Part 129

FORD. 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.

FALSTAFF. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

FORD. 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 warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations.

FALSTAFF. O, sir!

FORD. 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.

FALSTAFF. 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.

FORD. 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 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?

FALSTAFF. 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.

FORD. O good sir!

FALSTAFF. I say you shall.

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

FALSTAFF. 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.

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

FALSTAFF. 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-favoured. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue’s coffer, and there’s my harvest-home.

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

FALSTAFF. 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 Falstaff._]

FORD. 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._]

SCENE III. A field near Windsor

Enter Doctor Caius and Rugby.

CAIUS. Jack Rugby!

RUGBY. Sir?

CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?

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

CAIUS. 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.

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

CAIUS. 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.

RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence.

CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier.

RUGBY. Forbear; here’s company.

Enter Page, Shallow, Slender and Host.

HOST God bless thee, bully doctor!

SHALLOW. God save you, Master Doctor Caius!

PAGE. Now, good Master Doctor!

SLENDER. Give you good morrow, sir.

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

HOST. 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?

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

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

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

SHALLOW. 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?

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

SHALLOW. 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.

PAGE. ’Tis true, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. It will be found so, Master Page.—Master Doctor Caius, I 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.

HOST. Pardon, guest justice.—A word, Monsieur Mockwater.

CAIUS. Mockvater? Vat is dat?

HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.

HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw? Vat is dat?

HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.

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

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

CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.

HOST. And, moreover, bully—but first, Master guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaliero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore.

PAGE [_Aside to Host_.] Sir Hugh is there, is he?

HOST. [_Aside to Page_.] He is there. See what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

SHALLOW. [_Aside to Host_.] We will do it.

PAGE, SHALLOW and SLENDER Adieu, good Master Doctor.

[_Exeunt Page, Shallow and Slender._]

CAIUS By gar, me vill kill de priest, for he speak for a jackanape to Anne Page.

HOST. 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 game! Said I well?

CAIUS. By gar, me tank 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.

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

CAIUS. By gar, ’tis good; vell said.

HOST. Let us wag, then.

CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT III

SCENE I. A field near Frogmore

Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple.

EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender’s servingman, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?

SIMPLE. Marry, sir, the Petty-ward, the Park-ward, every way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.

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

SIMPLE. I will, Sir.

[_Exit Simple._]

EVANS Pless my soul, how full of cholers 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— Whenas I sat in Pabylon— And a thousand vagram posies. To shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals._

Enter Simple.

SIMPLE Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.

EVANS. He’s welcome.

[_Sings._] _To shallow rivers, to whose falls—_ Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?

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

EVANS. Pray you, give me my gown—or else keep it in your arms.

Enter Page, Shallow and Slender.

SHALLOW 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.

SLENDER. [_Aside_.] Ah, sweet Anne Page!

PAGE. God save you, good Sir Hugh!

EVANS. God pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!

SHALLOW. What, the sword and the word? Do you study them both, Master Parson?

PAGE. And youthful still—in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatic day?

EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.

PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master Parson.

EVANS. Fery well; what is it?

PAGE. 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.

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

EVANS. What is he?

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

EVANS. Got’s will and His passion of my heart! I had as lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge.

PAGE. Why?

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

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

SLENDER. [_Aside_.] O, sweet Anne Page!

SHALLOW. It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder. Here comes Doctor Caius.

Enter Host, Caius and Rugby.

PAGE Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.

SHALLOW. So do you, good Master Doctor.

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

CAIUS. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear. Verefore will you not meet-a me?

EVANS. [_Aside to Caius_.] Pray you, use your patience. In good time.

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

EVANS. [_Aside to 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_.] By Jeshu, I will knog your urinal about your knave’s cogscomb.

CAIUS. _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?

EVANS. As I am a Christians soul, now look you, this is the place appointed. I’ll be judgment by mine host of the Garter.

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

CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good; excellent.

HOST. 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. [_To Caius_.] Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so. [_To Evans_.] 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.

