Fent.I see I cannot get thy father’s love;Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.Anne.Alas, how then?Fent.Why, thou must be thyself.He doth object I am too great of birth;5And that, my state being gall’d with my expense,I seek to heal it only by his wealth:Besides these, otherbars he lays before me,—My riots past, my wild societies;And tells me ’tis a thing impossible10I should love thee but as a property.Anne.May be he tells you true.Fent.No, heaven so speed me inmytime to come!Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealthWas the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne:15Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more valueThan stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;And ’tis the very riches of thyselfThat now I aim at.Anne.Gentle Master Fenton,Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir:20Ifopportunityand humblest suitCannot attain it, why, then,—hark you hither!They converse apart.EnterShallow, Slender, andMistress Quickly.Shal.Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.Sle.I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on’t: ’slid, ’tis butIII. 4.25venturing.Shal.Be not dismayed.Slen.No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,but thatI am afeard.Quick.Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word30with you.Anne.I come to him. [Aside] This is my father’s choice.O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faultsLooks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!Quick.And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you,35a word with you.Shal.She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!Slen.I had a father, Mistress Anne;—my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress40Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of apen, good uncle.Shal.Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.Slen.Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.45Shal.He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.Slen.Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.Shal.He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.III. 4.50Anne.Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.Shal.Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I’ll leave you.Anne.Now, Master Slender,—Slen.Now, good Mistress Anne,—55Anne.What is your will?Slen.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.I mean, Master Slender, what would you with60me?Slen.Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father andmyunclehathmade 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 may65askyour father; here he comes.EnterPageandMistress Page.Page.Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.—Why, how now! what does MasterFentonhere?You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.70Fent.Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.Mrs Page.Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.Page.She is no match for you.Fent.Sir, will you hear me?Page.No, good Master Fenton.Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.III. 4.75Knowing mymind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.Quick.Speak to Mistress Page.Fent.Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughterIn such a righteous fashion as I do,Perforce, against all checks, rebukes and manners,80I must advance the coloursofmy love,And not retire: let me have your good will.Anne.Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.Mrs Page.I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.Quick.That’s my master, master doctor.85Anne.Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ the 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,90And as I find her, so am I affected.Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;Her father will beangry.Fent.Farewell,gentlemistress: farewell, Nan.Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne.Quick.This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you95cast away your child on a fool,anda physician? Look on Master Fenton:’ this is my doing.Fent.I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-nightGive my sweet Nan this ring: there’s for thy pains.Quick.Now heaven send thee good fortune! [ExitIII. 4.100Fenton.] 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;105for 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.III. 5Scene V.A room in the Garter Inn.EnterFalstaffandBardolph.Fal.Bardolph, I say,—Bard.Here, sir.Fal.Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t. [Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow5of butcher’s offal, and to be throwninthe 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 ablind bitch’spuppies,10fifteen 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 thatI abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing15should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain ofmummy.Re-enterBardolphwith sack.Bard.Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.Fal.Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls20for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.Bard.Come in, woman!EnterMistress Quickly.Quick.By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow.Fal.Take away these chalices. Go brew me apottleIII. 5.25of sack finely.Bard.With eggs, sir?Fal.Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit Bardolph.] How now!Quick.Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress30Ford.Fal.Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.Quick.Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook35their erection.Fal.So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.Quick.Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning40a-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.Fal.Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then45judge of my merit.Quick.I will tell her.Fal.Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?Quick.Eight and nine, sir.Fal.Well, be gone: I will not miss her.III. 5.50Quick.Peace be with you, sir.Exit.Fal.I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. —O, here he comes.EnterFord.Ford.Bless you, sir!55Fal.Now, Master Brook,—you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?Ford.That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.Fal.Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me.60Ford.Andsped you, sir?Fal.Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.Ford.How so, sir? Did she change her determination?Fal.No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of65jealousy, comesmein 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’s70love.Ford.What, while you were there?Fal.While I was there.Ford.And did he search for you, and could not find you?III. 5.75Fal.You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and,inher invention and Ford’s wife’sdistraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.Ford.A buck-basket!80Fal.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 villanoussmellthat ever offended nostril.Ford.And how long lay you there?85Fal.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 their90shoulders; 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, and95away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of threeseveraldeaths; 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;III. 5.100and 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 in105the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewedingrease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in thatsurge, 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 sake110youhave sufferedall this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?Fal.Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Herhusband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received115from her another embassy of meeting; ’twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.Ford.’Tis past eight already, sir.Fal.Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you120shall 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’sIII. 5.125a 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 halfpenny130purse,norinto 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 makeonemad, let the proverb go with me,—I’ll be horn-mad.Exit.ACT IV.IV. 1Scene I.A street.EnterMistress Page, Mistress Quickly, andWilliam.Mrs Page.Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?Quick.Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but, truly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing into5the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.Mrs Page.I’ll be with her by and by; I’ll but bringmy young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; ’tis a playing-day, I see.EnterSir Hugh Evans.How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?10Evans.No; Master Slender isletthe boys leave to play.Quick.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 him15some 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?20Will.Two.Quick.Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ‘Od’s nouns.’Evans.Peace your tattlings! What is ‘fair,’ William?Will.Pulcher.IV. 1.25Quick.Polecats! there are fairer things thanpolecats, sure.Evans.You are a very simplicity ’oman: I pray you, peace. —What is ‘lapis,’ William?Will.A stone.30Evans.And what is ‘a stone,’ William?Will.A pebble.Evans.No, it is ‘lapis:’ I pray you, remember in your prain.Will.Lapis.35Evans.That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?Will.Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc.Evans.Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:40genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?Will.Accusativo, hinc.Evans.I pray you, have your remembrance, child; accusativo,hung, hang, hog.Quick.‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.45Evans.Leave your prabbles, ’oman. —What is the focative case, William?Will.O,—vocativo, O.Evans.Remember, William; focative is caret.Quick.And that’s a good root.IV. 1.50Evans.’Oman, forbear.Mrs Page.Peace!Evans.What is your genitive case plural, William?Will.Genitive case!Evans.Ay.55Will.Genitive,—horum, harum, horum.Quick.Vengeance ofJenny’scase! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore.Evans.For shame, ’oman.Quick.You do ill to teach the child such words:—he60teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘horum’:—fie upon you!Evans.’Oman, art thoulunaties? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbersofthe genders?65Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I woulddesires.Mrs Page.Prithee, hold thy peace.Evans.Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.Will.Forsooth, I have forgot.70Evans.It is qui,quæ, quod: if you forget your ‘quies,’ your ‘quæs,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.Mrs Page.He is a better scholar than I thought he was.IV. 1.75Evans.He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.Mrs Page.Adieu, good Sir Hugh.Exit Sir Hugh.Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.Exeunt.IV. 2Scene II.A room inFord’shouse.EnterFalstaffandMistress Ford.Fal.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,5complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?Mrs Ford.He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.Mrs Page.[Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!Mrs Ford.Step into the chamber, Sir John.Exit Falstaff.EnterMistress Page.10Mrs Page.How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?Mrs Ford.Why, none but mine own people.Mrs Page.Indeed!Mrs Ford.No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder.15Mrs Page.Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.Mrs Ford.Why?Mrs Page.Why, woman, your husband is in his oldlunesagain: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s20daughters, 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.IV. 2.25Mrs Ford.Why, does he talk of him?Mrs 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 make30another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.Mrs Ford.How near is he, Mistress Page?Mrs Page.Hard by; atstreetend; he will be here anon.Mrs Ford.I am undone!—the knight is here.35Mrs 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.Mrs Ford.Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?Re-enterFalstaff.40Fal.No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?Mrs Page.Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door withpistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you45here?Fal.What shall I do?