Enter MARIANA and a Boy

Boy sings

Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.

Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away:
Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still'd my brawling dis*******.
Exit Boy
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before
I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish
You had not found me here so musical:
Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.

'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
I pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired
for me here to-day? much upon this time have
I promised here to meet.

You have not been inquired after:
I have sat here all day.
Enter ISABELLA

I do constantly believe you. The time is come even
now. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may
be I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.

I am always bound to you.
Exit

Very well met, and well come.
What is the news from this good deputy?

He hath a garden circummured with brick,
Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
And to that vineyard is a planched gate,
That makes his opening with this bigger key:
This other doth command a little door
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads;
There have I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him.

But shall you on your knowledge find this way?

I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:
With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did show me
The way twice o'er.

Are there no other tokens
Between you 'greed concerning her observance?

No, none, but only a repair i' the dark;
And that I have possess'd him my most stay
Can be but brief; for I have made him know
I have a servant comes with me along,
That stays upon me, whose persuasion is
I come about my brother.

'Tis well borne up.
I have not yet made known to Mariana
A word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!
Re-enter MARIANA
I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
She comes to do you good.

I do desire the like.

Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.

Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure: but make haste;
The vaporous night approaches.

Will't please you walk aside?
Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA

O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams
And rack thee in their fancies.
Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA
Welcome, how agreed?

She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
If you advise it.

It is not my consent,
But my entreaty too.

Little have you to say
When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
'Remember now my brother.'

Fear me not.

Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.
Exeunt

Enter Provost and POMPEY

Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?

If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a
married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never
cut off a woman's head.

Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a
direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio
and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common
executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if
you will take it on you to assist him, it shall
redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have
your full time of imprisonment and your deliverance
with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a
notorious bawd.

Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;
but yet I will be ******* to be a lawful hangman. I
would be glad to receive some instruction from my
fellow partner.

What, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?
Enter ABHORSON

Do you call, sir?

Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in
your execution. If you think it meet, compound with
him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if
not, use him for the present and dismiss him. He
cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.

Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn
the scale.
Exit

Pray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a
good favour you have, but that you have a hanging
look,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

Ay, sir; a mystery

Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and
your whores, sir, being members of my occupation,
using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery:
but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I
should be hanged, I cannot imagine.

Sir, it is a mystery.

Proof?

Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be
too little for your thief, your true man thinks it
big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your
thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's
apparel fits your thief.
Re-enter Provost

Are you agreed?

Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is
a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth
oftener ask forgiveness.

You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe
to-morrow four o'clock.

Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

I do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have
occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find
me yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you
a good turn.

Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:
Exeunt POMPEY and ABHORSON
The one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Enter CLAUDIO
Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?

As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.

Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
Knocking within
But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
Exit CLAUDIO
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before
Welcome father.

The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?

None, since the curfew rung.

Not Isabel?

No.

They will, then, ere't be long.

What comfort is for Claudio?

There's some in hope.

It is a bitter deputy.

Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just.
Knocking within
Now are they come.
Exit Provost
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
Knocking within
How now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste
That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.
Re-enter Provost

There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.

Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?

None, sir, none.

As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.

Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we:
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Profess'd the contrary.
Enter a Messenger
This is his lordship's man.

And here comes Claudio's pardon.

[Giving a paper]
My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this
further charge, that you swerve not from the
smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or
other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it,
it is almost day.

I shall obey him.
Exit Messenger

[Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is born in high authority:
When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,
That for the fault's love is the offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?

I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss
in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted
putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.

Pray you, let's hear.

[Reads]
'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let
Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and in the
afternoon Barnardine: for my better satisfaction,
let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let
this be duly performed; with a thought that more
depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail
not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'
What say you to this, sir?

What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the
afternoon?

A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one
that is a prisoner nine years old.

How came it that the absent duke had not either
delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I
have heard it was ever his manner to do so.

His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,
indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord
Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.

It is now apparent?

Most manifest, and not denied by himself.

Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how
seems he to be touched?

A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but
as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless
of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of
mortality, and desperately mortal.

He wants advice.

He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty
of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he
would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days
entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if
to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming
warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.

More of him anon. There is written in your brow,
provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not
truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the
boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.
Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is
no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath
sentenced him. To make you understand this in a
manifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;
for the which you are to do me both a present and a
dangerous courtesy.

Pray, sir, in what?

In the delaying death.

A lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,
and an express command, under penalty, to deliver
his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case
as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.

By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my
instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine
be this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.

Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.

O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was
the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his
death: you know the course is common. If any thing
fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good
fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead
against it with my life.

Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

To him, and to his substitutes.

You will think you have made no offence, if the duke
avouch the justice of your dealing?

But what likelihood is in that?

Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see
you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor
persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go
further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.
Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the
duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the
signet is not strange to you.

I know them both.

The *******s of this is the return of the duke: you
shall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you
shall find, within these two days he will be here.
This is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this
very day receives letters of strange tenor;
perchance of the duke's death; perchance entering
into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what
is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the
shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these
things should be: all difficulties are but easy
when they are known. Call your executioner, and off
with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present
shrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you
are amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you.
Come away; it is almost clear dawn.
Exeunt

Enter POMPEY

I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house
of profession: one would think it were Mistress
Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old
customers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in
for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,
ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made
five marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not
much in request, for the old women were all dead.
Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of
Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of
peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a
beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young
Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master
Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young
Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master
Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the
great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed
Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in
our trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'
Enter ABHORSON

Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.
Master Barnardine!

What, ho, Barnardine!

[Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that
noise there? What are you?

Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so
good, sir, to rise and be put to death.

[Within] Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy.

Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.

Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are
executed, and sleep afterwards.

Go in to him, and fetch him out.

He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?

Very ready, sir.
Enter BARNARDINE

How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?

Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your
prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.

You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not
fitted for 't.

O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,
and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the
sounder all the next day.

Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do
we jest now, think you?
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before

Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily
you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort
you and pray with you.

Friar, not I I have been drinking hard all night,
and I will have more time to prepare me, or they
shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not
consent to die this day, that's certain.

O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you
Look forward on the journey you shall go.

I swear I will not die to-day for any man's
persuasion.

But hear you.

Not a word: if you have any thing to say to me,
come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.
Exit

Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY
Re-enter Provost

Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?

A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;
And to transport him in the mind he is
Were damnable.

Here in the prison, father,
There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,
And sent according to command; whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon:
And how shall we continue Claudio,
To save me from the danger that might come
If he were known alive?

Let this be done.
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.

I am your free dependant.

Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
Exit Provost
Now will I write letters to Angelo,--
The provost, he shall bear them, whose *******s
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publicly: him I'll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.
Re-enter Provost

Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.

Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
For I would commune with you of such things
That want no ear but yours.

I'll make all speed.
Exit

[Within] Peace, ho, be here!

The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know
If yet her brother's pardon be come hither:
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.
Enter ISABELLA

Ho, by your leave!

Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.

The better, given me by so holy a man.
Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?

He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
His head is off and sent to Angelo.

Nay, but it is not so.

It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
In your close patience.

O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!

You shall not be admitted to his sight.

Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!
Injurious world! most damned Angelo!

This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;
Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.
Mark what I say, which you shall find
By every syllable a faithful verity:
The duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;
One of our convent, and his confessor,
Gives me this instance: already he hath carried
Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom
In that good path that I would wish it go,
And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
Grace of the duke, revenges to your heart,
And general honour.

