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Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

50 Anne. 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,-
Anne. What is your will?

Slen. My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

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Anne. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me ?

Slen. 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.

70

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. Fent. 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. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton. [Exeunt Page, Shal., and Slen. Quick. Speak to Mistress Page. 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,

I must advance the colors of my 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. Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth

And bowl'd to death with turnips!

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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.

Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan. [Exeunt Mrs. Paye and Anne

Quick. This is my doing, now: Nay, said I, will you cast away your child on & fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fen ton' this is my doing.

Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, onc to-night

Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.

Quick. Now heaven send thee good for tune! [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! [Erit.

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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 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 moantain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack. Bard. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

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Fal. Come, 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.

Bard. Come in, woman!

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY,

Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy give your worship good morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-spern in my brewage. [Exit Bardolph.] How now Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worsh from Mistress Ford.

Fal., Mistress Ford! I have had for

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 mistook their erection.

41

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 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.

Fal. 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. Quick. I will tell her.

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Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her. Quick. 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.

Enter FORD.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

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Fal. Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife?

Ford. That, indeed, Sir John, is my busi

Dess.

Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook. Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

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Fal. 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 Feels 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?
Fal. While I was there.

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Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?

Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would are it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives ntelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her vention and Ford's wife's distraction, they onveyed me into a buck-basket.

Ford. A buck-basket!

Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul tockings, greasy napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of illanous smell that ever offended nostril. Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. 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, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all 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. 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.

Fal. 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 cuck old Ford. [Erit.

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 buckbaskets! 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 hornmad.

(Exit

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A street.

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY,

and WILLIAM.

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 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,

see.

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS.

10

How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day? Evans. No; Master Slender is let the 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 him some questions in his accidence. [head; come.

Evans. Come hither, William ; hold up your Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid. 20 Evans. William, how many numbers is in nouns ?

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Will. Genitive case! Evans. Ay.

Will. Genitive,-horum, harum, horun. Quick. Vengeance of Jenny's case! 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 he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call' horum:' fie upon you! 70

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.

Mrs. Page. Prithee, hold thy peace. Evans. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Evans. 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. [thought he was. Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I Evans. 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

SCENE II. A room in FORD's house. Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS 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, complement 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, gossin Ford! what, ho!

10 Mrs. Ford. Step into the chamber, Sir John. [Exit Falstaff.

Enter MISTRESS PAGE.

Mrs. 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.

Speak louder. Mrs. Page.

[Aside to her]

Truly, I am so glad you have

nobody here. Mrs. Ford. Why?

20

Mrs. 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 him

self 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.

Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him? 30 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 make another 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; at street end; he will be here anon.

41 Mrs. Ford. I am undone! The knight is here.

Mrs. Page. Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a Woman are you!-Away with him, away with hin! better shame than murder.

Mrs. Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

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Mrs. Ford. How might we disguise him? Mrs. Page. Alas the day, I know not! here is no woman's gown big enough for

; otherwise he might put on a hat, a offler and a kerchief, and so escape.

Fol. Good hearts, devise something: any tremity rather than a mischief.

Mrs. Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman Brentford, has a gown above.

Mrs. Page. On my word, it will serve him; sas big as he is: and there's her thrummed tand her muffler too. Run up, Sir John. Mrs Ford. Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress ge and I will look some linen for your head. Mrs. Page. Quick, quick! we'll come dress straight: put on the gown the while. 81 [Exit Falstaff.

Mrs. 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.

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. Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the 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 i' as they did last time.

Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. Mrs. Ford. I'll first direct my nien what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit.

Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest värlet ! 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.

Mrs. 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 Serv. Come, come, take it up. Sec. Serv. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

Fist Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, 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.

Evans. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! 131 Shal. 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?

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Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you. 161 Evans. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your heart: this is jealousies.

own

Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for. Page. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

Ford. Help me search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no color for my extremity; let me forever be your table-sport; let them say of me, 'As jealous 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 womar! what old woman's that? [Brentford.

Mis. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of 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! Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband ! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old

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Evans. By 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 be seech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

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Page. Let's obey his humor 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 beat him 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, pursue him with any further revenge?

Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him : if the devil have him no in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.

Mrs. 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'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.

Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant they'll have hi publicly shamed: and methinks there woul be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with i then; shape it: I would not have things cool [Exeunt

SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH. Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have thre of your horses: the duke himself will be to morrow at court, and they are going to me him.

Host. What duke should that be comes i secretly? I hear not of him in the court L me speak with the gentlemen: they spe English?

Bard. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.

Host. They shall have my horses; but I make them pay; I'll sauce them: they ha had my house a week at command; I bs turned away my other guests: they must c off; I'll sauce them. Come.

SCENE IV. A room in FORD's house. Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTE FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.

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