—I’ll creep up into the chimney.Mrs Ford.There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.Creep into the kiln-hole.Fal.Where is it?IV. 2.50Mrs 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.Fal.I’ll go out, then.55Mrs Page.If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,—Mrs Ford.How might we disguise him?Mrs Page.Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put60on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.Fal.Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather thana mischief.Mrs Ford.My maid’s aunt, the fat woman ofBrentford, has a gown above.65Mrs Page.On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is: and there’s herthrummedhat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.Mrs Ford.Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.70Mrs Page.Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while.Exit Falstaff.Mrs Ford.I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman ofBrentford; he swears she’s a witch; forbade her my house, and hathIV. 2.75threatened to beat her.Mrs Page.Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!Mrs Ford.But is my husband coming?Mrs Page.Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of80the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.Mrs Ford.We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.Mrs Page.Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go85dress him like the witch ofBrentford.Mrs Ford.I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.Exit.Mrs Page.Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misusehimenough.90We’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-enterMistress Fordwith twoServants.Mrs Ford.Go, sirs, take the basket again on your95shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch.Exit.First Serv.Come, come, take it up.Sec. Serv.Pray heaven it be not full ofknightagain.First Serv.I hope not; I hadas liefbear so much lead.EnterFord, Page, Shallow, Caius, andSir Hugh Evans.IV. 2.100Ford.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, aging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil beshamed. —What,105wife, I say!—Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!Page.Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.Evans.Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad110dog!Shal.Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.Ford.So say I too, sir.Re-enterMistress Ford.Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the115jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?Mrs Ford.Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.Ford.Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth,120sirrah!Pulling clothes out of the basket.Page.This passes!Mrs Ford.Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.Ford.I shall find you anon.Evans.’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up yourIV. 2.125wife’s clothes? Come away.Ford.Empty the basket, I say!Mrs Ford.Why, man, why?Ford.Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may130not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.Mrs Ford.If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.135Page.Here’s no man.Shal.By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.Evans.Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.140Ford.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, ‘As145jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.Mrs 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?IV. 2.150Mrs Ford.Why, it is my maid’s aunt ofBrentford.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 works155by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery asthis is, beyond our element: we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say!Mrs Ford.Nay, good, sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let himnotstrike the old woman.Re-enterFalstaffin woman’s clothes, andMistress Page.160Mrs Page.Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.Ford.I’ll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, youhag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.Exit Falstaff.165Mrs Page.Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.Mrs Ford.Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.Ford.Hang her, witch!170Evans.By yea and no, I think the’omanis a witch indeed: I like not when a ’oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard underhismuffler.Ford.Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thusIV. 2.175upon notrail, never trust me when I open again.Page.Let’s obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen.Exeunt Ford, Page, Shal., Caius, and Evans.Mrs Page.Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.Mrs Ford.Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat180him most unpitifully methought.Mrs Page.I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.Mrs Ford.What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue185him with any further revenge?Mrs Page.The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, withfineand recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.190Mrs Ford.Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?Mrs Page.Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’sbrains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any195further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.Mrs Ford.I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed: and methinks there would be noperiodtothe jest, should he not be publicly shamed.Mrs Page.Come, to the forge withit, then; shape it:IV. 2.200I would not have things cool.Exeunt.IV. 3Scene III.A room in the Garter Inn.EnterHostandBardolph.Bard.Sir, theGermans desireto 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? I5hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English?Bard.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 myhousea week at10command; I have turned away my other guests: they mustcome off; I’ll sauce them. Come.Exeunt.IV. 4Scene IV.A room inFord’shouse.EnterPage, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, andSir Hugh Evans.Evans.’Tis one of the best discretions of a’omanas ever I did look upon.Page.And did he send you both these letters at an instant?5Mrs Page.Within a quarter of an hour.
Fent.I see I cannot get thy father’s love;Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Fent.I see I cannot get thy father’s love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Anne.Alas, how then?
