMPLE
- No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master
- Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over
- the stile, this way.

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
- SHALLOW
- How now, master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh.
- Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student
- from his book, and it is wonderful.
- SLENDER
- Aside Ah, sweet Anne Page!
- PAGE
- 'Save you, good Sir Hugh!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- 'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
- SHALLOW
- What, the sword and the word! do you study them
- both, master parson?
- PAGE
- And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this
- raw rheumatic day!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- There is reasons and causes for it.
- PAGE
- We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Fery well: what is it?
- PAGE
- Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike
- having received wrong by some person, is at most
- odds with his own gravity and patience that ever you
- saw.
- SHALLOW
- I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never
- heard a man of his place, gravity and learning, so
- wide of his own respect.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- What is he?
- PAGE
- I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the
- renowned French physician.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as
- lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.
- PAGE
- Why?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,
- — and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you
- would desires to be acquainted withal.
- PAGE
- I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.
- SHALLOW
- Aside O sweet Anne Page!
- SHALLOW
- It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder:
- here comes Doctor Caius.
Enter Host, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY
- PAGE
- Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.
- SHALLOW
- So do you, good master doctor.
- Host
- Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep
- their limbs whole and hack our English.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.
- Vherefore vill you not meet-a me?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS Pray you, use your patience:
- in good time.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS Pray you let us not be
- laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you
- in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.
- Aloud
- I will knog your urinals about your knave's cockscomb
- for missing your meetings and appointments.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Diable! Jack Rugby — mine host de Jarteer — have I
- not stay for him to kill him? have I not, at de place
- I did appoint?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- As I am a Christians soul now, look you, this is the
- place appointed: I'll be judgement by mine host of
- the Garter.
- Host
- Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,
- soul-curer and body-curer!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Ay, dat is very good; excellent.
- Host
- Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I
- politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I
- lose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions and the
- motions. Shall I lose my parson, my priest, my Sir
- Hugh? no; he gives me the proverbs and the
- no-verbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so. Give me
- thy hand, celestial; so.  Come, lay
- their swords to pawn. Follow me, lads of peace;
- follow, follow, follow.
- SHALLOW
- Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.
- SLENDER
- Aside O sweet Anne Page!
Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and Host
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of
- us, ha, ha?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I
- desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog
- our prains together to be revenge on this same
- scall, scurvy cogging companion, the host of the Garter.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me
- where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A street.
 Whether
- had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?
- ROBIN
- I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man
- than follow him like a dwarf.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you'll be a courtier.
Enter FORD
- FORD
- Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?
- FORD
- Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want
- of company. I think, if your husbands were dead,
- you two would marry.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Be sure of that — two other husbands.
- FORD
- Where had you this pretty weather-cock?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
- husband had him of. What do you call your knight's
- name, sirrah?
- ROBIN
- Sir John Falstaff.
- FORD
- Sir John Falstaff!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such a
- league between my good man and he! Is your wife at
- home indeed?
- FORD
- Indeed she is.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.
Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN
- FORD
- Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any
- thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them.
- Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as
- easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve
- score. He pieces out his wife's inclination; he
- gives her folly motion and advantage: and now she's
- going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A
- man may hear this shower sing in the wind. And
- Falstaff's boy with her! Good plots, they are laid;
- and our revolted wives share damnation together.
- Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck
- the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming
- Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and
- wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all
- my neighbours shall cry aim.
- Clock heard
- The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me
- search: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be
- rather praised for this than mocked; for it is as
- positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is
- there: I will go.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Host,
SIR HUGH EVANS, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY
- SHALLOW
- PAGE
- Well met, Master Ford.
- &c.
- FORD
- Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home;
- and I pray you all go with me.
- SHALLOW
- I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
- SLENDER
- And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with
- Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for
- more money than I'll speak of.
- 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.

- DOCTOR 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 Poins; 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.

