Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Helen Ostovich
Not Peer Reviewed

The Merry Wives of Windsor (Modern, Folio)

[2.1]
Enter Mistress Page [with a letter].
Mistress Page
What, have scaped love-letters in the 555holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see!
Ask me no reason why I love you, for though love use reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counselor. You are not young; no more am I. Go to then, there's sympathy. 560You are merry; so am I. Ha, ha, then there's more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I. Would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say "pity me" -- 'tis not a soldier-like phrase – but I say "love me".
565 By me, thine own true knight, by day or night:
Or any kind of light, with all his might,
For thee to fight. John Falstaff
What a Herod of Jewry is this? Oh, wicked, wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age 570to show himself a young gallant? What an unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard picked, with the devil's name, out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company. What should I say to him? I was then 575frugal of my mirth. Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the Parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? For revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings!
Enter Mistress Ford.
Mistress Ford
Mistress Page, trust me, I was going to your 580house.
Mistress Page
And trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.
Mistress Ford
Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.
585Mistress Page
'Faith but you do in my mind.
Mistress Ford
Well, I do then. Yet I say, I could show you to the contrary. Oh, Mistress Page, give me some counsel.
Mistress Page
What's the matter, woman?
590Mistress Ford
Oh, woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honor.
Mistress Page
Hang the trifle, woman, take the honor! What is it? Dispence with trifles! What is it?
Mistress Ford
If I would but go to hell for an eternal 595moment or so, I could be knighted.
Mistress Page
What? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford? These knights will hack and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.
Mistress Ford
We burn daylight. Here, read, read!
[She holds out the letter.]
600Perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking. And yet he would not swear, praise women's modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have 605sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words. But they do no more adhere and keep place together than the hundred psalms to the tune of "Greensleeves". What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? 610How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever heare the like?
Mistress Page
Letter for letter – but that the name of 615Page and Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter.
[She holds out another letter.]
but let thine inherit first, for I protest} mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters writ with blank space for different names – sure, more, and 620these are of the second edition: he will print them, out of doubt, for he cares not what he puts into the press, when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion! Well; I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
625Mistress Ford
Why, this is the very same, the very hand, the very words! What doth he think of us?
Mistress 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 630sure, unless he know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
Mistress Ford
Boarding, call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above deck.
635Mistress 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.
640Mistress Ford
Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. Oh, that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food to his jealousy.
Enter Ford and Page with Pistol and Nym.
Mistress Page
Why, look where he comes, and my good 645man too. He's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause, and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.
Mistress Ford
You are the happier woman.
Mistress Page
Let's consult together against this greasy 650knight. Come hither.
[The wives walk aside together.]
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.
655Pistol
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,
660Or go thou, like Sir Acteon he, with
Ringwood at thy heels. Oh, odious's the name!
Ford
What name, sir?
Pistol
The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night.
665Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do sing.
-- Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
-- Believe it, Page. He speaks sense.
Ford
[Aside] I will be patient. I will find out this.
Nym
And this is true: I like not the humor of lying: 670he hath wronged me in some humors. I should have borne the humored 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 675and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu, I love not the humor of bread and cheese. AdiEvans
[Exeunt Nym and Pistol.]
Page
[Aside] The humor of it, quoth 'a? Here's a fellow frights English out of his wits.
Ford
[Aside] I will seek out Falstaff.
680Page
[Aside] I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
Ford
[Aside] If I do find it – well.
Page
[Aside] I will not believe such a Cathayan, though the priest o'th'yown commended him for a true man.
Ford
[Aside]'Twas a good sensible fellow – well.
[Mistress Page and Mistress Ford come forward.]
685Page
How now, Meg?
Mistress Page
Whether go you, George? Hark you.
[She draws him aside to whisper.]
Mistress Ford
How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
Ford
I, melancholy? I am not melancholy. 690Get you home. Go.
Mistress Ford
Faith, thou hast some crochets in thy head, now. -- Will you go, Mistress Page?
Mistress Page
Have with you! -- You'll come to dinner, George? -- [Aside to Mistress Ford] Look who comes yonder. She shall be our 695messenger to this paltry knight.
Mistress Ford
Trust me, I thought on her. She'll fit it.
Mistress Page
[To Mistress Quickly] You are come to see my daughter Anne?
Quickly
Ay, forsooth, and I pray how does good Mistress Anne?
700Mistress Page
Go in with us and see. We 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?
705Ford
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.
710Ford
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 voy715age 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 confi720dent. I would have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.
[Enter the Host.]
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. -- How now, mine 725host?
Host
How now, bully rook? Thou'rt a gentleman -- [Calling] Cavaleiro justice, I say!
[Enter Justice Shallow slowly.]
Shallow
I follow, mine host, I follow. – Good even and twenty, good Master Page. Master Page, will you go 730with 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.
735Ford
Good mine host o'th' Garter, a word with you.
Host
What sayst thou, my bully rook?
[Ford ushers him aside to talk.]
Shallow
Will you goe with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons, and, I thinke, hath appointed them contrary places. For, be740lieve me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.
[They talk aside.]
Host
[To Ford] Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest cavalier?
Ford
None, I protest, but I'll give you a pottle of 745burned sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Broom – only for a jest.
Host
My hand, bully! Thou shalt have egress and regress (said I well?) and thy name shall be Broom. It is a merry knight. [To all] Will you go, mijnheers?
750Shallow
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 755I 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?
760Page
Hace with you! I had rather hear them scold than fight.
[Exeunt Page, Host, and Shallow.]
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, 765and 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 labor. If she be otherwise, 'tis labor well bestowed. Exit.