speaks sense. Exit.
FORD [aside] I will be patient, I will find out this.
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NIM [to Page] And this is true, I like not the humour of
lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should
have borne the humoured letter to her, but I have a
sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves
your wife, there’s the short and the long. My name is
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Corporal Nim. I speak, and I avouch ’tis true: my
name is Nim and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love
not the humour of bread and cheese. Adieu. Exit.
PAGE The humour of it, quoth ‘a! Here’s a fellow frights
English out of his wits.
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FORD [aside] I will seek out Falstaff.
PAGE [aside] I never heard such a drawling-affecting
rogue.
FORD [aside] If I do find it – well.
PAGE [aside] I will not believe such a Cathayan, though
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the priest o’the town commend him for a true man.
FORD [aside] ’Twas a good sensible fellow – well.
MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward.
PAGE How now, Meg?
MISTRESS PAGE Whither go you, George? Hark you.
MISTRESS FORD How now, sweet Frank, why art thou
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melancholy?
FORD I melancholy? I am not melancholy. Get you
home, go.
MISTRESS FORD Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy
head now. – Will you go, Mistress Page?
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MISTRESS PAGE Have with you. You’ll come to dinner,
George? [aside to Mistress Ford] Look who comes
yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry
knight.
MISTRESS FORD [aside to Mistress Page] Trust me, I
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thought on her: she’ll fit it.
Enter Mistress QUICKLY.
MISTRESS PAGE You are come to see my daughter Anne?
QUICKLY Ay, forsooth. And I pray, how does good
Mistress Anne?
MISTRESS PAGE Go in with us and see. We have an
150
hour’s talk with you.
Exeunt Mistress Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Quickly.
PAGE How now, Master Ford?
FORD You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
PAGE Yes, and you heard what the other told me?
FORD Do you think there is truth in them?
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PAGE Hang ‘em, slaves! I do not think the knight would
offer it, but these that accuse him in his intent towards
our wives are a yoke of his discarded men – very
rogues, now they be out of service.
FORD Were they his men?
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PAGE Marry, were they.
FORD I like it never the better for that. – Does he lie at
the Garter?
PAGE Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him, and
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what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on
my head.
FORD I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath
to turn them together. A man may be too confident. I
would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus
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satisfied.
Enter HOST.
PAGE Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes.
There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse,
when he looks so merrily. – How now, mine host?
HOST How now, bully rook? Thou’rt a gentleman. –
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Cavaliero Justice, I say!
Enter SHALLOW.
SHALLOW I follow, mine host, I follow. – Good even and
twenty, good Master Page. Master Page, will you go
with us? We have sport in hand.
HOST Tell him, Cavaliero Justice, tell him, bully rook!
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SHALLOW Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir
Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
FORD Good mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you.
HOST What sayst thou, my bully rook? [Ford and the
Host talk apart.]
SHALLOW Will you go with us to behold it? My merry
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host hath had the measuring of their weapons, and, I
think, hath appointed them contrary places; for,
believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will
tell you what our sport shall be. [Shallow and Page talk
apart, Ford and Host come forward.]
HOST Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest
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cavaliero?
FORD None, I protest. But I’ll give you a pottle of burnt
sack to give me recourse to him – and tell him my
name is Brook, only for a jest.
HOST My hand, bully: thou shalt have egress and
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regress – said I well? – and thy name shall be Brook. It
is a merry knight. [to all] Will you go, myn-heers?
SHALLOW Have with you, mine host.
PAGE I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his
rapier.
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SHALLOW Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these
times you stand on distance – your passes, stoccadoes,
and I know not what. ’Tis the heart, Master Page, ’tis
here, ’tis here. I have seen the time, with my long
sword, I would have made you four tall fellows skip
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like rats.
HOST Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
PAGE Have with you; I had rather hear them scold than
fight. Exeunt Host, Shallow and Page.
FORD Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so
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firmly on his wife’s frailty, yet I cannot put off my
opinion so easily. She was in his company at Page’s
house, and what they made there I know not. Well, I
will look further into’t, and I have a disguise to sound
Falstaff. If I find her honest I lose not my labour. If she
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be otherwise, ’tis labour well bestowed. Exit.
