’Oman, forbear.
Mistress Page
Peace!
Sir Hugh Evans
What is your genitive case plural, William?
William Page
Genitive case!
Sir Hugh Evans
Ay.
William Page
Genitive,— horum, harum, horum.
Mistress Quickly
Vengeance of Jenny’s case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore.
Sir Hugh Evans
For shame, ’oman.
Mistress Quickly
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!
Sir Hugh 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.
Mistress Page
Prithee, hold thy peace.
Sir Hugh Evans
Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
William Page
Forsooth, I have forgot.
Sir Hugh Evans
It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your ’quies,’ your ‘quaes,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.
Mistress Page
He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Sir Hugh Evans
He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
Mistress Page
Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
Exit Sir Hugh Evans
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A ROOM IN FORD’S HOUSE.
Enter Falstaff and Mistress Ford
Falstaff
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?
Mistress Ford
He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.
Mistress Page
[Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!
Mistress Ford
Step into the chamber, Sir John.
Exit Falstaff
Enter Mistress Page
Mistress Page
How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself?
Mistress Ford
Why, none but mine own people.
Mistress Page
Indeed!
Mistress Ford
No, certainly.
Aside to her
Speak louder.
Mistress Page
Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
Mistress Ford
Why?
Mistress 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 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.
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 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?
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 with him, away with him! better shame than murder.
Ford
Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
Shall I put him into the basket again?
Re-enter Falstaff
Falstaff
No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?
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 chimney.
Mistress Ford
There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.
Falstaff
Where is it?
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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!
Mistress Ford
But is my husband coming?
Mistress Page
Ah, 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 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 straight.
Exit
Mistress Page
Hang him, dishonest varlet! 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
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
First Servant
Come, come, take it up.
Second Servant
Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
First Servant
I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.
Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Doctor Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans
&nbs
p; 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.
Sir Hugh 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.
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?
Mistress Ford
Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.
Ford
Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah!
Pulling clothes out of the basket
Page
This passes!
Mistress Ford
Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.
Ford
I shall find you anon.
Sir Hugh Evans
’Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come away.
Ford
Empty the basket, I say!
Mistress 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 may not 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.
Mistress Ford
If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.
Page
Here’s no man.
Shallow
By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.
Sir Hugh 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.
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, Chat searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.
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?
Mistress Ford
Nay, 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. 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 gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.
Re-enter Falstaff in woman’s clothes, and Mistress Page
Mistress Page
Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
Ford
I’ll prat her.
Beating him
Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon! 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.
Ford
Hang her, witch!
Sir Hugh Evans
By the 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 beseech you, follow; 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 Ford, Page, Shallow, Doctor Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans
Mistress Page
Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
Mistress Ford
Nay, by the 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 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 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 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 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
SCENE III. A ROOM IN THE GARTER INN.
Enter Host and Bardolph
Bardolph
Sir, the Germans desire to 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? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English?
Bardolph
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 my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I’ll sauce them. Come.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. A ROOM IN FORD’S HOUSE.
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans
Sir Hugh Evans
’Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever
I did look upon.
Page
And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
Mistress Page
Within a quarter of an hour.
Ford
Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.
Page
’Tis well, ’tis well; no more:
Be not as extreme in submission
As in offence.
But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
Ford
There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page
How? to send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie! he’ll never come.
Sir Hugh Evans
You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has been grievously peaten as an old ’oman: methinks there should be terro
rs in him that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.
Page
So think I too.
Mistress Ford
Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
Mistress Page
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;
And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle
And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Received and did deliver to our age
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
Page
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak:
But what of this?
Mistress Ford
Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.
Page
Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come:
And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? what is your plot?
Mistress Page
That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter and my little son
And three or four more of their growth we’ll dress
Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffused song: upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness will fly:
Then let them all encircle him about
And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
Mistress Ford
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
And burn him with their tapers.
Mistress Page
The truth being known,
We’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford
The children must
Be practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.
Sir Hugh Evans
I will teach the children their behaviors; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
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