CAIUS [Pulls Simple out.] O diable, diable, vat is in my
closet? Villainy, larron! – Rugby, my rapier!
QUICKLY Good master, be content.
CAIUS Wherefore shall I be content-a?
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QUICKLY The young man is an honest man.
CAIUS What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere
is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.
QUICKLY I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic, hear the
truth of it. He came of an errand to me, from Parson
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Hugh.
CAIUS Vell?
SIMPLE Ay, forsooth, to desire her to –
QUICKLY Peace, I pray you.
CAIUS Peace-a your tongue! [to Simple] Speak-a your
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tale.
SIMPLE To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid,
to speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my
master in the way of marriage.
QUICKLY This is all indeed, la! But I’ll ne’er put my
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finger in the fire, an’t need not.
CAIUS Sir Hugh send-a you? – Rugby, baille me some
paper. – Tarry you a little-a-while. [Writes.]
QUICKLY [aside to Simple] I am glad he is so quiet. If he
had been throughly moved, you should have heard
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him so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding,
man, I’ll do you your master what good I can; and the
very yea and the no is, the French doctor my master –
I may call him my master, look you, for I keep his
house, and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat
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and drink, make the beds and do all myself –
SIMPLE [aside to Mistress Quickly] ’Tis a great charge to
come under one body’s hand.
QUICKLY [aside to Simple] Are you avised o’that? You
shall find it a great charge, and to be up early and down
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late; but notwithstanding – to tell you in your ear, I
would have no words of it – my master himself is in love
with Mistress Anne Page; but notwithstanding that, I
know Anne’s mind – that’s neither here nor there.
CAIUS You, Jack’nape: give-a this letter to Sir Hugh. By
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gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in de park, and
I will teach a scurvy jackanape priest to meddle or
make. – You may be gone, it is not good you tarry here.
– By gar, I will cut all his two stones. By gar, he shall
not have a stone to throw at his dog. Exit Simple.
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QUICKLY Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
CAIUS It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a-me
dat I shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill
de Jack-priest; and I have appointed mine host of de
Jarteer to measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself
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have Anne Page.
QUICKLY Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well.
We must give folks leave to prate, what the good-year!
CAIUS Rugby, come to the court with me. [to Mistress
Quickly] By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn
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your head out of my door. – Follow my heels, Rugby.
Exit with Rugby.
QUICKLY You shall have An – fool’s head of your own.
No, I know Anne’s mind for that. Never a woman in
Windsor knows more of Anne’s mind than I do, nor
can do more than I do with her, I thank heaven.
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FENTON [within] Who’s within there, ho?
QUICKLY Who’s there, I trow? Come near the house, I
pray you.
Enter FENTON.
FENTON How now, good woman, how dost thou?
QUICKLY The better that it pleases your good worship
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to ask.
FENTON What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?
QUICKLY In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
gentle, and one that is your friend – I can tell you that
by the way, I praise heaven for it.
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FENTON Shall I do any good, thinkst thou? Shall I not
lose my suit?
QUICKLY Troth, sir, all is in His hands above. But
notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I’ll be sworn on a
book she loves you. Have not your worship a wart
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above your eye?
FENTON Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
QUICKLY Well, thereby hangs a tale. Good faith, it is
such another Nan – but, I detest, an honest maid as
ever broke bread. We had an hour’s talk of that wart. I
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shall never laugh but in that maid’s company. But,
indeed, she is given too much to allicholy and musing.
But for you – well – go to –
FENTON Well, I shall see her today. Hold, there’s money
for thee: let me have thy voice in my behalf. If thou
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seest her before me, commend me –
QUICKLY Will I? I’faith, that we will! And I will tell
your worship more of the wart the next time we have
confidence, and of other wooers.
FENTON Well, farewell, I am in great haste now.
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QUICKLY Farewell to your worship. Exit Fenton.
Truly an honest gentleman – but Anne loves him not.
For I know Anne’s mind as well as another does. – Out
upon’t, what have I forgot? Exit.
