ACT IV SCENE II

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