I am directed by you.

This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;
'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return:
Say, by this token, I desire his company
At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours
I'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you
Before the duke, and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
I am combined by a sacred vow
And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:
Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart; trust not my holy order,
If I pervert your course. Who's here?
Enter LUCIO

Good even. Friar, where's the provost?

Not within, sir.

O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see
thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain
to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for
my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set
me to 't. But they say the duke will be here
to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:
if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been
at home, he had lived.
Exit ISABELLA

Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your
reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.

Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:
he's a better woodman than thou takest him for.

Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.

Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee
I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.

You have told me too many of him already, sir, if
they be true; if not true, none were enough.

I was once before him for getting a wench with child.

Did you such a thing?

Yes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;
they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.

Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.

By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:
if bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of
it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
Exeunt

Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS

Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.

In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions
show much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be
not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and
redeliver our authorities there

I guess not.

And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his
entering, that if any crave redress of injustice,
they should exhibit their petitions in the street?

He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of
complaints, and to deliver us from devices
hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand
against us.

Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes
i' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give
notice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet
him.

I shall, sir. Fare you well.

Good night.
Exit ESCALUS
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it! But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
For my authority bears of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
By so receiving a dishonour'd life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.
Exit

Enter DUKE VINCENTIO in his own habit, and FRIAR PETER

These letters at fit time deliver me
Giving letters
The provost knows our purpose and our plot.
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift;
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that,
As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house,
And tell him where I stay: give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
But send me Flavius first.

It shall be speeded well.
Exit
Enter VARRIUS

I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:
Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends
Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.
Exeunt

Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA

To speak so indirectly I am loath:
I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
That is your part: yet I am advised to do it;
He says, to veil full purpose.

Be ruled by him.

Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic
That's bitter to sweet end.

I would Friar Peter--

O, peace! the friar is come.
Enter FRIAR PETER

Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
Where you may have such vantage on the duke,
He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;
The generous and gravest citizens
Have hent the gates, and very near upon
The duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!
Exeunt

MARIANA veiled, ISABELLA, and FRIAR PETER, at their stand. Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, VARRIUS, Lords, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens, at several doors

My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.

Happy return be to your royal grace!

Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made inquiry of you; and we hear
Such goodness of your justice, that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.

You make my bonds still greater.

O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
You must walk by us on our other hand;
And good supporters are you.
FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward

Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.

Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him.

O worthy duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil:
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believed,
Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!

My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother
Cut off by course of justice,--

By course of justice!

And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:
That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?
That Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
Is it not strange and strange?

Nay, it is ten times strange.

It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange:
Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.

Away with her! Poor soul,
She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible
That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:
If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
Had I more name for badness.

By mine honesty,
If she be mad,--as I believe no other,--
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As e'er I heard in madness.

O gracious duke,
Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason
For inequality; but let your reason serve
To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
And hide the false seems true.

Many that are not mad
Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?

I am the sister of one Claudio,
Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:
I, in probation of a sisterhood,
Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
As then the messenger,--

That's I, an't like your grace:
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother's pardon.

That's he indeed.

You were not bid to speak.

No, my good lord;
Nor wish'd to hold my peace.

I wish you now, then;
Pray you, take note of it: and when you have
A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
Be perfect.

I warrant your honour.

The warrants for yourself; take heed to't.

This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--

Right.

It may be right; but you are i' the wrong
To speak before your time. Proceed.

I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy,--

That's somewhat madly spoken.

Pardon it;
The phrase is to the matter.

Mended again. The matter; proceed.

In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
How he refell'd me, and how I replied,--
For this was of much length,--the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.

This is most likely!

O, that it were as like as it is true!

By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,
Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou camest here to complain.

And is this all?
Then, O you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience, and with ripen'd time
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!

I know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!
To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practise.
Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?

One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.

A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?

My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;
I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord
For certain words he spake against your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.

Words against me? this is a good friar, belike!
And to set on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.

But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.

Blessed be your royal grace!
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.

We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?

I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.

My lord, most villanously; believe it.

Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
But at this instant he is sick my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,
To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true and false; and what he with his oath
And all probation will make up full clear,
Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.

Good friar, let's hear it.
ISABELLA is carried off guarded; and MARIANA comes forward
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.

Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.

What, are you married?

No, my lord.

Are you a maid?

No, my lord.

A widow, then?

Neither, my lord.

Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?

My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are
neither maid, widow, nor wife.

Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause
To prattle for himself.

Well, my lord.

My lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.

He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.

For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!

Well, my lord.

This is no witness for Lord Angelo.

Now I come to't my lord
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms
With all the effect of love.

Charges she more than me?

Not that I know.

No? you say your husband.

Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.

This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.

My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
Unveiling
This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;
This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did supply thee at thy garden-house
In her imagined person.

Know you this woman?

Carnally, she says.

Sirrah, no more!

Enough, my lord.

My lord, I must confess I know this woman:
And five years since there was some speech of marriage
Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
Partly for that her promised proportions
Came short of composition, but in chief
For that her reputation was disvalued
In levity: since which time of five years
I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
Upon my faith and honour.

Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
I am affianced this man's wife as strongly
As words could make up vows: and, my good lord,
But Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house
He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
Let me in safety raise me from my knees
Or else for ever be confixed here,
A marble monument!

I did but smile till now:
Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice
My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on: let me have way, my lord,
To find this practise out.

Ay, with my heart
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.

Would he were here, my lord! for he indeed
Hath set the women on to this complaint:
Your provost knows the place where he abides
And he may fetch him.

Go do it instantly.
Exit Provost
And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
Do with your injuries as seems you best,
In any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;
But stir not you till you have well determined
Upon these slanderers.

My lord, we'll do it throughly.
Exit DUKE
Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that
Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?

'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing
but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most
villanous speeches of the duke.

We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a
notable fellow.

As any in Vienna, on my word.

Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.
Exit an Attendant
Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you
shall see how I'll handle her.

Not better than he, by her own report.

Say you?

Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,
she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,
she'll be ashamed.

I will go darkly to work with her.

That's the way; for women are light at midnight.
Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA; and Provost with the DUKE VINCENTIO in his friar's habit

Come on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all
that you have said.

My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with
the provost.

In very good time: speak not you to him till we
call upon you.

Mum.

Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander
Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did.

'Tis false.

How! know you where you are?

Respect to your great place! and let the devil
Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!
Where is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.

The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:
Look you speak justly.

Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?
Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone?
Then is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust,
Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
And put your trial in the villain's mouth
Which here you come to accuse.

This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.

Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,
Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth
And in the witness of his proper ear,
To call him villain? and then to glance from him
To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
Take him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you
Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
What 'unjust'!

Be not so hot; the duke
Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
Dare rack his own: his subject am I not,
Nor here provincial. My business in this state
Made me a looker on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark.

Slander to the state! Away with him to prison!

What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
Is this the man that you did tell us of?

'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:
do you know me?

I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I
met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.

O, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?

Most notedly, sir.

Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a
fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?

You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make
that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and
much more, much worse.

O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the
nose for thy speeches?

I protest I love the duke as I love myself.

Hark, how the villain would close now, after his
treasonable abuses!

Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with
him to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him
to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him
speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and
with the other confederate companion!

[To Provost] Stay, sir; stay awhile.

What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.

Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!
Will't not off?
Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers DUKE VINCENTIO

Thou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.
First, provost, let me bail these gentle three.
To LUCIO
Sneak not away, sir; for the friar and you
Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.

This may prove worse than hanging.

[To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon: sit you down:
We'll borrow place of him.
To ANGELO
Sir, by your leave.
Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,
That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
And hold no longer out.

O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession:
Immediate sentence then and sequent death
Is all the grace I beg.

Come hither, Mariana.
Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?

I was, my lord.

Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.
Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
Return him here again. Go with him, provost.
Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER and Provost

My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour
Than at the strangeness of it.

Come hither, Isabel.
Your friar is now your prince: as I was then
Advertising and holy to your business,
Not changing heart with habit, I am still
Attorney'd at your service.

O, give me pardon,
That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd
Your unknown sovereignty!

You are pardon'd, Isabel:
And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
And you may marvel why I obscured myself,
Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power
Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
It was the swift celerity of his death,
Which I did think with slower foot came on,
That brain'd my purpose. But, peace be with him!
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,
So happy is your brother.

I do, my lord.
Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and Provost

For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
Your well defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--
Being criminal, in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,--
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.
Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
Away with him!

O my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband.

It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
For that he knew you, might reproach your life
And choke your good to come; for his possessions,
Although by confiscation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you withal,
To buy you a better husband.

O my dear lord,
I crave no other, nor no better man.

Never crave him; we are definitive.

Gentle my liege,--
Kneeling

You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death!
To LUCIO
Now, sir, to you.

O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
I'll lend you all my life to do you service.

Against all sense you do importune her:
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror.

Isabel,
Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.
They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad: so may my husband.
O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?

He dies for Claudio's death.

Most bounteous sir,
Kneeling
Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
As if my brother lived: I partly think
A due sincerity govern'd his deeds,
Till he did look on me: since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died:
For Angelo,
His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
And must be buried but as an intent
That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;
Intents but merely thoughts.

Merely, my lord.

Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.
I have bethought me of another fault.
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?

It was commanded so.

Had you a special warrant for the deed?

No, my good lord; it was by private message.

For which I do discharge you of your office:
Give up your keys.

Pardon me, noble lord:
I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
Yet did repent me, after more advice;
For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserved alive.

What's he?

His name is Barnardine.

I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.
Exit Provost

I am sorry, one so learned and so wise
As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,
Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.
And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.

I am sorry that such sorrow I procure:
And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.
Re-enter Provost, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO muffled, and JULIET

Which is that Barnardine?

This, my lord.

There was a friar told me of this man.
Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.
That apprehends no further than this world,
And squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:
But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;
And pray thee take this mercy to provide
For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
I leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?

This is another prisoner that I saved.
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
Unmuffles CLAUDIO

[To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sake,
Give me your hand and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.
By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well:
Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself;
And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.
To LUCIO
You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
One all of luxury, an ass, a madman;
Wherein have I so deserved of you,
That you extol me thus?

'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the
trick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
had rather it would please you I might be whipt.

Whipt first, sir, and hanged after.
Proclaim it, provost, round about the city.
Is any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,
As I have heard him swear himself there's one
Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,
Let him be whipt and hang'd.

I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.
Your highness said even now, I made you a duke:
good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.

Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;
And see our pleasure herein executed.

Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,
whipping, and hanging.

Slandering a prince deserves it.
Exit Officers with LUCIO
She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:
I have confess'd her and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:
There's more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:
We shill employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.
Exeunt

Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS

Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-
chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John
Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.

In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and
'Coram.'

Ay, cousin Slender, and 'Custalourum.

Ay, and 'Rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born,
master parson; who writes himself 'Armigero,' in any
bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.'

Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three
hundred years.

All his successors gone before him hath done't; and
all his ancestors that come after him may: they may
give the dozen white luces in their coat.

It is an old coat.

The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;
it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to
man, and signifies love.

The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.

I may quarter, coz.

You may, by marrying.

It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

Not a whit.

Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat,
there is but three skirts for yourself, in my
simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir
John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto
you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my
benevolence to make atonements and compremises
between you.

The council shall bear it; it is a riot.

It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no
fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall
desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a
riot; take your vizaments in that.

Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword
should end it.

It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it:
and there is also another device in my prain, which
peradventure prings goot discretions with it: there
is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas
Page, which is pretty virginity.

Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks
small like a woman.

It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as
you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys,
and gold and silver, is her grandsire upon his
death's-bed--Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!
--give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years
old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles
and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master
Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.

Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.

I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.

Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts.

Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?

Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do
despise one that is false, or as I despise one that
is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I
beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will
peat the door for Master Page.
Knocks
What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

[Within] Who's there?
Enter PAGE

Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice
Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that
peradventures shall tell you another tale, if
matters grow to your likings.

I am glad to see your worships well.
I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.

Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it
your good heart! I wished your venison better; it
was ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page?--and I
thank you always with my heart, la! with my heart.

Sir, I thank you.

Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.

I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he
was outrun on Cotsall.

It could not be judged, sir.

You'll not confess, you'll not confess.

That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault;
'tis a good dog.

A cur, sir.

Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be
more said? he is good and fair. Is Sir John
Falstaff here?

Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good
office between you.

It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

He hath wronged me, Master Page.

Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.

If it be confessed, it is not redress'd: is not that
so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he
hath, at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert
Shallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged.

Here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL

Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king?

Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and
broke open my lodge.

But not kissed your keeper's daughter?

Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

I will answer it straight; I have done all this.
That is now answered.

The council shall know this.

'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:
you'll be laughed at.

Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.

Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your
head: what matter have you against me?

Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;
and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph,
Nym, and Pistol.

You Banbury cheese!

Ay, it is no matter.

How now, Mephostophilus!

Ay, it is no matter.

Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that's my humour.

Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?

Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is
three umpires in this matter, as I understand; that
is, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is
myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is,
lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.

We three, to hear it and end it between them.

Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-
book; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with
as great discreetly as we can.

Pistol!

He hears with ears.

The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He
hears with ear'? why, it is affectations.

Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?

Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might
never come in mine own great chamber again else, of
seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward
shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two
pence apiece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

Is this true, Pistol?

No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.

Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and Master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
Word of denial in thy labras here!
Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!

By these gloves, then, 'twas he.

Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say
'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's
humour on me; that is the very note of it.

By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for
though I cannot remember what I did when you made me
drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

What say you, Scarlet and John?

Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk
himself out of his five sentences.

It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and
so conclusions passed the careires.

Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no
matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again,
but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick:
if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have
the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.
Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following

Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
Exit ANNE PAGE

O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.

How now, Mistress Ford!

Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met:
by your leave, good mistress.
Kisses her

Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a
hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope
we shall drink down all unkindness.
Exeunt all except SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
Songs and Sonnets here.
Enter SIMPLE
How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait
on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles
about you, have you?

Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice
Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight
afore Michaelmas?

Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with
you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a
tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh
here. Do you understand me?

Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so,
I shall do that that is reason.

Nay, but understand me.

So I do, sir.

Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will
de******ion the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray
you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his
country, simple though I stand here.

But that is not the question: the question is
concerning your marriage.

Ay, there's the point, sir.

Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.

Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any
reasonable demands.

But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to
know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers
philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the
mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your
good will to the maid?

Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
would do reason.

Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak
possitable, if you can carry her your desires
towards her.

That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

I will do a greater thing than that, upon your
request, cousin, in any reason.

Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do
is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

I will marry her, sir, at your request: but if there
be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may
decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are
married and have more occasion to know one another;
I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt:
but if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that
I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in
the ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our
meaning, 'resolutely:' his meaning is good.

Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

Here comes fair Mistress Anne.
Re-enter ANNE PAGE
Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
worships' company.

I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS

Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

The dinner attends you, sir.

I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my
cousin Shallow.
Exit SIMPLE
A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his
friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy
yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I
live like a poor gentleman born.

I may not go in without your worship: they will not
sit till you come.

I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
though I did.

I pray you, sir, walk in.

I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised
my shin th' other day with playing at sword and
dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a
dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot
abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your
dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?

I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

I love the sport well but I shall as soon quarrel at
it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see
the bear loose, are you not?

Ay, indeed, sir.

That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen
Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by
the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so
cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women,
indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favored
rough things.
Re-enter PAGE

Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

Nay, pray you, lead the way.

Come on, sir.

Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.

I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome.
You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!
Exeunt

Enter FALSTAFF, Host, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN

Mine host of the Garter!

What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely.

Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
followers.

Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.

I sit at ten pounds a week.

Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I
will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall
tap: said I well, bully Hector?

Do so, good mine host.

I have spoke; let him follow.
To BARDOLPH
Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow.
Exit

Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade:
an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered
serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.

O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
Exit BARDOLPH

He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited?

I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his
thefts were too open; his filching was like an
unskilful singer; he kept not time.

The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.

'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico
for the phrase!

Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

Why, then, let kibes ensue.

There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.

Young ravens must have food.

Which of you know Ford of this town?

I ken the wight: he is of substance good.

My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

Two yards, and more.

No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two
yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about
thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's
wife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses,
she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I
can construe the action of her familiar style; and
the hardest voice of her behavior, to be Englished
rightly, is, 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'

He hath studied her will, and translated her will,
out of honesty into English.

The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?

Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her
husband's purse: he hath a legion of angels.

As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.

The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.

I have writ me here a letter to her: and here
another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good
eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious
oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my
foot, sometimes my portly belly.

Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

I thank thee for that humour.

O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a
greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did
seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's
another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she
is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will
be cheater to them both, and they shall be
exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West
Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou
this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to
Mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all!

I will run no base humour: here, take the
humour-letter: I will keep the havior of reputation.

[To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek ****ter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,
French thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN

Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor:
Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!

I have operations which be humours of revenge.

Wilt thou revenge?

By welkin and her star!

With wit or steel?

With both the humours, I:
I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.

And I to Ford shall eke unfold
How Falstaff, varlet vile,
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.

My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to
deal with poison; I will possess him with
yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous:
that is my true humour.

Thou art the Mars of male*******s: I second thee; troop on.
Exeunt

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY

What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement,
and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor
Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find any
body in the house, here will be an old abusing of
God's patience and the king's English.

I'll go watch.

Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.
Exit RUGBY
An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant
shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no
tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,
that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let
that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?

Ay, for fault of a better.

And Master Slender's your master?

Ay, forsooth.

Does he not wear a great round beard, like a
glover's paring-knife?

No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a
little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard.

A softly-sprighted man, is he not?

Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands
as any is between this and his head; he hath fought
with a warrener.

How say you? O, I should remember him: does he not
hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

Yes, indeed, does he.

Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell
Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your
master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish--
Re-enter RUGBY

Out, alas! here comes my master.

We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man;
go into this closet: he will not stay long.
Shuts SIMPLE in the closet
What, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say!
Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt
he be not well, that he comes not home.
Singing
And down, down, adown-a, & c.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you,
go and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert, a box,
a green-a box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.

Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you.
Aside
I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found
the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je
m'en vais a la cour--la grande affaire.

Is it this, sir?

Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere
is dat knave Rugby?

What, John Rugby! John!

Here, sir!

You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come,
take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.

'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me!
Qu'ai-j'oublie! dere is some simples in my closet,
dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.

Ay me, he'll find the young man here, and be mad!

O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron!
Pulling SIMPLE out
Rugby, my rapier!

Good master, be *******.

Wherefore shall I be *******-a?

The young man is an honest man.

What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is
no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth
of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.

Vell.

Ay, forsooth; to desire her to--

Peace, I pray you.

Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.

To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to
speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my
master in the way of marriage.

This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my
finger in the fire, and need not.

Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper.
Tarry you a little-a while.
Writes

[Aside to SIMPLE] I am glad he is so quiet: if he
had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard 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 and drink, make the beds and do
all myself,--

[Aside to MISTRESS QUICKLY] 'Tis a great charge to
come under one body's hand.

[Aside to SIMPLE] Are you avised o' that? you
shall find it a great charge: and to be up early
and down 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.

You jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by
gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in dee
park; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape 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

Alas, he speaks but for his friend.

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 have Anne Page.

Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We
must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer!

Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have
not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my
door. Follow my heels, Rugby.
Exeunt DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY

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.

[Within] Who's within there? ho!

Who's there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you.
Enter FENTON

How now, good woman? how dost thou?

The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.

What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?

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.

Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?

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
above your eye?

Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

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
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.

Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money
for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if
thou seest her before me, commend me.

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.

Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.

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

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter

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 physician, he admits him
not for his 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 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'
What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked
world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with
age to show himself a young gallant! What an
unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard
picked--with the devil's name!--out of my
conversation, that he dares in this 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 sure as his guts are made of puddings.
Enter MISTRESS FORD

Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.

And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very
ill.

Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.

Faith, but you do, in my mind.

Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the
contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

What's the matter, woman?

O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I
could come to such honour!

Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is
it? dispense with trifles; what is it?

If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so,
I could be knighted.

What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights
will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the
article of thy gentry.

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; 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 Hundredth Psalm to
the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' 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. Did you ever hear the like?

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 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,
and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you
twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.

Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very
words. What doth he think of us?

Nay, I know not: it makes me almost 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.

'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
above deck.

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 he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.

Nay, I will consent to act any villany 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.

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.

You are the happier woman.

Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
Come hither.
They retire
Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM

Well, I hope it be not so.

Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.

Why, sir, my wife is not young.

He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.

Love my wife!

With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:
O, odious is the name!

What name, sir?

The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:
Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.
Exit

[Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this.

[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 Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis
true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.
Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,
and there's the humour of it. Adieu.
Exit

'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow
frights English out of his wits.

I will seek out Falstaff.

I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

If I do find it: well.

I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest
o' the town commended him for a true man.

'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.

How now, Meg!
MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward

Whither go you, George? Hark you.

How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,
will you go, 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.

[Aside to MISTRESS PAGE] Trust me, I thought on her:
she'll fit it.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

You are come to see my daughter Anne?

Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with
you.
Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS QUICKLY

How now, Master Ford!

You heard what this knave told me, did you not?

Yes: and you heard what the other told me?

Do you think there is truth in them?

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.

Were they his men?

Marry, were they.

I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at
the Garter?

Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and
what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it
lie on my head.

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 satisfied.

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.
Enter Host
How now, mine host!

How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.
Cavaleiro-justice, I say!
Enter 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.

Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.
Drawing him aside

What sayest thou, my bully-rook?

[To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My
merry 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.
They converse apart

Hast thou no suit against my knight, my
guest-cavaleire?

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.

My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;
--said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is
a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?