2.1 Enter MISTRESS PAGE reading of a letter.
MISTRESS PAGE What, have I scaped love-letters in the
holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for
them? Let me see:
[Reads.] Ask me no reason why I love you, for, though
Love use Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his
5
counsellor. You are not young, no more am I: go to, then,
there’s sympathy; you are merry, so am I: ha, ha, then
there’s more sympathy; you love sack, and so do I: would
you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress
Page, at the least if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love
10
thee. I will not say ‘pity me’ – ’tis not a soldier-like phrase
– but I say ‘love me’.
By me, thine own true knight, by day or night,
Or any kind of light, with all his might,
For thee to fight. John Falstaff.
15
What a Herod of Jewry is this? O wicked, wicked world!
One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age, to show
himself a young gallant? What an unweighed behaviour
hath this Flemish drunkard picked – with the devil’s
name! – out of my conversation, that he dares in this
20
manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my
company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal
of my mirth – heaven forgive me! – Why, I’ll exhibit a
bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How
shall I be revenged on him? For revenged I will be, as
25
sure as his guts are made of puddings.
Enter MISTRESS FORD.
MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page, trust me, I was going to
your house.
MISTRESS PAGE And trust me, I was coming to you. You
look very ill.
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MISTRESS FORD Nay, I’ll ne’er believe that. I have to
s
how to the contrary.
MISTRESS PAGE ‘Faith, but you do, in my mind.
MISTRESS FORD Well, I do, then. Yet I say I could show
you to the contrary. O, Mistress Page, give me some
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counsel!
MISTRESS PAGE What’s the matter, woman?
MISTRESS FORD O, woman, if it were not for one trifling
respect, I could come to such honour!
MISTRESS PAGE Hang the trifle, woman, take the
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honour! What is it? Dispense with trifles: what is it?
MISTRESS FORD If I would but go to hell for an eternal
moment or so, I could be knighted.
MISTRESS PAGE What? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford?
These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not alter
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the article of thy gentry.
MISTRESS FORD We burn daylight. Here, read, read:
perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the
worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make
difference of men’s liking. And yet he would not swear,
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praised women’s modesty, and gave such orderly and
well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would
have sworn his disposition would have gone to the
truth of his words. But they do no more adhere and
keep place together than the hundred psalms to the
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tune of ‘Greensleeves’. What tempest, I trow, threw
this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore
at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think
the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the
wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.
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Did you ever hear the like?
MISTRESS PAGE Letter for letter, but that the name of
Page and Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this
mystery of ill opinions, here’s the twin brother of thy
letter. But let thine inherit first, for I protest mine never
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shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ
with blank space for different names – sure, more, and
these are of the second edition. He will print them, out
of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press,
when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess,
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and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you
twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
MISTRESS FORD Why, this is the very same – the very
hand, the very words! What doth he think of us?
MISTRESS PAGE Nay, I know not. It makes me almost
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ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain
myself like one that I am not acquainted withal. For,
sure, unless he know some strain in me that I know not
myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
MISTRESS FORD Boarding, call you it? I’ll be sure to
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keep him above deck.
MISTRESS PAGE So will I. If he come under my hatches,
I’ll never to sea again. Let’s be revenged on him. Let’s
appoint him a meeting, give him a show of comfort in
his suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till
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he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, I will consent to act any villainy
against him, that may not sully the chariness of our
honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! It would
give eternal food to his jealousy.
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Enter FORD with PISTOL and PAGE with NIM.
MISTRESS PAGE Why, look where he comes; and my
good man too – he’s as far from jealousy as I am from
giving him cause, and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable
distance.
MISTRESS FORD You are the happier woman.
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MISTRESS PAGE Let’s consult together against this
greasy knight. Come hither. [They withdraw.]
FORD Well, I hope it be not so.
PISTOL Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
Sir John affects thy wife.
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FORD Why, sir, my wife is not young.
PISTOL He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
He loves the gallimaufry, Ford: perpend.
FORD Love my wife?
PISTOL With liver burning hot.
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Prevent, or go thou like Sir Actaeon he,
With Ringwood at thy heels.
O, odious is the name!
FORD What name, sir?
PISTOL The horn, I say. Farewell.
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Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night.
Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do
sing. – Away, Sir Corporal Nim! – Believe it, Page, he
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 378