Fent.Why, thou must be thyself.He doth object I am too great of birth;5And that, my state being gall’d with my expense,I seek to heal it only by his wealth:Besides these, otherbars he lays before me,—My riots past, my wild societies;And tells me ’tis a thing impossible10I should love thee but as a property.
Fent.
Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth;
5And that, my state being gall’d with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth:
Besides these, otherbars he lays before me,—
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me ’tis a thing impossible
10I should love thee but as a property.
Anne.May be he tells you true.
Fent.No, heaven so speed me inmytime to come!Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealthWas the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne:15Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more valueThan stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;And ’tis the very riches of thyselfThat now I aim at.
Fent.No, heaven so speed me inmytime to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth
Was the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne:
15Yet, 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.Gentle Master Fenton,Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir:20Ifopportunityand humblest suitCannot attain it, why, then,—hark you hither!
Anne.
Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father’s love; still seek it, sir:
20Ifopportunityand humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why, then,—hark you hither!
They converse apart.
Shal.Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.
Sle.I’ll make a shaft or a bolt on’t: ’slid, ’tis butIII. 4.25venturing.
Shal.Be not dismayed.
Slen.No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,but thatI am afeard.
Quick.Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word30with you.
Anne.I come to him. [Aside] This is my father’s choice.O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faultsLooks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!
Anne.I come to him. [Aside] This is my father’s choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!
Quick.And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you,35a word with you.
Shal.She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
Slen.I had a father, Mistress Anne;—my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress40Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of apen, good uncle.
Shal.Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
Slen.Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.
45Shal.He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
Slen.Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.
Shal.He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
III. 4.50Anne.Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
Shal.Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I’ll leave you.
Anne.Now, Master Slender,—
Slen.Now, good Mistress Anne,—
55Anne.What is your will?
Slen.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.I mean, Master Slender, what would you with60me?
Slen.Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father andmyunclehathmade 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 may65askyour father; here he comes.
Page.Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.—Why, how now! what does MasterFentonhere?You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
Page.Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.—
Why, how now! what does MasterFentonhere?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
70Fent.Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
Mrs Page.Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
Page.She is no match for you.
Fent.Sir, will you hear me?
Page.No, good Master Fenton.Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.III. 4.75Knowing mymind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
Page.
No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
III. 4.75Knowing mymind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen.
Quick.Speak to Mistress Page.
Fent.Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughterIn such a righteous fashion as I do,Perforce, against all checks, rebukes and manners,80I must advance the coloursofmy love,And not retire: let me have your good will.
Fent.Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes and manners,
80I must advance the coloursofmy love,
And not retire: let me have your good will.
Anne.Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
Mrs Page.I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
Quick.That’s my master, master doctor.
85Anne.Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ the earth,And bowl’d to death with turnips!
85Anne.Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ the 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,90And as I find her, so am I affected.Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;Her father will beangry.
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,
90And as I find her, so am I affected.
Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
Her father will beangry.
Fent.Farewell,gentlemistress: farewell, Nan.
Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne.
Quick.This is my doing now: ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you95cast away your child on a fool,anda physician? Look on Master Fenton:’ this is my doing.
Fent.I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-nightGive my sweet Nan this ring: there’s for thy pains.
Fent.I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
Give my sweet Nan this ring: there’s for thy pains.
Quick.Now heaven send thee good fortune! [ExitIII. 4.100Fenton.] 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;105for 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.
Fal.Bardolph, I say,—
Bard.Here, sir.
Fal.Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t. [Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow5of butcher’s offal, and to be throwninthe 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 ablind bitch’spuppies,10fifteen 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 thatI abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing15should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain ofmummy.
Bard.Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
Fal.Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls20for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
Bard.Come in, woman!
Quick.By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow.
Fal.Take away these chalices. Go brew me apottleIII. 5.25of sack finely.
Bard.With eggs, sir?
Fal.Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit Bardolph.] How now!
Quick.Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress30Ford.
Fal.Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
Quick.Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook35their erection.
Fal.So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.
Quick.Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning40a-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.
