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

MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

QUICKLY. That’s my master, Master Doctor.

ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ th’ earth.

And bowl’d to death with turnips.

MRS. 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.

Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE

QUICKLY. This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I ‘will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.’ This is my doing.

FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once tonight Give my sweet Nan this ring. There’s for thy pains.

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 promis’d, 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 5.

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 liv’d to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be serv’d such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and butter’d, 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 drown’d a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ th’ 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 drown’d 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 had been swell’d! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack BARDOLPH. Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallow’d snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.

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!

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.

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.

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.

QUICKLY. I will tell her.

FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou?

QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.

FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.

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 disguised FORD. Bless you, sir!

FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what hath pass’d 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-favouredly, 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 embrac’d, kiss’d, 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 convey’d me into a buck-basket.

FORD. A buck-basket!

FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm’d me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

FORD. And how long lay you there?

FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffer’d to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm’d in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were call’d 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 ask’d them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quak’d for fear lest the lunatic knave would have search’d 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 compass’d like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopp’d 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-stew’d in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool’d, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.

FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffer’d 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

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ACT IV. SCENE I.

Windsor. A street

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM

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

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

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

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

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

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

QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!

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

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

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

EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM. Two.

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

EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is ‘fair,’ William?

WILLIAM. Pulcher.

QUICKLY. Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

EVANS. You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.

What is ‘lapis,’ William?

WILLIAM. A stone.

EVANS. And what is ‘a stone,’ William?

WILLIAM. A pebble.

EVANS. No, it is ‘lapis’; I pray you remember in your prain.

WILLIAM. Lapis.

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

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

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

WILLIAM. Accusativo, hinc.

EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child.

Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.

QUICKLY. ‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

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

WILLIAM. O-vocativo, O.

EVANS. Remember, William: focative is caret.

QUICKLY. And that’s a good root.

EVANS. Oman, forbear.

MRS. PAGE. Peace.

EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM. Genitive case?

EVANS. Ay.

WILLIAM. Genitive: horum, harum, horum.

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

EVANS. For shame, oman.

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

EVANS. Oman, art thou lunatics?