Have with you, mine host.

I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in
his rapier.

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 like rats.

Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?

Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.
Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE

Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so 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 be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed.
Exit

Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL

I will not lend thee a penny.

Why, then the world's mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open.

Not a penny. I have been *******, sir, you should
lay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon my
good friends for three reprieves for you and your
coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through
the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in
hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were
good soldiers and tall fellows; and when Mistress
Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took't upon
mine honour thou hadst it not.

Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?

Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I'll
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 Pickt-hatch! Go.
You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you
stand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable
baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the
terms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself
sometimes, leaving the fear of God 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 cat-a-mountain
looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your
bold-beating oaths, under the ****ter of your
honour! You will not do it, you!

I do relent: what would thou more of man?
Enter ROBIN

Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.

Let her approach.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

Give your worship good morrow.

Good morrow, good wife.

Not so, an't please your worship.

Good maid, then.

I'll be sworn,
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.

I do believe the swearer. What with me?

Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee
the hearing.

There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a
little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master
Doctor Caius,--

Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,--

Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,
come a little nearer this ways.

I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine
own people.

Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!

Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?

Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your
worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all
of us, I pray!

Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,--

Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you
have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis
wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the
court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her
to such a 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 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: 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.

But what says she to me? be brief, my good
she-Mercury.

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.

Ten and eleven?

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 leads a very frampold life with
him, good heart.

Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will
not fail her.

Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to
your worship. Mistress Page hath her 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
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.

Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my
good parts aside I have no other charms.

Blessing on your heart for't!

But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and
Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?

That were a jest indeed! they have not so little
grace, I hope: that were a trick indeed! but
Mistress Page would desire you to send her your
little page, of all loves: her husband has a
marvellous infection to the little page; and truly
Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in
Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what
she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go
to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as
she will: and truly she deserves it; for if there
be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must
send her your page; no remedy.

Why, I will.

Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and
go between you both; and in any case have a
nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and
the boy never need to understand any thing; for
'tis not good that children should know any
wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion,
as they say, and know the world.

Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's
my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with
this woman.
Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN
This news distracts me!

This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:
Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights:
Give fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!
Exit

Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make
more of thy old body than I have done. Will they
yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense
of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I
thank thee. Let them say 'tis grossly done; so it be
fairly done, no matter.
Enter BARDOLPH

Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain
speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath
sent your worship a morning's draught of sack.

Brook is his name?

Ay, sir.

Call him in.
Exit BARDOLPH
Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such
liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
have I encompassed you? go to; via!
Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised

Bless you, sir!

And you, sir! Would you speak with me?

I make bold to press with so little preparation upon
you.

You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.
Exit BARDOLPH

Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.

Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.

Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you;
for I must let you understand I think myself in
better plight for a lender than you are: the which
hath something embolden'd me to this unseasoned
intrusion; for they say, if money go before, all
ways do lie open.

Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.

Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me:
if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or
half, for easing me of the carriage.

Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.

I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.

Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be
your servant.

Sir, I hear you are a scholar,--I will be brief
with you,--and you have been a man long known to me,
though I had never so good means, as desire, to make
myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a
thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine
own imperfection: but, good Sir John, as you have
one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded,
turn another into the register of your own; that I
may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you
yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.

Very well, sir; proceed.

There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's
name is Ford.

Well, sir.

I have long loved her, and, I protest to you,
bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting
observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her;
fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly
give me sight of her; not only bought many presents
to give her, but have given largely to many to know
what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued
her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the
wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have
merited, either in my mind or, in my means, meed,
I am sure, I have received none; unless experience
be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite
rate, and that hath taught me to say this:
'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'

Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?

Never.

Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

Never.

Of what quality was your love, then?

Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so
that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place
where I erected it.

To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

When I have told you that, I have told you all.
Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in
other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that
there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir
John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a
gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable
discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your
place and person, generally allowed for your many
war-like, court-like, and learned preparations.

O, sir!

Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend
it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only
give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as
to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this
Ford's wife: use your art of wooing; win her to
consent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as
any.

Would it apply well to the vehemency of your
affection, that I should win what you would enjoy?
Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.

O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on
the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my
soul dares not present itself: she is too bright to
be looked against. Now, could I could come to her
with any detection in my hand, my desires had
instance and argument to commend themselves: I
could drive her then from the ward of her purity,
her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand
other her defences, which now are too too strongly
embattled against me. What say you to't, Sir John?

Master Brook, I will first make bold with your
money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a
gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.

O good sir!

I say you shall.

Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.

Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want
none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her
own appointment; even as you came in to me, her
assistant or go-between parted from me: I say I
shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at
that time the jealous rascally knave her husband
will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall
know how I speed.

I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,
sir?

Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:
yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the
jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the
which his wife seems to me well-favored. I will
use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer;
and there's my harvest-home.

I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him
if you saw him.

Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will
stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my
cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er the
cuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I
will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt
lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night.
Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style;
thou, Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and
cuckold. Come to me soon at night.
Exit

What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is
ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is
improvident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the
hour is fixed; the match is made. Would any man
have thought this? See the hell of having a false
woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers
ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not
only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under
the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that
does me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds
well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are
devils' additions, the names of fiends: but
Cuckold! Wittol!--Cuckold! the devil himself hath
not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass: he
will trust his wife; he will not be jealous. I will
rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh
the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my
aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling
gelding, than my wife with herself; then she plots,
then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they
think in their hearts they may effect, they will
break their hearts but they will effect. God be
praised for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour.
I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on
Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it;
better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!
Exit

Enter DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY

Jack Rugby!

Sir?

Vat is de clock, Jack?

'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.

By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he
has pray his Pible well, dat he is no come: by gar,
Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.

He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill
him, if he came.

By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him.
Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.

Alas, sir, I cannot fence.

Villany, take your rapier.

Forbear; here's company.
Enter Host, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE

Bless thee, bully doctor!

Save you, Master Doctor Caius!

Now, good master doctor!

Give you good morrow, sir.

Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?

To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee
traverse; to see thee here, to see thee there; to
see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy
distance, thy montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is
he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my
AEsculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is
he dead, bully stale? is he dead?

By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he
is not show his face.

Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!

I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or
seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of
souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should
fight, you go against the hair of your professions.
Is it not true, Master Page?

Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great
fighter, though now a man of peace.

Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of
the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to
make one. Though we are justices and doctors and
churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our
youth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page.

'Tis true, Master Shallow.

It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor
Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of
the peace: you have showed yourself a wise
physician, and Sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise
and patient churchman. You must go with me, master doctor.

Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.

Mock-vater! vat is dat?

Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de
Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me
vill cut his ears.

He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?

That is, he will make thee amends.

By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me;
for, by gar, me vill have it.

And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.

Me tank you for dat.

And, moreover, bully,--but first, master guest, and
Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you
through the town to Frogmore.
Aside to them

Sir Hugh is there, is he?

He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will
bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

We will do it.

Adieu, good master doctor.
Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a
jack-an-ape to Anne Page.

Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold
water on thy choler: go about the fields with me
through Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress
Anne Page is, at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou
shalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well?

By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you;
and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl,
de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne
Page. Said I well?

By gar, 'tis good; vell said.

Let us wag, then.

Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.
Exeunt

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man,
and friend Simple by your name, which way have you
looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?

Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every
way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town
way.

I most fehemently desire you you will also look that
way.