Fal.Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then45judge of my merit.
Quick.I will tell her.
Fal.Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?
Quick.Eight and nine, sir.
Fal.Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
III. 5.50Quick.Peace be with you, sir.Exit.
Fal.I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. —O, here he comes.
Ford.Bless you, sir!
55Fal.Now, Master Brook,—you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?
Ford.That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
Fal.Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me.
60Ford.Andsped you, sir?
Fal.Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
Ford.How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
Fal.No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of65jealousy, comesmein 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’s70love.
Ford.What, while you were there?
Fal.While I was there.
Ford.And did he search for you, and could not find you?
III. 5.75Fal.You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and,inher invention and Ford’s wife’sdistraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
Ford.A buck-basket!
80Fal.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 villanoussmellthat ever offended nostril.
Ford.And how long lay you there?
85Fal.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 their90shoulders; 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, and95away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of threeseveraldeaths; 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;III. 5.100and 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 in105the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewedingrease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in thatsurge, 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 sake110youhave sufferedall this. My suit, then, is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?
Fal.Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Herhusband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received115from her another embassy of meeting; ’twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.
Ford.’Tis past eight already, sir.
Fal.Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you120shall 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’sIII. 5.125a 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 halfpenny130purse,norinto 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 makeonemad, let the proverb go with me,—I’ll be horn-mad.Exit.
Mrs Page.Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?
Quick.Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but, truly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing into5the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
Mrs Page.I’ll be with her by and by; I’ll but bringmy young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; ’tis a playing-day, I see.
How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?
10Evans.No; Master Slender isletthe boys leave to play.
Quick.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 him15some 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?
20Will.Two.
Quick.Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ‘Od’s nouns.’
Evans.Peace your tattlings! What is ‘fair,’ William?
Will.Pulcher.
IV. 1.25Quick.Polecats! there are fairer things thanpolecats, sure.
Evans.You are a very simplicity ’oman: I pray you, peace. —What is ‘lapis,’ William?
Will.A stone.
30Evans.And what is ‘a stone,’ William?
Will.A pebble.
Evans.No, it is ‘lapis:’ I pray you, remember in your prain.
Will.Lapis.
35Evans.That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?
Will.Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc.
Evans.Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:40genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
Will.Accusativo, hinc.
Evans.I pray you, have your remembrance, child; accusativo,hung, hang, hog.
Quick.‘Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
45Evans.Leave your prabbles, ’oman. —What is the focative case, William?
Will.O,—vocativo, O.
Evans.Remember, William; focative is caret.
Quick.And that’s a good root.
IV. 1.50Evans.’Oman, forbear.
Mrs Page.Peace!
Evans.What is your genitive case plural, William?
Will.Genitive case!
Evans.Ay.
55Will.Genitive,—horum, harum, horum.
Quick.Vengeance ofJenny’scase! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore.
Evans.For shame, ’oman.
Quick.You do ill to teach the child such words:—he60teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘horum’:—fie upon you!
Evans.’Oman, art thoulunaties? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbersofthe genders?65Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I woulddesires.
Mrs Page.Prithee, hold thy peace.
Evans.Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
Will.Forsooth, I have forgot.
70Evans.It is qui,quæ, quod: if you forget your ‘quies,’ your ‘quæs,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.
Mrs Page.He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
IV. 1.75Evans.He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
Mrs Page.Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
Exit Sir Hugh.
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
Exeunt.
Fal.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,5complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?
Mrs Ford.He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.
Mrs Page.[Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!
Mrs Ford.Step into the chamber, Sir John.
Exit Falstaff.
10Mrs Page.How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?
Mrs Ford.Why, none but mine own people.
Mrs Page.Indeed!
Mrs Ford.No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder.
15Mrs Page.Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
Mrs Ford.Why?
Mrs Page.Why, woman, your husband is in his oldlunesagain: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s20daughters, 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.
IV. 2.25Mrs Ford.Why, does he talk of him?
Mrs 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 make30another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.