- SHALLOW
- Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing
- at Master Page's.
Exeunt SHALLOW, and SLENDER
- DOCTOR 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
- 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
- MISTRESS FORD
- What, John! What, Robert!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket —
- MISTRESS FORD
- I warrant. What, Robin, I say!
Enter Servants with a basket
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Come, come, come.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Here, set it down.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Give your men the charge; we must be brief.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- You will do it?
- MISTRESS FORD
- I ha' told them over and over; they lack no
- direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.
Exeunt Servants
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Here comes little Robin.
Enter ROBIN
- MISTRESS 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.

- 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.
- Exit ROBIN
- Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Exit
- MISTRESS 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!
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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 semi-circled farthingale. I see
- what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature
- thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Believe me, there is 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.
- MISTRESS 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 lime-kiln.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one
- day find it.
- FALSTAFF
- Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed,
- you're overthrown, you're undone for ever!
- MISTRESS FORD
- What's the matter, good Mistress Page?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man
- to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
- MISTRESS FORD
- What cause of suspicion?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I
- mistook in you!
- MISTRESS FORD
- Why, alas, what's the matter?
- MISTRESS 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 assence: you are undone.
- MISTRESS FORD
- 'Tis not so, I hope.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear
- friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his
- peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were
- out of the house.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?
- FALSTAFF
- I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.
- I'll never —
Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,
- Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!
- MISTRESS 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-meat; quickly, come.
Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR 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.
- MISTRESS 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 to-night; 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
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
- DOCTOR 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 PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Is there not a double excellency in this?
- MISTRESS FORD
- I know not which pleases me better, that my husband
- is deceived, or Sir John.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- What a taking was he in when your husband asked who
- was in the basket!
- MISTRESS FORD
- I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so
- throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same
- strain were in the same distress.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow,
- eight o'clock, to have amends.
Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and
SIR HUGH EVANS
- FORD
- I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that
- he could not compass.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Aside to MISTRESS FORD Heard you that?
- MISTRESS FORD
- You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
- FORD
- Ay, I do so.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
- FORD
- Amen!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
- FORD
- Ay, ay; I must bear it.
- SIR HUGH 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!
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- By 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.
- SIR HUGH 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.
- DOCTOR 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.  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 to-morrow 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.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
- FORD
- Pray you, go, Master Page.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy
- knave, mine host.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
Exeunt
SCENE IV. A room in PAGE'S house.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
- FENTON
- I see I cannot get thy father's love;
- Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
- ANNE PAGE
- 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 PAGE
- 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 woo'd thee, Anne:
- Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
- Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;
- And 'tis the very riches of thyself
- That now I aim at.
- ANNE PAGE
- 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.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.
- ANNE PAGE
- I come to him.
- Aside
- This is my father's choice.
- O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults
- Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!
- MISTRESS 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 PAGE
- Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
- SHALLOW
- Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good
- comfort.
- ANNE PAGE
- Now, Master Slender —
- SLENDER
- Now, good Mistress Anne —
- ANNE PAGE
- What is your will?
- SLENDER
- My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest
- indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I
- am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
- ANNE PAGE
- I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
- SLENDER
- Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing
- with you. Your father and my uncle hath made
- motions: if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be
- his dole! They can tell you how things go better
- than I can: you may ask your father; here he comes.
Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE
- PAGE
- Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
- Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here?
- You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
- I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
- FENTON
- Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
- PAGE
- She is no match for you.
- FENTON
- Sir, will you hear me?
- PAGE
- No, good Master Fenton.

Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Speak to Mistress Page.
- FENTON
- Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
- In such a righteous fashion as I do,
- Perforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners,
- I must advance the colours of my love
- And not retire: let me have your good will.
- ANNE PAGE
- Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- That's my master, master doctor.
- ANNE PAGE
- Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth
- And bowl'd to death with turnips!
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
- I will not be your friend nor enemy:
- My daughter will I question how she loves you,
- And as I find her, so am I affected.
- Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
- Her father will be angry.
- FENTON
- Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.
 Look on
- Master Fenton:' this is my doing.
- FENTON
- I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
- Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Now heaven send thee good fortune!
- Exit FENTON
- A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through
- fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I
- would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would
- Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master
- Fenton had her; I will do what I can for them all
- three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good
- as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well,
- I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from
- my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it!
Exit
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
- FALSTAFF
- Bardolph, I say —
- BARDOLPH
- Here, sir.
- FALSTAFF
- Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.
- Exit BARDOLPH
- Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a
- barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the
- Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick,
- I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give
- them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues
- slighted me into the river with as little remorse as
- they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies,
- fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size
- that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the
- bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had
- been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and
- shallow — a death that I abhor; for the water swells
- a man; and what a thing should I have been when I
- had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack
- BARDOLPH
- Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
- FALSTAFF
- Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my
- belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for
- pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
- BARDOLPH
- Come in, woman!

- FALSTAFF
- Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of
- sack finely.
- BARDOLPH
- With eggs, sir?
- FALSTAFF
- Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
- Exit BARDOLPH
- How now!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
- FALSTAFF
- Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown
- into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:
- she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
- FALSTAFF
- So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
- your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
- a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her
- between eight and nine: I must carry her word
- quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.
- FALSTAFF
- Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her
- think what a man is: let her consider his frailty,
- and then judge of my merit.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- I will tell her.
- FALSTAFF
- Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Eight and nine, sir.
- FALSTAFF
- Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Peace be with you, sir.
Exit
- FALSTAFF
- I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word
- to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.
Enter FORD
- FORD
- Bless you, sir!
- FALSTAFF
- Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed
- between me and Ford's wife?
- FORD
- That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
- FALSTAFF
- Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
- house the hour she appointed me.
- FORD
- And sped you, sir?
- FALSTAFF
- Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.
- FORD
- How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
- FALSTAFF
- No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her
- husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual
- 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our
- encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested,
- and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy;
- and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither
- provoked and instigated by his distemper, and,
- forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.
- FORD
- What, while you were there?
- FALSTAFF
- While I was there.
- FORD
- And did he search for you, and could not find you?
- FALSTAFF
- You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
- in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's
- approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's
- distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
- FORD
- A buck-basket!
- FALSTAFF
- By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul
- shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy
- napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest
- compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.
- FORD
- And how long lay you there?
- FALSTAFF
- Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
- suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good.
- Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's
- knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their
- mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to
- Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met
- the jealous knave their master in the door, who
- asked them once or twice what they had in their
- basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave
- would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he
- should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well: on went he
- for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But
- mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs
- of three several deaths; first, an intolerable
- fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten
- bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good
- bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to
- point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in,
- like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes
- that fretted in their own grease: think of that — a
- man of my kidney — think of that — that am as subject
- to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution
- and thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation.
- And in the height of this bath, when I was more than
- half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be
- thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot,
- in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of
- that — hissing hot — think of that, Master Brook.
- FORD
- In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you
- have sufferd 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
- 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. A street.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and
WILLIAM PAGE
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Blessing of his heart!
- MISTRESS 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.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your
- master, be not afraid.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- William, how many numbers is in nouns?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Two.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Truly, I thought there had been one number more,
- because they say, ''Od's nouns.'
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Pulcher.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

- What is 'lapis,' William?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- A stone.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- And what is 'a stone,' William?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- A pebble.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain.
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Lapis.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- That is a good William. What is he, William, that
- does lend articles?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus
- declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:
- genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Accusativo, hinc.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- I pray you, have your remembrance, child,
- accusative, hung, hang, hog.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative
- case, William?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- O — vocativo, O.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Remember, William; focative is caret.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- And that's a good root.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- 'Oman, forbear.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Peace!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- What is your genitive case plural, William?
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Genitive case!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Ay.
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Genitive — horum, harum, horum.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name
- her, child, if she be a whore.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- For shame, 'oman.