I will, sir.
Exit

'Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and
trempling of mind! I shall be glad if he have
deceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog
his urinals about his knave's costard when I have
good opportunities for the ork. 'Pless my soul!
Sings
To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sings madrigals;
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
To shallow--
Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.
Sings
Melodious birds sing madrigals--
When as I sat in Pabylon--
And a thousand vagram posies.
To shallow & c.
Re-enter SIMPLE

Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.

He's welcome.
Sings
To shallow rivers, to whose falls-
Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?

No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master
Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over
the stile, this way.

Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

How now, master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh.
Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student
from his book, and it is wonderful.

[Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page!

'Save you, good Sir Hugh!

'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!

What, the sword and the word! do you study them
both, master parson?

And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this
raw rheumatic day!

There is reasons and causes for it.

We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.

Fery well: what is it?

Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike
having received wrong by some person, is at most
odds with his own gravity and patience that ever you
saw.

I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never
heard a man of his place, gravity and learning, so
wide of his own respect.

What is he?

I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the
renowned French physician.

Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as
lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.

Why?

He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,
--and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you
would desires to be acquainted withal.

I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!

It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder:
here comes Doctor Caius.
Enter Host, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY

Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.

So do you, good master doctor.

Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep
their limbs whole and hack our English.

I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.
Vherefore vill you not meet-a me?

[Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you, use your patience:
in good time.

By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.

[Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you let us not be
laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you
in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.
Aloud
I will knog your urinals about your knave's cockscomb
for missing your meetings and appointments.

Diable! Jack Rugby,--mine host de Jarteer,--have I
not stay for him to kill him? have I not, at de place
I did appoint?

As I am a Christians soul now, look you, this is the
place appointed: I'll be judgement by mine host of
the Garter.

Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,
soul-curer and body-curer!

Ay, dat is very good; excellent.

Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I
politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I
lose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions and the
motions. Shall I lose my parson, my priest, my Sir
Hugh? no; he gives me the proverbs and the
no-verbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so. Give me
thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have
deceived you both; I have directed you to wrong
places: your hearts are mighty, your skins are
whole, and let burnt sack be the issue. Come, lay
their swords to pawn. Follow me, lads of peace;
follow, follow, follow.

Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.

[Aside] O sweet Anne Page!
Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and Host

Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of
us, ha, ha?

This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I
desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog
our prains together to be revenge on this same
scall, scurvy cogging companion, the host of the Garter.

By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me
where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.

Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow.
Exeunt

Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were wont to
be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether
had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?

I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man
than follow him like a dwarf.

O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you'll be a courtier.
Enter FORD

Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?

Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want
of company. I think, if your husbands were dead,
you two would marry.

Be sure of that,--two other husbands.

Where had you this pretty weather-cock?

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
husband had him of. What do you call your knight's
name, sirrah?

Sir John Falstaff.

Sir John Falstaff!

He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such a
league between my good man and he! Is your wife at
home indeed?

Indeed she is.

By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her.
Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any
thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them.
Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as
easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve
score. He pieces out his wife's inclination; he
gives her folly motion and advantage: and now she's
going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A
man may hear this shower sing in the wind. And
Falstaff's boy with her! Good plots, they are laid;
and our revolted wives share damnation together.
Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck
the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming
Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and
wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all
my neighbours shall cry aim.
Clock heard
The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me
search: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be
rather praised for this than mocked; for it is as
positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is
there: I will go.
Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Host, SIR HUGH EVANS, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY

Well met, Master Ford.

Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home;
and I pray you all go with me.

I must excuse myself, Master Ford.

And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with
Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for
more money than I'll speak of.

We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and
my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

I hope I have your good will, father Page.

You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you:
but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a
Quickly tell me so mush.

What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he
dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he
speaks holiday, he smells April and May: he will
carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he
will carry't.

Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
of no having: he kept company with the wild prince
and Poins; he is of too high a region; he knows too
much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes
with the finger of my substance: if he take her,
let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on
my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

I beseech you heartily, some of you go home with me
to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have
sport; I will show you a monster. Master doctor,
you shall go; so shall you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.

Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing
at Master Page's.
Exeunt SHALLOW, and SLENDER

Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.
Exit RUGBY

Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight
Falstaff, and drink canary with him.
Exit

[Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe wine first
with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

Have with you to see this monster.
Exeunt

Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

What, John! What, Robert!

Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket--

I warrant. What, Robin, I say!
Enter Servants with a basket

Come, come, come.

Here, set it down.

Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be
ready here hard by in the brew-house: and when I
suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause
or staggering take this basket on your shoulders:
that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry
it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there
empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

You will do it?

I ha' told them over and over; they lack no
direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.
Exeunt Servants

Here comes little Robin.
Enter ROBIN

How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?

My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door,
Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?

Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your
being here and hath threatened to put me into
everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he
swears he'll turn me away.

Thou'rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be
a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet
and hose. I'll go hide me.

Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.
Exit ROBIN
Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Exit

Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity,
this gross watery pumpion; we'll teach him to know
turtles from jays.
Enter FALSTAFF

Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let
me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the
period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!

O sweet Sir John!

Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,
Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would
thy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the
best lord; I would make thee my lady.

I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady!

Let the court of France show me such another. I see
how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast
the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the
ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of
Venetian admittance.

A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing
else; nor that well neither.

By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou
wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm
fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion
to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see
what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature
thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

Believe me, there is no such thing in me.

What made me love thee? let that persuade thee
there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I
cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a
many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like
women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury
in simple time; I cannot: but I love thee; none
but thee; and thou deservest it.

Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.

Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the
Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek
of a lime-kiln.

Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one
day find it.

Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.

Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not
be in that mind.

[Within] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's
Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and
looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras.

Pray you, do so: she's a very tattling woman.
FALSTAFF hides himself
Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN
What's the matter? how now!

O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed,
you're overthrown, you're undone for ever!

What's the matter, good Mistress Page?

O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man
to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

What cause of suspicion?

What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I
mistook in you!

Why, alas, what's the matter?

Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the
officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that
he says is here now in the house by your consent, to
take an ill advantage of his assence: you are undone.

'Tis not so, I hope.

Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man
here! but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,
with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a
one. I come before to tell you. If you know
yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you
have a friend here convey, convey him out. Be not
amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your
reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.

What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear
friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his
peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were
out of the house.

For shame! never stand 'you had rather' and 'you
had rather:' your husband's here at hand, bethink
you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot
hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here
is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he
may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as
if it were going to bucking: or--it is whiting-time
--send him by your two men to Datchet-mead.

He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?

[Coming forward] Let me see't, let me see't, O, let
me see't! I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's
counsel. I'll in.

What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?

I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.
I'll never--
Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen

Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,
Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!

What, John! Robert! John!
Exit ROBIN
Re-enter Servants
Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the
cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to
the laundress in Datchet-meat; quickly, come.
Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause,
why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest;
I deserve it. How now! whither bear you this?

To the laundress, forsooth.

Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You
were best meddle with buck-washing.

Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!
Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck;
and of the season too, it shall appear.
Exeunt Servants with the basket
Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my
dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my
chambers; search, seek, find out: I'll warrant
we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.
Locking the door
So, now uncape.

Good Master Ford, be *******ed: you wrong yourself too much.

True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see
sport anon: follow me, gentlemen.
Exit

This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not
jealous in France.

Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.
Exeunt PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

Is there not a double excellency in this?

