The Merry Wives of Windsor
| ACT IV SCENE II | A room in FORD’S house. | |
| [Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD] | ||
| FALSTAFF | Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my | |
| sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, | ||
| and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth; not | ||
| only, Mistress Ford, in the simple | ||
| office of love, but in all the accoutrement, | 5 | |
| complement and ceremony of it. But are you | ||
| sure of your husband now? | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John. | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho! | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Step into the chamber, Sir John. | 10 |
| [Exit FALSTAFF] | ||
| [Enter MISTRESS PAGE] | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | How now, sweetheart! who’s at home besides yourself? | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Why, none but mine own people. | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Indeed! | |
| MISTRESS FORD | No, certainly. | |
| [Aside to her] | ||
| Speak louder. | 15 | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here. | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Why? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: | |
| he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails | ||
| against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s | 20 | |
| 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. | 25 | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Why, does he talk of him? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the | |
| last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests | ||
| to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and | ||
| the rest of their company from their sport, to make | 30 | |
| another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad | ||
| the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | How near is he, Mistress Page? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. | |
| MISTRESS FORD | I am undone! The knight is here. | 35 |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Why then you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead | |
| man. What a woman are you!–Away with him, away | ||
| with him! better shame than murder. | ||
| FORD | Which way should be go? how should I bestow him? | |
| Shall I put him into the basket again? | 40 | |
| [Re-enter FALSTAFF] | ||
| FALSTAFF | No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go | |
| out ere he come? | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door | |
| with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise | ||
| you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? | 45 | |
| FALSTAFF | What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney. | |
| MISTRESS FORD | There they always use to discharge their | |
| birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole. | ||
| FALSTAFF | Where is it? | |
| MISTRESS FORD | He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, | 50 |
| coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an | ||
| abstract for the remembrance of such places, and | ||
| goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house. | ||
| FALSTAFF | I’ll go out then. | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir | 55 |
| John. Unless you go out disguised– | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | How might we disguise him? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman’s gown | |
| big enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat, | ||
| a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape. | 60 | |
| FALSTAFF | Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather | |
| than a mischief. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a | |
| gown above. | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he | 65 |
| is: and there’s her thrummed hat and her muffler | ||
| too. Run up, Sir John. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will | |
| look some linen for your head. | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put | 70 |
| on the gown the while. | ||
| [Exit FALSTAFF] | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he | |
| cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears | ||
| she’s a witch; forbade her my house and hath | ||
| threatened to beat her. | 75 | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the | |
| devil guide his cudgel afterwards! | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | But is my husband coming? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket | |
| too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. | 80 | |
| MISTRESS FORD | We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the | |
| basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as | ||
| they did last time. | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Nay, but he’ll be here presently: let’s go dress him | |
| like the witch of Brentford. | 85 | |
| MISTRESS FORD | I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the | |
| basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight. | ||
| [Exit] | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough. | |
| We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do, | ||
| Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: | 90 | |
| We do not act that often jest and laugh; | ||
| ‘Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff. | ||
| [Exit] | ||
| [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants] | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders: | |
| your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it | ||
| down, obey him: quickly, dispatch. | 95 | |
| [Exit] | ||
| First Servant | Come, come, take it up. | |
| Second Servant | Pray heaven it be not full of knight again. | |
| First Servant | I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. | |
| [ Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS ] | ||
| FORD | Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any | |
| way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, | 100 | |
| 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! | 105 | |
| PAGE | Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go | |
| loose any longer; you must be pinioned. | ||
| SIR HUGH EVANS | Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! | |
| SHALLOW | Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed. | |
| FORD | So say I too, sir. | 110 |
| [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD] | ||
| Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford the honest | ||
| woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that | ||
| hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect | ||
| without cause, mistress, do I? | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in | 115 |
| any dishonesty. | ||
| FORD | Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah! | |
| [Pulling clothes out of the basket] | ||
| PAGE | This passes! | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. | |
| FORD | I shall find you anon. | 120 |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | ‘Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife’s | |
| clothes? Come away. | ||
| FORD | Empty the basket, I say! | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Why, man, why? | |
| FORD | Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed | 125 |
| out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may | ||
| not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: | ||
| my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. | ||
| Pluck me out all the linen. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death. | 130 |
| PAGE | Here’s no man. | |
| SHALLOW | By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this | |
| wrongs you. | ||
| SIR HUGH EVANS | Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the | |
| imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. | 135 | |
| FORD | Well, he’s not here I seek for. | |
| PAGE | No, nor nowhere else but in your brain. | |
| FORD | Help to search my house this one time. If I find | |
| not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let | ||
| me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of | 140 | |
| me, ‘As jealous as Ford, Chat searched a hollow | ||
| walnut for his wife’s leman.’ Satisfy me once more; | ||
| once more search with me. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman | |
| down; my husband will come into the chamber. | 145 | |
| FORD | Old woman! what old woman’s that? | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Nay, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford. | |
| FORD | A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not | |
| forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does | ||
| she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s | 150 | |
| 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! | 155 | |
| MISTRESS FORD | Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him | |
| not strike the old woman. | ||
| [ Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman’s clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE ] | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand. | |
| FORD | I’ll prat her. | |
| [Beating him] | ||
| Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you | 160 | |
| polecat, you runyon! out, out! I’ll conjure you, | ||
| I’ll fortune-tell you. | ||
| [Exit FALSTAFF] | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the | |
| poor woman. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | Nay, he will do it. ‘Tis a goodly credit for you. | 165 |
| FORD | Hang her, witch! | |
| SIR HUGH EVANS | By the yea and no, I think the ‘oman is a witch | |
| indeed: I like not when a ‘oman has a great peard; | ||
| I spy a great peard under his muffler. | ||
| FORD | Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; | 170 |
| see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus | ||
| upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. | ||
| PAGE | Let’s obey his humour a little further: come, | |
| gentlemen. | ||
| [ Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS ] | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. | 175 |
| MISTRESS FORD | Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most | |
| unpitifully, methought. | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the | |
| altar; it hath done meritorious service. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | What think you? may we, with the warrant of | 180 |
| womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, | ||
| pursue him with any further revenge? | ||
| MISTRESS PAGE | The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of | |
| him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with | ||
| fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the | 185 | |
| way of waste, attempt us again. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the | |
| figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can | ||
| find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight | 190 | |
| shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be | ||
| the ministers. | ||
| MISTRESS FORD | I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed: and | |
| methinks there would be no period to the jest, | ||
| should he not be publicly shamed. | 195 | |
| MISTRESS PAGE | Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would | |
| not have things cool. | ||
| [Exeunt] | ||
Next: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 4, Scene 3