The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

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 look’d against.

Now, could I 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 embattl’d 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-favour’d. 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! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o’er the cuckold’s horns. 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 damn’d 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 fix’d; the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus’d, my coffers ransack’d, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villainous 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 prais’d for my jealousy! Eleven o’clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect my wife, be reveng’d 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 3.

A field near Windsor

Enter CAIUS and RUGBY

CAIUS. Jack Rugby!

RUGBY. Sir?

CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?

RUGBY. ‘Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promis’d to meet.

CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible well dat he is no come; by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.

RUGBY. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill him if he came.

CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.

RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence!

CAIUS. Villainy, 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.

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.

Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha, bully! What says my Aesculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? Ha! is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?

CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de world; he is not show his face.

HOST. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!

CAIUS. I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or seven, two tree hours for him, and he is no come.

SHALLOW. He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions. 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 come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace; you have show’d 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.

CAIUS. Mockvater! Vat is dat?

HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.

Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.

HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! Vat is dat?

HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.

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.

CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.

HOST. And, moreover, bully-but first: [Aside to the others]

Master Guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore.

PAGE. [Aside] Sir Hugh is there, is he?

HOST. [Aside] He is there. See what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

SHALLOW. [Aside] We will do it.

PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Adieu, good Master Doctor.

Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jackanape 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 a farmhouse, a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried game! Said I well?

CAIUS. By gar, me dank you vor 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?

CAIUS. By gar, ‘tis good; vell said.

HOST. Let us wag, then.

CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby. Exeunt

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ACT III SCENE 1.

A field near Frogmore

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender’s servingman, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you look’d 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.

EVANS. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that way.

SIMPLE. I will, Sir. Exit 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 goot 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—

Whenas I sat in Pabylon—

And a thousand vagram posies.

To shallow, etc.

Re-enter SIMPLE

SIMPLE. Yonder he is, coming this way, 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.

EVANS. Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms. [Takes out a book]

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!

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!

EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.

PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master Parson.

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.

EVANS. What is he?

PAGE. I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French physician.

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?

EVANS. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen, and he is a knave