I know not which pleases me better, that my husband
is deceived, or Sir John.

What a taking was he in when your husband asked who
was in the basket!

I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so
throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same
strain were in the same distress.

I think my husband hath some special suspicion of
Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross
in his jealousy till now.

I will lay a plot to try that; and we will yet have
more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will
scarce obey this medicine.

Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress
Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the
water; and give him another hope, to betray him to
another punishment?

We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow,
eight o'clock, to have amends.
Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that
he could not compass.

[Aside to MISTRESS FORD] Heard you that?

You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

Ay, I do so.

Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Amen!

You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

Ay, ay; I must bear it.

If there be any pody in the house, and in the
chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses,
heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!

By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies.

Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What
spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I
would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the
wealth of Windsor Castle.

'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.

You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as
honest a 'omans as I will desires among five
thousand, and five hundred too.

By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.

Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in
the Park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter
make known to you why I have done this. Come,
wife; come, Mistress Page. I pray you, pardon me;
pray heartily, pardon me.

Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock
him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house
to breakfast: after, we'll a-birding together; I
have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

Any thing.

If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

Pray you, go, Master Page.

I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy
knave, mine host.

Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart!

A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
Exeunt

Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE

I see I cannot get thy father's love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.

Alas, how then?

Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth--,
And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth:
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.

May be he tells you true.

No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne:
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;
And 'tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.

Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir:
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why, then,--hark you hither!
They converse apart
Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY

Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall
speak for himself.

I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but
venturing.

Be not dismayed.

No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,
but that I am afeard.

Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.

I come to him.
Aside
This is my father's choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!

And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you
good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress
Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of
a pen, good uncle.

Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in
Gloucestershire.

He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the
degree of a squire.

He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good
comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you.

Now, Master Slender,--

Now, good Mistress Anne,--

What is your will?

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

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

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.
Enter PAGE and MISTRESS 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.

Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

She is no match for you.

Sir, will you hear me?

No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

Speak to Mistress Page.

Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love
And not retire: let me have your good will.

Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

That's my master, master doctor.

Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth
And bowl'd to death with turnips!

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.

Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.
Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ANNE PAGE

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

I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.

Now heaven send thee good fortune!
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!
Exit

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

Bardolph, I say,--

Here, sir.

Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.
Exit BARDOLPH
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 ****vy 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 mountain of mummy.
Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack

Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

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.

Come in, woman!
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

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

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

With eggs, sir?

Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
Exit BARDOLPH
How now!

Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.

Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown
into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.

Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:
she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

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.

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.

I will tell her.

Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

Eight and nine, sir.

Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

Peace be with you, sir.
Exit

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

Bless you, sir!

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

That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.

And sped you, sir?

Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.

How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

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 heels a rabble of his companions, thither
provoked and instigated by his distemper, and,
forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.

What, while you were there?

While I was there.

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

You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's
approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's
distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.

A buck-basket!

By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul
shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy
napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest
compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.

And how long lay you there?

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.

In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you
have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;
you'll undertake her no more?

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.

'Tis past eight already, sir.

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
cuckold Ford.
Exit

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 buck-baskets! 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 horn-mad.
Exit

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE

Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?

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.

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, I see.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS
How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?

No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.

Blessing of his heart!

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.

Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.

Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your
master, be not afraid.

William, how many numbers is in nouns?

Two.

Truly, I thought there had been one number more,
because they say, ''Od's nouns.'

Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?

Pulcher.

Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.

You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace.
What is 'lapis,' William?

A stone.

And what is 'a stone,' William?

A pebble.

No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain.

Lapis.

That is a good William. What is he, William, that
does lend articles?

Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus
declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.

Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark:
genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?

Accusativo, hinc.

I pray you, have your remembrance, child,
accusative, hung, hang, hog.

'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative
case, William?

O,--vocativo, O.

Remember, William; focative is caret.

And that's a good root.

'Oman, forbear.

Peace!

What is your genitive case plural, William?

Genitive case!

Ay.

Genitive,--horum, harum, horum.

Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name
her, child, if she be a whore.

For shame, 'oman.

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!

'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.

Prithee, hold thy peace.

Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Forsooth, I have forgot.

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.

He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
Exit SIR HUGH EVANS
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
Exeunt

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD

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?

He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.

[Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

Step into the chamber, Sir John.
Exit FALSTAFF
Enter MISTRESS PAGE

How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?

Why, none but mine own people.

Indeed!

No, certainly.
Aside to her
Speak louder.

Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

Why?

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.

Why, does he talk of him?

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.

How near is he, Mistress Page?

Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

I am undone! The knight is here.

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.

Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
Shall I put him into the basket again?
Re-enter FALSTAFF

No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go
out ere he come?

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?

What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.

There they always use to discharge their
birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

Where is it?

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.

I'll go out then.

If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir
John. Unless you go out disguised--

How might we disguise him?

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.

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

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

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.

Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will
look some linen for your head.

Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put
on the gown the while.
Exit FALSTAFF

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.

Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the
devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

But is my husband coming?

Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket
too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

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.

Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him
like the witch of Brentford.

I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the
basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.
Exit

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

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

Come, come, take it up.

Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.
Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

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!

Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go
loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog!

Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

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?

Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in
any dishonesty.

Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah!
Pulling clothes out of the basket

This passes!

Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

I shall find you anon.

'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's
clothes? Come away.

Empty the basket, I say!

Why, man, why?

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.

If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

Here's no man.

By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this
wrongs you.

Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the
imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.

Well, he's not here I seek for.

No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

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.

What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman
down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Old woman! what old woman's that?

Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

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!

Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him
not strike the old woman.
Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE

Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

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

Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the
poor woman.

Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.

Hang her, witch!

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.

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.

Let's obey his humour a little further: come,
gentlemen.
Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most
unpitifully, methought.

I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the
altar; it hath done meritorious service.

What think you? may we, with the warrant of
womanhood and the witness of a good conscience,
pursue him with any further revenge?

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.

Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

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.

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.

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

Enter Host and 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.

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?

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

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

Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever
I did look upon.

And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

Within a quarter of an hour.

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.

'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.

There is no better way than that they spoke of.

How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park
at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.

You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has
been grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks
there should be terrors in him that he should not
come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have
no desires.

So think I too.

Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.

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.

Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
But what of this?

Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

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?

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.

And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
And burn him with their tapers.

The truth being known,
We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.

The children must
Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

I will teach the children their behaviors; and I
will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the
knight with my taber.

That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards.

My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.

That silk will I go buy.
Aside
And in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away
And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.

Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook
He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.

Fear not you that. Go get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.

Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery
honest knaveries.
Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

Go, Mistress Ford,
Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.
Exit MISTRESS FORD
I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
And he my husband best of all affects.
The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
Exit

Enter Host and SIMPLE

What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?
speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
from Master Slender.

There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about
with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go
knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian
unto thee: knock, I say.

There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his
chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come
down; I come to speak with her, indeed.

Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll
call. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from
thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine
host, thine Ephesian, calls.

[Above] How now, mine host!

Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her
descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?
fie!
Enter FALSTAFF

There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with
me; but she's gone.

Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
Brentford?

Ay, marry, was it, mussel-****l: what would you with her?

My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing
her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether
one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the
chain or no.

I spake with the old woman about it.

And what says she, I pray, sir?

Marry, she says that the very same man that
beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of
it.

I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;
I had other things to have spoken with her too from
him.