- SIR HUGH 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Prithee, hold thy peace.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
- WILLIAM PAGE
- Forsooth, I have forgot.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your 'quies,'
- your 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be
- preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
 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?
- MISTRESS FORD
- He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Within What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!
- MISTRESS FORD
- Step into the chamber, Sir John.
Exit FALSTAFF
Enter MISTRESS PAGE
- MISTRESS PAGE
- How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?
- MISTRESS FORD
- Why, none but mine own people.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Indeed!
- MISTRESS FORD
- No, certainly.
- Aside to her
- Speak louder.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Why?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Why, does he talk of him?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- How near is he, Mistress Page?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.
- MISTRESS FORD
- I am undone! The knight is here.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead
- man.  — Away with him, away
- with him! better shame than murder.
- FORD
- Which way should be 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?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- There they always use to discharge their
- birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.
- FALSTAFF
- Where is it?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir
- John. Unless you go out disguised —
- MISTRESS FORD
- How might we disguise him?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a
- gown above.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will
- look some linen for your head.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put
- on the gown the while.
Exit FALSTAFF
- MISTRESS FORD
- I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he
- cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears
- she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath
- threatened to beat her.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the
- devil guide his cudgel afterwards!
- MISTRESS FORD
- But is my husband coming?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket
- too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him
- like the witch of Brentford.
- MISTRESS FORD
- I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the
- basket.
Exit
- MISTRESS 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 eat all the draff.
Exit
Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants
- MISTRESS 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
- 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 as lief bear so much lead.
Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR 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.
- SIR HUGH 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; 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?
- MISTRESS 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!
- MISTRESS FORD
- Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.
- FORD
- I shall find you anon.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's
- clothes? Come away.
- FORD
- Empty the basket, I say!
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- SIR HUGH 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.
- 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, Chat searched a hollow
- walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more;
- once more search with me.
- MISTRESS FORD
- What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman
- down; my husband will come into the chamber.
- FORD
- Old woman! what old woman's that?
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.
- 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him
- not strike the old woman.

- FORD
- I'll prat her.

Exit FALSTAFF
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the
- poor woman.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.
- FORD
- Hang her, witch!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- By the 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 his 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, DOCTOR CAIUS, and
SIR HUGH EVANS
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most
- unpitifully, methought.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the
- altar; it hath done meritorious service.
- MISTRESS FORD
- What think you? may we, with the warrant of
- womanhood and the witness of a good conscience,
- pursue him with any further revenge?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS 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.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would
- not have things cool.
Exeunt
SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Host and BARDOLPH
- BARDOLPH
- Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your
- horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at
- court, and they are going to meet him.
- Host
- What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear
- not of him in the court. Let me speak with the
- gentlemen: they speak English?
- BARDOLPH
- Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.
- Host
- They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay;
- I'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at
- command; I have turned away my other guests: they
- must come off; I'll sauce them. Come.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. A room in FORD'S house.
Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD,
and SIR HUGH EVANS
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever
- I did look upon.
- PAGE
- And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Within a quarter of an hour.
- FORD
- Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
- I rather will suspect the sun with cold
- Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand
- In him that was of late an heretic,
- As firm as faith.
- PAGE
- 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:
- Be not as extreme in submission
- As in offence.
- But let our plot go forward: let our wives
- Yet once again, to make us public sport,
- Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
- Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
- FORD
- There is no better way than that they spoke of.
- PAGE
- How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park
- at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has
- been grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks
- there should be terrors in him that he should not
- come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have
- no desires.
- PAGE
- So think I too.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
- And let us two devise to bring him thither.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
- Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
- Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
- Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
- And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle
- And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain
- In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
- You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
- The superstitious idle-headed eld
- Received and did deliver to our age
- This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
- PAGE
- Why, yet there want not many that do fear
- In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
- But what of this?
- MISTRESS FORD
- Marry, this is our device;
- That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.
- PAGE
- Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
- And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
- What shall be done with him? what is your plot?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
- Nan Page my daughter and my little son
- And three or four more of their growth we'll dress
- Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,
- With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
- And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,
- As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,
- Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
- With some diffused song: upon their sight,
- We two in great amazedness will fly:
- Then let them all encircle him about
- And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,
- And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
- In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
- In shape profane.