2.2 Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL.
FALSTAFF I will not lend thee a penny.
PISTOL Why then, the world’s mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
FALSTAFF Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you
should lay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon
5
my good friends for three reprieves for you and your
coach-fellow Nim, or else you had looked through the
grate like a gemini of baboons. I am damned in hell for
swearing to gentlemen my friends you were good
soldiers and tall fellows. And when Mistress Bridget
10
lost the handle of her fan, I took’t upon mine honour
thou hadst it not.
PISTOL Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen
pence?
FALSTAFF Reason, you rogue, reason. Thinkst thou I’ll
15
endanger my soul gratis? At a word: hang no more
about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go – a short knife
and a throng – to your manor of Picked-hatch, go!
You’ll not bear a letter for me, you rogue? You stand
upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable baseness,
20
it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my
honour precise. Ay, ay, I myself, sometimes, leaving the
fear of G
od on the left hand, and hiding mine honour
in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to
lurch; and yet, you rogue, will ensconce your rags, your
25
cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and
your bold beating oaths, under the shelter of your
honour! You will not do it! You!
PISTOL I do relent. What would thou more of man?
Enter ROBIN.
ROBIN Sir, here’s a woman would speak with you.
30
FALSTAFF Let her approach.
Enter Mistress QUICKLY.
QUICKLY Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF Good morrow, goodwife.
QUICKLY Not so, an’t please your worship.
FALSTAFF Good maid, then.
35
QUICKLY That I am, I’ll be sworn, as my mother was
the first hour I was born.
FALSTAFF I do believe the swearer. What with me?
QUICKLY Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
FALSTAFF Two thousand, fair woman; and I’ll
40
vouchsafe thee the hearing.
QUICKLY There is one Mistress Ford, sir – I pray come
a little nearer this ways – I myself dwell with Master
Doctor Caius –
FALSTAFF Well, on; Mistress Ford, you say –
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QUICKLY Your worship says very true. – I pray your
worship come a little nearer this ways.
FALSTAFF I warrant you, nobody hears. – Mine own
people, mine own people.
QUICKLY Are they so? Now God bless them, and make
50
them his servants.
FALSTAFF Well, Mistress Ford – What of her?
QUICKLY Why, sir, she’s a good creature – Lord, Lord,
your worship’s a wanton! Well, God forgive you, and
all of us, I pray –
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FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, come, Mistress Ford.
QUICKLY Marry, this is the short and the long of it: you
have brought her into such a canary as ’tis wonderful.
The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at
Windsor, could never have brought her to such a
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canary – yet there has been knights, and lords, and
gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant you – coach
after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift, smelling so
sweetly, all musk, and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk
and gold, and in such alligant terms, and in such wine
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and sugar of the best and the fairest, that would have
won any woman’s heart; and, I warrant you, they could
never get an eye-wink of her. I had myself twenty
angels given me this morning, but I defy all angels in
any such sort, as they say, but in the way of honesty;
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and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much
as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all – and yet
there has been earls – nay, which is more, pensioners –
but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
FALSTAFF But what says she to me? Be brief, my good
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she-Mercury.
QUICKLY Marry, she hath received your letter, for the
which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives
you to notify that her husband will be absence from
his house between ten and eleven.
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FALSTAFF Ten and eleven.
QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see
the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master Ford her
husband will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman
leads an ill life with him: he’s a very jealousy man; she
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leads a very frampold life with him, good heart.
FALSTAFF Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to
her; I will not fail her.
QUICKLY Why, you say well. But I have another
messenger to your worship. Mistress Page hath her
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hearty commendations to you too; and let me tell you
in your ear she’s as fartuous a civil modest wife, and
one – I tell you – that will not miss you morning nor
evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe’er be the
other; and she bade me tell your worship that her
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husband is seldom from home, but she hopes there will
come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man
– surely I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth.
FALSTAFF Not I, I assure thee. Setting the attraction of
my good parts aside, I have no other charms.
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QUICKLY Blessing on your heart for’t.
FALSTAFF But I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford’s wife
and Page’s wife acquainted each other how they love
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 379
