The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare (free children's online books .txt) 📖

the very words. What doth he think of us?

MRS. PAGE. 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.

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

MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never to sea again. Let's be revenged on him; let's appoint him a meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.

MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food to his jealousy.

MRS. PAGE. Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.

MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman.

MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.

[They retire.]

[Enter FORD, PISTOL, and PAGE and NYM.]

FORD. Well, I hope it be not so.

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

FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young.

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

FORD. Love my wife!

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

FORD. What name, sir?

PISTOL. The horn, I say. Farewell: 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 PISTOL.]

FORD. [Aside] I will be patient: I will find out this.

NYM. [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 NYM.]

PAGE. [Aside.] 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights English out of his wits.

FORD. I will seek out Falstaff.

PAGE. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

FORD. If I do find it: well.

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

FORD. 'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.

PAGE. How now, Meg!

MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George? - Hark you.

MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

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

MRS. FORD. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now. Will you go, Mistress Page?

MRS. PAGE. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George? [Aside to MRS. FORD] Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.

MRS. FORD. [Aside to MRS. PAGE] Trust me, I thought on her: she'll fit it.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne?

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

MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we'd have an hour's talk with you.

[Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

PAGE. How now, Master Ford!

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

PAGE. Yes; and you heard what the other told me?

FORD. Do you think there is truth in them?

PAGE. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it; but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service.

FORD. Were they his men?

PAGE. Marry, were they.

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

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

FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would have nothing 'lie on my head': I cannot be thus satisfied.

PAGE. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes. There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse when he looks so merrily.

[Enter HOST and SHALLOW.]

How now, mine host!

HOST. How now, bully-rook! Thou'rt a gentleman. Cavaliero-justice, I say!

SHALLOW. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? We have sport in hand.

HOST. Tell him, cavaliero-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

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

FORD. Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.

HOST. What say'st thou, my bully-rook?

[They go aside.]

SHALLOW. [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.]

HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaliero?

FORD. None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brook, only for a jest.

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

SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.

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

SHALLOW. Tut, sir! I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

HOST. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?

PAGE. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.

[Exeunt HOST, SHALLOW, and PAGE.]

FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so 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.]


SCENE 2. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL.]

FALSTAFF. I will not lend thee a penny.

PISTOL. Why then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. I will retort the sum in equipage.

FALSTAFF. Not a penny. I have been content, 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.

PISTOL. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?

FALSTAFF. 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 Picht-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 shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you!

PISTOL. I do relent; what wouldst thou more of man?

[Enter ROBIN.]

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

FALSTAFF. Let her approach.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

QUICKLY. Give your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFF. Good morrow, good wife.

QUICKLY. Not so, an't please your worship.

FALSTAFF. Good maid, then.

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

FALSTAFF. I do believe the swearer. What with me?

QUICKLY. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

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

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

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

QUICKLY. Your worship says very true; - I pray your worship come a little nearer this ways.

FALSTAFF. I warrant thee nobody hears - mine own people, mine own people.

QUICKLY. Are they so? God bless them, and make them His servants!

FALSTAFF. Well: Mistress Ford, what of her?

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

FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford -

QUICKLY. 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.