Enter MISTRESS PAGE.
MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart, who’s at home
10
besides yourself?
MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people.
MISTRESS PAGE Indeed?
MISTRESS FORD No, certainly. – [Whispers.] Speak
louder.
15
MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody
here.
MISTRESS FORD Why?
MISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old
lines again: he so takes on yonder with my husband, so
20
rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s
daughters, 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
25
is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.
MISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him?
MISTRESS 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
30
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.
MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page?
35
MISTRESS PAGE Hard by, at street end. He will be here
anon.
MISTRESS FORD I am undone: the knight is here.
MISTRESS PAGE Why, then you are utterly shamed and
he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away
40
with him, away with him: better shame than murder.
MISTRESS FORD Which way should he go? How should
I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?
Enter FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF No, I’ll come no more i’the basket. May I not
go out ere he come?
45
MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers
watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out,
otherwise you might slip away ere he came. – But what
make you here?
FALSTAFF What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the
50
chimney.
MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge
their birding-pieces.
MISTRESS PAGE Creep into the kiln-hole.
FALSTAFF Where is it?
55
MISTRESS 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.
60
FALSTAFF I’ll go out, then.
MISTRESS PAGE If you go out in your own semblance
you die, Sir John – unless you go out disguised.
mistress ford How might we disguise him?
mistress page Alas the day, I know not: there is no
65
woman’s gown big enough for him. Otherwise he
might put on a hat, a muffler and a kerchief, and so
escape.
FALSTAFF Good hearts, devise something; any
extremity rather than a mischief.
70
MISTRESS FORD My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of
Brentford, has a gown above.
MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him. She’s as
big as he is – and there’s her thrummed hat and her
muffler too. – Run up, Sir John.
75
MISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page
and I will look some linen for your head.
MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you
straight; put on the gown the while. Exit Falstaff.
MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him
80
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.
MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband’s
cudgel and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards.
85
MISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming?
MISTRESS PAGE Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of
the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
MISTRESS FORD We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men
to carry the basket again to meet him at the door with
90
it, as they did last time.
MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s
go dress him like the witch of Brentford.
MISTRESS FORD I’ll first direct my men what they shall
do with the basket. Go up, I’ll bring linen for him
95
straight.
MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet! We cannot
misuse him enough. Exit Mistress Ford.
We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
100
We do not act that often jest and laugh;
’Tis old but true: ‘Still swine eats all the draff ‘. Exit.
Enter MISTRESS FORD with JOHN and ROBERT.
MISTRESS 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.
105
JOHN Come, come, take it up.
ROBERT Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
JOHN I hope not, I had as lief bear so much lead.
Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS and EVANS at
one door, and JOHN and ROBERT go and fetch in the
basket at another.
FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
way then to unfool me again? – Set down the basket,
110
villains. Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O
you panderly rascals, there’s a knot, a gin, 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!
115
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.
SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well indeed.
FORD So say I too, sir.
120
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?
MISTRESS FORD God be my witness you do, if you
125
suspect me in any dishonesty.
FORD Well said, brazen-face, hold it out! – Come forth,
sirrah! [Pulls clothes from the basket.]
PAGE This passes.
MISTRESS FORD Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes
130
alone.
FORD I shall find you anon.
EVANS ’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife’s
clothes? Come, away!
FORD Empty the basket, I say.
135
PAGE Why, man, why?
FORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one
conveyed out of my house yesterday in this b
asket.
Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure
he is: my intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable.
140
– Pluck me out all the linen.
MISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a
flea’s death. [They empty the basket.]
PAGE Here’s no man.
SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford,
145
this wrongs you.
EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the
imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.
FORD Well, he’s not here I seek for.
PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
150
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
‘As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for
his wife’s leman’. Satisfy me once more, once more
155
search with me. Exeunt John and Robert with basket.
MISTRESS 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?
160
MISTRESS FORD Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.
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.
165
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!
MISTRESS FORD Nay, good sweet husband – good
170
gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.
Enter FALSTAFF, disguised like an old woman,
and MISTRESS PAGE.
MISTRESS PAGE Come, mother Prat, come, give me your
hand.
FORD I’ll prat her! [Beats him.] Out of my door, you
witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion,
175
out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you!
Exit Falstaff.
MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have
killed the poor woman.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit
for you!
180
FORD Hang her, witch!
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 her muffler.
FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow,
185
see but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon
no trail, never trust me when I open again.
PAGE Let’s obey his humour a little further. Come,
gentlemen.
Exeunt all but Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.
MISTRESS PAGE By my troth, he beat him most pitifully.
190
MISTRESS FORD Nay, by th’mass, that he did not: he
beat him most unpitifully, methought.
MISTRESS PAGE I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung
o’er the altar: it hath done meritorious service.
MISTRESS FORD What think you? May we, with the
195
warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good
conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?
MISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is sure scared
out of him. If the devil have him not in fee-simple,
with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the
200
way of waste, attempt us again.
MISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have
served him?
MISTRESS PAGE Yes, by all means, if it be but to scrape
the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can
205
find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight
shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the
ministers.
MISTRESS FORD I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly
shamed, and methinks there would be no period to the
210
jest should he not be publicly shamed.
MISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it, then shape
it: I would not have things cool. Exeunt.
4.3 Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.
BARDOLPH Sir, the German desires to have three of
your horses. The Duke himself will be tomorrow at
court, and they are going to meet him.
HOST What duke should that be comes so secretly? I
hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 385
