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. What a woman are you!
–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. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him
straight.
[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.
Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say!
MISTRESS FORD Nay, good, sweet husband!
Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.
[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman’s
clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE]
MISTRESS PAGE
Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
FORD I’ll prat her.
[Beating him]
Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage,
you polecat, you runyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you,
I’ll fortune-tell you.
[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.
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