What are they? let us know.

Ay, come; quick.

I may not conceal them, sir.

Conceal them, or thou diest.

Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne
Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to
have her or no.

'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

What, sir?

To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.

May I be bold to say so, sir?

Ay, sir; like who more bold.

I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad
with these tidings.
Exit

Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
there a wise woman with thee?

Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught
me more wit than ever I learned before in my life;
and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for
my learning.
Enter BARDOLPH

Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!

Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto.

Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came
beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of
them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away,
like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not
say they be fled; Germans are honest men.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

Where is mine host?

What is the matter, sir?

Have a care of your entertainments: there is a
friend of mine come to town tells me there is three
cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of
Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and
money. I tell you for good will, look you: you
are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and
'tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.
Exit
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat
you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by
my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to
come. I tell you for good vill: adieu.
Exit

Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am
undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone!
Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH

I would all the world might be cozened; for I have
been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to
the ear of the court, how I have been transformed
and how my transformation hath been washed and
cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by
drop and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant
they would whip me with their fine wits till I were
as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered
since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my
wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
Now, whence come you?

From the two parties, forsooth.

The devil take one party and his dam the other! and
so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more
for their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy
of man's disposition is able to bear.

And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant;
speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart,
is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a
white spot about her.

What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was
beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow;
and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of
Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit,
my counterfeiting the action of an old woman,
delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the
stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.

Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you
shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your
*******. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good
hearts, what ado here is to bring you together!
Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that
you are so crossed.

Come up into my chamber.
Exeunt

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY

Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is
the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd
numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in
odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!

I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to
get you a pair of horns.

Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince.
Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY
Enter FORD
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter
will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the
Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall
see wonders.

Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me
you had appointed?

I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor
old man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a
poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband,
hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him,
Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell
you: he beat me grievously, in the shape of a
woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear
not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know
also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along
with me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I
plucked geese, played truant and whipped top, I knew
not what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow
me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave
Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I
will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow.
Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
Exeunt

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we
see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,
my daughter.

Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her and we have a
nay-word how to know one another: I come to her in
white, and cry 'mum;' she cries 'budget;' and by
that we know one another.

That's good too: but what needs either your 'mum'
or her 'budget?' the white will decipher her well
enough. It hath struck ten o'clock.

The night is dark; light and spirits will become it
well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil
but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.
Let's away; follow me.
Exeunt

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS

Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you
see your time, take her by the band, away with her
to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before
into the Park: we two must go together.

I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

Fare you well, sir.
Exit DOCTOR CAIUS
My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of
Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying
my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little
chiding than a great deal of heart-break.

Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the
Welsh devil Hugh?

They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak,
with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of
Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once
display to the night.

That cannot choose but amaze him.

If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be
amazed, he will every way be mocked.

We'll betray him finely.

Against such lewdsters and their lechery
Those that betray them do no treachery.

The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!
Exeunt

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies

Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts:
be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and
when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you:
come, come; trib, trib.
Exeunt

Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne

The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute
draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!
Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love
set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some
respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man
a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love
of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew
to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And
then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think
on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot
backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a
Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the
forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can
blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my
doe?
Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green
Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let
there come a tempest of provocation, I will ****ter me here.

Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will
keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow
of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.
Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter?
Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes
restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!
Noise within

Alas, what noise?

Heaven forgive our sins

What should this be?

Away, away!
They run off

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the
oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would
never else cross me thus.
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL, as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and others, as Fairies, with tapers

Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
Lies down upon his face

Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy;
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:
But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.

About, about;
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.

Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he
transform me to a piece of cheese!

Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.

With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

A trial, come.

Come, will this wood take fire?
They burn him with their tapers

Oh, Oh, Oh!

Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white; and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises
Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD

Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?

Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,
Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his
horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath
enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his
cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be
paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for
it, Master Brook.

Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.
I will never take you for my love again; but I will
always count you my deer.

I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.

And these are not fairies? I was three or four
times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet
the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my
powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a
received belief, in despite of the teeth of all
rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now
how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon
ill employment!

Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Well said, fairy Hugh.

And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.

I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art
able to woo her in good English.

Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that
it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as
this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I
have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked
with a piece of toasted cheese.

Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.

'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the
taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This
is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking
through the realm.

Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders
and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

A puffed man?

Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?

And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

And as poor as Job?

And as wicked as his wife?

And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack
and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and
swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I
am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh
flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use
me as you will.

Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one
Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to
whom you should have been a pander: over and above
that you have suffered, I think to repay that money
will be a biting affliction.

Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to
laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
Master Slender hath married her daughter.

[Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
Enter SLENDER

Whoa ho! ho, father Page!

Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.

Of what, son?

I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,
and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been
i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he
should have swinged me. If I did not think it had
been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis
a postmaster's boy.

Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took
a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for
all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had
him.

Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
you should know my daughter by her garments?

I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she
cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet
it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;
turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is
now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'
married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;
it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

Why, did you take her in green?

Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
Exit

This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
How now, Master Fenton!

Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed;
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to
strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.

Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
Exeunt

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

My wind cooling my broth
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?
But tell not me; I know, Antonio
Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

Why, then you are in love.

Fie, fie!

Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,
Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO

Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:
We leave you now with better company.

I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you
And you embrace the occasion to depart.

Good morrow, my good lords.

Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?

We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
Exeunt Salarino and Salanio

My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
We two will leave you: but at dinner-time,
I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.

I will not fail you.

You look not well, Signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care:
Believe me, you are marvellously changed.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
And let my liver rather heat with wine
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio--
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks--
There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!'
O my Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:
I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak.

Well, keep me company but two years moe,
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.

Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible.
Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO

Is that any thing now?

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two
grains of wheat hid in two bu****s of chaff: you
shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you
have them, they are not worth the search.

Well, tell me now what lady is the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promised to tell me of?

'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance:
Nor do I now make moan to be abridged
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time something too prodigal
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love,
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assured,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way with more advised watch,
To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both
Or bring your latter hazard back again
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

You know me well, and herein spend but time
To wind about my love with circumstance;
And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
In making question of my uttermost
Than if you had made waste of all I have:
Then do but say to me what I should do
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.

In Belmont is a lady richly left;
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia:
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate!

Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
Neither have I money nor commodity
To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;
Try what my credit can in Venice do:
That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
Where money is, and I no question make
To have it of my trust or for my sake.
Exeunt
SCENE II: Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house.
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of
this great world.

You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in
the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and
yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit
with too much as they that starve with nothing. It
is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the
mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but
competency lives longer.

Good sentences and well pronounced.

They would be better, if well followed.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men's
cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that
follows his own instructions: I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps
o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the
youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the
cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may
neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I
dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed
by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their
death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery,
that he hath devised in these three chests of gold,
silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning
chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any
rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what
warmth is there in your affection towards any of
these princely suitors that are already come?

I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest
them, I will describe them; and, according to my
de******ion, level at my affection.

First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but
talk of his horse; and he makes it a great
appropriation to his own good parts, that he can
shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his
mother played false with a smith.

Then there is the County Palatine.

He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If you
will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and
smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping
philosopher when he grows old, being so full of
unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be
married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth
than to either of these. God defend me from these
two!

How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but,
he! why, he hath a horse better than the
Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than
the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a
throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will
fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I
should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me
I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I
shall never requite him.