Mrs Ford.How near is he, Mistress Page?
Mrs Page.Hard by; atstreetend; he will be here anon.
Mrs Ford.I am undone!—the knight is here.
35Mrs 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.
Mrs Ford.Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?
40Fal.No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?
Mrs Page.Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door withpistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you45here?
Fal.What shall I do?—I’ll creep up into the chimney.
Mrs Ford.There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.Creep into the kiln-hole.
Fal.Where is it?
IV. 2.50Mrs 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.
Fal.I’ll go out, then.
55Mrs Page.If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,—
Mrs Ford.How might we disguise him?
Mrs Page.Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put60on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
Fal.Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather thana mischief.
Mrs Ford.My maid’s aunt, the fat woman ofBrentford, has a gown above.
65Mrs Page.On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is: and there’s herthrummedhat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.
Mrs Ford.Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.
70Mrs Page.Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while.Exit Falstaff.
Mrs Ford.I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman ofBrentford; he swears she’s a witch; forbade her my house, and hathIV. 2.75threatened to beat her.
Mrs Page.Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!
Mrs Ford.But is my husband coming?
Mrs Page.Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of80the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
Mrs Ford.We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.
Mrs Page.Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go85dress him like the witch ofBrentford.
Mrs Ford.I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.Exit.
Mrs Page.Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misusehimenough.90We’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.
Mrs Page.Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misusehimenough.
90We’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.
Mrs Ford.Go, sirs, take the basket again on your95shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch.Exit.
First Serv.Come, come, take it up.
Sec. Serv.Pray heaven it be not full ofknightagain.
First Serv.I hope not; I hadas liefbear so much lead.
IV. 2.100Ford.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, aging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil beshamed. —What,105wife, I say!—Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!
Page.Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.
Evans.Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad110dog!
Shal.Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
Ford.So say I too, sir.
Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the115jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?
Mrs Ford.Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.
Ford.Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth,120sirrah!Pulling clothes out of the basket.
Page.This passes!
Mrs Ford.Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.
Ford.I shall find you anon.
Evans.’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up yourIV. 2.125wife’s clothes? Come away.
Ford.Empty the basket, I say!
Mrs Ford.Why, man, why?
Ford.Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may130not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.
Mrs Ford.If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.
135Page.Here’s no man.
Shal.By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.
Evans.Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.
140Ford.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, ‘As145jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.
Mrs 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?
IV. 2.150Mrs Ford.Why, it is my maid’s aunt ofBrentford.
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 works155by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery asthis is, beyond our element: we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say!
Mrs Ford.Nay, good, sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let himnotstrike the old woman.
160Mrs Page.Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
Ford.I’ll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, youhag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.
Exit Falstaff.
165Mrs Page.Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.
Mrs Ford.Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.
Ford.Hang her, witch!
170Evans.By yea and no, I think the’omanis a witch indeed: I like not when a ’oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard underhismuffler.
Ford.Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thusIV. 2.175upon notrail, never trust me when I open again.
Page.Let’s obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen.
Exeunt Ford, Page, Shal., Caius, and Evans.
Mrs Page.Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
Mrs Ford.Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat180him most unpitifully methought.
Mrs Page.I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.
Mrs Ford.What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue185him with any further revenge?
Mrs Page.The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, withfineand recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
190Mrs Ford.Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?
Mrs Page.Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’sbrains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any195further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.
Mrs Ford.I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed: and methinks there would be noperiodtothe jest, should he not be publicly shamed.
Mrs Page.Come, to the forge withit, then; shape it:IV. 2.200I would not have things cool.
Exeunt.
Bard.Sir, theGermans desireto 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? I5hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English?
Bard.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 myhousea week at10command; I have turned away my other guests: they mustcome off; I’ll sauce them. Come.
Exeunt.
Evans.’Tis one of the best discretions of a’omanas ever I did look upon.
Page.And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
5Mrs Page.Within a quarter of an hour.