[_Exit Host._]

SHALLOW. Afore God, a mad host! Follow, gentlemen, follow.

SLENDER. [_Aside_.] O, sweet Anne Page!

[_Exeunt Shallow, Slender and Page._]

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

EVANS. 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.

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

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

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A street in Windsor

Enter Mistress Page following Robin.

MISTRESS PAGE. 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?

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

MISTRESS PAGE. O, you are a flattering boy! Now I see you’ll be a courtier.

Enter Ford.

FORD Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

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

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

MISTRESS PAGE. Be sure of that—two other husbands.

FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock?

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

ROBIN. Sir John Falstaff.

FORD. Sir John Falstaff!

MISTRESS PAGE. 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?

FORD. Indeed she is.

MISTRESS PAGE. By your leave, sir, I am sick till I see her.

[_Exeunt Mistress Page and Robin._]

FORD 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 strikes_.] 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, Caius and Rugby.

SHALLOW, PAGE, etc. Well met, Master Ford.

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

SHALLOW. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.

SLENDER. 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.

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

SLENDER. I hope I have your good will, father Page.

PAGE. You have, Master Slender, I stand wholly for you.—But my wife, Master doctor, is for you altogether.

CAIUS. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me! My nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

HOST. 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.

PAGE. 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.

FORD. 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.

SHALLOW. Well, fare you well. We shall have the freer wooing at Master Page’s.

[_Exeunt Shallow and Slender._]

CAIUS Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

[_Exit Rugby._]

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

[_Exit Host._]

FORD [_Aside_.] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I’ll make him dance.—Will you go, gentles?

ALL. Have with you to see this monster.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. A room in Ford’s house

Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.

MISTRESS FORD. What, John! What, Robert!

MISTRESS PAGE. Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket—

MISTRESS FORD. I warrant.—What, Robin, I say!

Enter John and Robert with a great buck-basket.

MISTRESS PAGE. Come, come, come.

MISTRESS FORD. Here, set it down.

MISTRESS PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

MISTRESS FORD. 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.

MISTRESS PAGE. You will do it?

MISTRESS FORD. I ha’ told them over and over, they lack no direction.—Be gone, and come when you are called.

[_Exeunt John and Robert._]

MISTRESS PAGE. Here comes little Robin.

Enter Robin.

MISTRESS FORD. How now, my eyas-musket, what news with you?

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

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

ROBIN. 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.

MISTRESS PAGE. 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.

MISTRESS FORD. Do so.—Go tell thy master I am alone.

[_Exit Robin._]

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

MISTRESS PAGE. I warrant thee. If I do not act it, hiss me.

[_Exit Mistress Page._]

MISTRESS FORD. Go to, then. We’ll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion; we’ll teach him to know turtles from jays.

Enter Falstaff.

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!

MISTRESS FORD. O, sweet Sir John!

FALSTAFF. 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.

MISTRESS FORD. I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful lady.

FALSTAFF. 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.

MISTRESS FORD. A plain kerchief, Sir John. My brows become nothing else, nor that well neither.

FALSTAFF. 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.

MISTRESS FORD. Believe me, there’s no such thing in me.

FALSTAFF. 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.

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

FALSTAFF. 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.

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

FALSTAFF. Keep in that mind, I’ll deserve it.

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

Enter Robin.

ROBIN. Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford, here’s Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

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

MISTRESS FORD. Pray you, do so; she’s a very tattling woman.

[_Falstaff hides himself behind the arras._]

Enter Mistress Page.

What’s the matter? How now?

MISTRESS PAGE. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever!

MISTRESS FORD. What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

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

MISTRESS FORD. What cause of suspicion?

MISTRESS PAGE. What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! How am I mistook in you!

MISTRESS FORD. Why, alas, what’s the matter?

MISTRESS PAGE. 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 absence. You are undone.

MISTRESS FORD. ’Tis not so, I hope.

MISTRESS PAGE. 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.

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

MISTRESS PAGE. 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.

MISTRESS FORD. He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?

FALSTAFF. [_Comes out of hiding_.] 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.