- MISTRESS PAGE
- The truth being known,
- We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
- And mock him home to Windsor.
- FORD
- The children must
- Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- I will teach the children their behaviors; and I
- will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the
- knight with my taber.
- FORD
- That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
- Finely attired in a robe of white.
- PAGE
- That silk will I go buy.
 Go send to Falstaff straight.
- FORD
- Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook
- He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Fear not you that.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery
- honest knaveries.
Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Go, Mistress Ford,
- Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.
- Exit MISTRESS FORD
- I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,
- And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
- That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
- And he my husband best of all affects.
- The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
- Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
- Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
Exit
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Host and SIMPLE
- Host
- What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?
- speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
- SIMPLE
- Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
- from Master Slender.
- Host
- There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
- standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about
- with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new.
- SIMPLE
- There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his
- chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come
- down; I come to speak with her, indeed.
- Host
- Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll
- call. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from
- thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine
- host, thine Ephesian, calls.
- FALSTAFF
- Above How now, mine host!
 Let her descend, bully, let her
- descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?
- fie!
Enter FALSTAFF
- FALSTAFF
- There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with
- me; but she's gone.
- SIMPLE
- Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
- Brentford?
- FALSTAFF
- Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
- SIMPLE
- My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing
- her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether
- one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the
- chain or no.
- FALSTAFF
- I spake with the old woman about it.
- SIMPLE
- And what says she, I pray, sir?
- FALSTAFF
- Marry, she says that the very same man that
- beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of
- it.
- SIMPLE
- I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;
- I had other things to have spoken with her too from
- him.
- FALSTAFF
- What are they? let us know.
- Host
- Ay, come; quick.
- SIMPLE
- I may not conceal them, sir.
- Host
- Conceal them, or thou diest.
- SIMPLE
- Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne
- Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to
- have her or no.
- FALSTAFF
- 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
- SIMPLE
- What, sir?
- FALSTAFF
- To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.
- SIMPLE
- May I be bold to say so, sir?
- FALSTAFF
- Ay, sir; like who more bold.
- SIMPLE
- I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad
- with these tidings.
Exit
- Host
- Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
- there a wise woman with thee?
- FALSTAFF
- Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught
- me more wit than ever I learned before in my life;
- and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for
- my learning.
Enter BARDOLPH
- BARDOLPH
- Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!
- Host
- Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto.
- BARDOLPH
- Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came
- beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of
- them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away,
- like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
- Host
- They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not
- say they be fled; Germans are honest men.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Where is mine host?
- Host
- What is the matter, sir?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Have a care of your entertainments: there is a
- friend of mine come to town tells me there is three
- cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of
- Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and
- money.  Fare you well.
Exit
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
- Host
- Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat
- you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by
- my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to
- come. I tell you for good vill: adieu.
Exit
- Host
- Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am
- undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone!
Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH
- FALSTAFF
- I would all the world might be cozened; for I have
- been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to
- the ear of the court, how I have been transformed
- and how my transformation hath been washed and
- cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by
- drop and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant
- they would whip me with their fine wits till I were
- as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered
- since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my
- wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.
- Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Now, whence come you?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- From the two parties, forsooth.
- FALSTAFF
- The devil take one party and his dam the other! and
- so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more
- for their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy
- of man's disposition is able to bear.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant;
- speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart,
- is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a
- white spot about her.
- FALSTAFF
- What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was
- beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow;
- and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of
- Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit,
- my counterfeiting the action of an old woman,
- delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the
- stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you
- shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your
- content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good
- hearts, what ado here is to bring you together!
- Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that
- you are so crossed.
- FALSTAFF
- Come up into my chamber.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FENTON and Host
- Host
- Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I
- will give over all.
- FENTON
- Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
- And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee
- A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
- Host
- I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the
- least keep your counsel.
- FENTON
- From time to time I have acquainted you
- With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;
- Who mutually hath answer'd my affection,
- So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
- Even to my wish: I have a letter from her
- Of such contents as you will wonder at;
- The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,
- That neither singly can be manifested,
- Without the show of both; fat Falstaff
- Hath a great scene: the image of the jest
- I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host.
- To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
- Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen;
- The purpose why, is here: in which disguise,
- While other jests are something rank on foot,
- Her father hath commanded her to slip
- Away with Slender and with him at Eton
- Immediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir,
- Her mother, ever strong against that match
- And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
- That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
- While other sports are tasking of their minds,
- And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
- Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot
- She seemingly obedient likewise hath
- Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests:
- Her father means she shall be all in white,
- And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
- To take her by the hand and bid her go,
- She shall go with him: her mother hath intended,
- The better to denote her to the doctor,
- For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,
- That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,
- With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
