| [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 Servants with a 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 Servants] | |
| 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 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 is 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. |
| ROBIN | [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. |
| 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] | |
| [Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN] | |
| 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 pon 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 assence: 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 so 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 | [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. |
| MISTRESS PAGE | What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight? |
| FALSTAFF | I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here. I'll never-- |
| [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen] | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight! |
| MISTRESS FORD | 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] | |
| FORD | 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? |
| Servant | To the laundress, forsooth. |
| MISTRESS FORD | Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing. |
| FORD | 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. | |
| PAGE | Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much. |
| FORD | True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. |
| [Exit] | |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. |
| DOCTOR CAIUS | By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France. |
| PAGE | Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search. |
| [Exeunt PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Is there not a double excellency in this? |
| MISTRESS FORD | I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John. |
| MISTRESS PAGE | What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket! |
| MISTRESS FORD | I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit. |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress. |
| MISTRESS FORD | 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. |
| MISTRESS PAGE | 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. |
| MISTRESS FORD | 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? |
| MISTRESS PAGE | 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] |
|
| FORD | I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass. |
| MISTRESS PAGE | [Aside to MISTRESS FORD] Heard you that? |
| MISTRESS FORD | You use me well, Master Ford, do you? |
| FORD | Ay, I do so. |
| MISTRESS FORD | Heaven make you better than your thoughts! |
| FORD | Amen! |
| MISTRESS PAGE | You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford. |
| FORD | Ay, ay; I must bear it. |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | 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! |
| DOCTOR CAIUS | By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies. |
| PAGE | 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. |
| FORD | 'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it. |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too. |
| DOCTOR CAIUS | By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman. |
| FORD | 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. |
| PAGE | 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? |
| FORD | Any thing. |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | If there is one, I shall make two in the company. |
| DOCTOR CAIUS | If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd. |
| FORD | Pray you, go, Master Page. |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host. |
| DOCTOR CAIUS | Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart! |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries! |
| [Exeunt] |