- And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
- To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,
- The maid hath given consent to go with him.
- Host
- Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
- FENTON
- Both, my good host, to go along with me:
- And here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar
- To stay for me at church 'twixt twelve and one,
- And, in the lawful name of marrying,
- To give our hearts united ceremony.
- Host
- Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar:
- Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
- FENTON
- So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
- Besides, I'll make a present recompense.
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY
- FALSTAFF
- Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is
- the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd
- numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in
- odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to
- get you a pair of horns.
- FALSTAFF
- Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince.
- Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Enter FORD
- How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter
- will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the
- Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall
- see wonders.
- FORD
- Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me
- you had appointed?
- FALSTAFF
- I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor
- old man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a
- poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband,
- hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him,
- Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell
- you: he beat me grievously, in the shape of a
- woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear
- not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know
- also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along
- with me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I
- plucked geese, played truant and whipped top, I knew
- not what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow
- me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave
- Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I
- will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow.
- Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
Exeunt
SCENE II. Windsor Park.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
- PAGE
- Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we
- see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,
- my daughter.
- SLENDER
- Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her and we have a
- nay-word how to know one another: I come to her in
- white, and cry 'mum;' she cries 'budget;' and by
- that we know one another.
- SHALLOW
- That's good too: but what needs either your 'mum'
- or her 'budget?' the white will decipher her well
- enough. It hath struck ten o'clock.
- PAGE
- The night is dark; light and spirits will become it
- well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil
- but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.
- Let's away; follow me.
Exeunt
SCENE III. A street leading to the Park.
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
DOCTOR CAIUS
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you
- see your time, take her by the band, away with her
- to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before
- into the Park: we two must go together.
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- I know vat I have to do. Adieu.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Fare you well, sir.
- Exit DOCTOR CAIUS
- My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of
- Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying
- my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little
- chiding than a great deal of heart-break.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the
- Welsh devil Hugh?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak,
- with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of
- Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once
- display to the night.
- MISTRESS FORD
- That cannot choose but amaze him.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be
- amazed, he will every way be mocked.
- MISTRESS FORD
- We'll betray him finely.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Against such lewdsters and their lechery
- Those that betray them do no treachery.
- MISTRESS FORD
- The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!
Exeunt
SCENE IV. Windsor Park.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts:
- be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and
- when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you:
- come, come; trib, trib.
Exeunt
SCENE V. Another part of the Park.
Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne
- FALSTAFF
- The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute
- draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!
- Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love
- set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some
- respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man
- a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love
- of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew
- to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
- the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And
- then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think
- on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot
- backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a
- Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the
- forest.  Who comes here? my
- doe?
Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE
- MISTRESS FORD
- Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
- FALSTAFF
- My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
- potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green
- Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let
- there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
- FALSTAFF
- Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will
- keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow
- of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.
- Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter?
- Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes
- restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!
Noise within
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Alas, what noise?
- MISTRESS FORD
- Heaven forgive our sins
- FALSTAFF
- What should this be?
- MISTRESS FORD
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Away, away!
They run off
- FALSTAFF
- I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the
- oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would
- never else cross me thus.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL,
as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and
others, as Fairies, with tapers
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
- You moonshine revellers and shades of night,
- You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
- Attend your office and your quality.
- Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
- PISTOL
- Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
- Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
- Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
- There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
- Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.
- FALSTAFF
- They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
- I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
Lies down upon his face
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
- That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
- Raise up the organs of her fantasy;
- Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:
- But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
- Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- About, about;
- Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
- Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
- That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
- In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
- Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
- The several chairs of order look you scour
- With juice of balm and every precious flower:
- Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
- With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
- And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
- Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
- The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
- More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
- And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
- In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
- Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
- Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
- Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
- Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,
- Our dance of custom round about the oak
- Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set
- And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
- To guide our measure round about the tree.
- But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.

- PISTOL
- Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
- If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
- And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
- It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
- PISTOL
- A trial, come.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Come, will this wood take fire?

- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
- About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
- And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
- SONG.
- Fie on sinful fantasy!
- Fie on lust and luxury!
- Lust is but a bloody fire,
- Kindled with unchaste desire,
- Fed in heart, whose flames aspire
- As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
- Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
- Pinch him for his villany;
- Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
- Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS
comes one way, and steals away a boy in green;
SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white;
and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE.
A noise of hunting is heard within. All the
Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's
head, and rises
Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD
- PAGE
- Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now
- Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

- See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
- Become the forest better than the town?
- FORD
- Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,
- Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his
- horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath
- enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his
- cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be
- paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for
- it, Master Brook.
- MISTRESS FORD
- Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.
- I will never take you for my love again; but I will
- always count you my deer.

- FORD
- Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.
- FALSTAFF
- And these are not fairies? I was three or four
- times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet
- the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my
- powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a
- received belief, in despite of the teeth of all
- rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now
- how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon
- ill employment!
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
- desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
- FORD
- Well said, fairy Hugh.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.
- FORD
- I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art
- able to woo her in good English.
- FALSTAFF
- Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that
- it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as
- this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I
- have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked
- with a piece of toasted cheese.
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.
- FALSTAFF
- 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the
- taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This
- is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking
- through the realm.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
- virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders
- and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
- that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
- FORD
- What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- A puffed man?
- PAGE
- Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?
- FORD
- And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
- PAGE
- And as poor as Job?
- FORD
- And as wicked as his wife?
- SIR HUGH EVANS
- And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack
- and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and
- swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
- FALSTAFF
- Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I
- am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh
- flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use
- me as you will.
- FORD
- Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one
- Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to
- whom you should have been a pander: over and above
- that you have suffered, I think to repay that money
- will be a biting affliction.
- PAGE
- Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
- to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to
- laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
- Master Slender hath married her daughter.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Aside Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
- daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
Enter SLENDER
- SLENDER
- Whoa ho! ho, father Page!
- PAGE
- Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
- SLENDER
- Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
- know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.
- PAGE
- Of what, son?
- SLENDER
- I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,
- and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been
- i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he
- should have swinged me. If I did not think it had
- been Anne Page, would I might never stir! — and 'tis
- a postmaster's boy.
- PAGE
- Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
- SLENDER
- What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took
- a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for
- all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had
- him.
- PAGE
- Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
- you should know my daughter by her garments?
- SLENDER
- I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she
- cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet
- it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;
- turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is
- now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'
- married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;
- it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Why, did you take her in green?
- DOCTOR CAIUS
- Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
Exit
- FORD
- This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
- PAGE
- My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
- Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
- How now, Master Fenton!
- ANNE PAGE
- Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
- PAGE
- Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
- MISTRESS PAGE
- Why went you not with master doctor, maid?
- FENTON
- You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.