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  • Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Modern, Quarto)
  • Editor: Helen Ostovich
  • Markup editor: Janelle Jenstad
  • Coordinating editor: Janelle Jenstad

  • Copyright Helen Ostovich. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Editor: Helen Ostovich
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Merry Wives of Windsor (Modern, Quarto)

    [Scene 11]
    Enter Sir John Falstaff[, drenched, and Bardolph].
    1705 Falstaff
    Bardolph, brew me a pottle o' sack presently.
    Bardolph
    With eggs, sir?
    Falstaff
    Simply of itself. I'll none of these pullets' sperm in my drink. Go, make haste.
    [Exit Bardolph.]
    Have I lived to be carried in a basket and thrown into the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? Well, an I be served such another1685 trick, I'll give them leave to take out my brains and butter them, and give them to a dog for a New Year's gift. 'Sblood, the rogues slided me in with as little remorse as if they had gone to drown a blind bitch's puppies in the litter: and they might know1690 by my size I have a kind of alacrity in sinking. An the bottom had been as deep as hell I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and somewhat shallow: a death that I abhor! For you know the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled?1694.1 By the Lord, a mountain of mummy! --
    [Re-enter Bardolph, with a pot of sack.]
    Now, is the sack brewed?
    Bardolph
    Ay, sir. [Bardolph serves him.] There's a woman below would speak with you.
    Falstaff
    Bid her come up.
    [Exit Bardolph.]
    Let me put some sack among this cold water, for my belly is as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills.1699.1
    Enter Mistress Quickly.
    Now, what's the news with you?
    Quickly
    I come from Mistress Ford, forsooth.
    1710 Falstaff
    Mistress Ford? I have had Ford enough! I have been thrown into the Ford, my belly is full of Ford -- she hath tickled me.
    Quickly
    Oh, lord, sir, she is the sorrowfullest woman that her servants mistook that ever lived. And, sir, she would desire you of all loves you will meet her once again, tomorrow, sir, between ten and1720 eleven, and she hopes to make amends for all.
    1725 Falstaff
    Ten and eleven, sayest thou?
    1725.1 Quickly
    Ay, forsooth.
    Falstaff
    Well, tell her I'll meet her. Let her but think1727.1 of man's frailty. Let her judge what man is, and then think of me. And so farewell.
    Quickly
    You'll not fail, sir?
    1727.5 Falstaff
    I will not fail. Commend me to her.
    Exit Mistress Quickly.
    I wonder I hear not of Master Brook. I like his1730 money well. By the mass, here he is!
    Enter [Ford disguised as]Brook.
    God save you, sir.
    Falstaff
    Welcome, good Master Brook. You come to know how matters goes.
    Thats my coming indeed, Sir John.
    Falstaff
    Master Brook, I will not lie to you, sir. I was there at my appointed time.
    And how sped you, sir?
    Falstaff
    Very ill-favoredly, sir.
    Why, sir, did she change her determination?
    Falstaff
    No, Master Brook, but you shall hear. After we had kissed and embraced, and, as it were, even amid the prologue of our encounter, who should come but the jealous knave, her husband, and a rabble of his companions at his heels, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper. And what to do, think you? To search for his wife's love. Even so, plainly so.
    While ye were there?
    Falstaff
    Whilst I was there.
    And did he search and could not find you?
    Falstaff
    You shall hear, sir. As God would have it, a little before comes me one Page's wife, gives her intelligence of her husband's approach and, by her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, conveyed me into a buck-basket.
    A buck-basket!
    Falstaff
    By the Lord, a buck-basket, rammed me in with foul shirts, stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was a compound of the most villanous smell that ever offended nostril. I'll tell you, Master Brook, by the Lord, for your sake I suffered three egregious deaths: first, to be crammed like a good bilbo in the circomference of a pack, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to1780 be stewed in my own grease like a Dutch dish -- a man of my kidney! by the Lord, it was marvel I escaped suffocation -- and, in the heat of all this, to be thrown into Thames like a horseshoe. Hot, Master Brook! Think of that hissing heat, Master Brook!
    Well, sir, then my suit is void? You'll undertake it no more?
    Falstaff
    Master Brook, I'll be thrown into Etna1795 as I have been in the Thames, ere I thus leave her. I have received another appointment of meeting: between ten and eleven is the hour.
    Why, sir, 'tis almost ten already.
    Falstaff
    Is it? Why, then will I address myself for my appointment. Master Brook, come to me soon at night, and you shall know how I speed. And the end shall be, you shall enjoy her love. You shall cuckold Ford. Come to me soon1804.1 at night.
    Exit Falstaff.
    Is this a dream? Is it a vision? Master Ford, Master Ford, awake, Master Ford! There is a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford,1809.1 and a man shall not only endure this wrong, but shall stand under the taunt of names. Lucifer is a good name; Barbason, good; good devils' names. But cuckold, wittol, catso?1809.5 The devil himself hath not such a name! [He points to each side of his forehead.] And they may hang hats here, and napkins here upon my horns. Well, I'll home, I'll ferret him,1815 and unless the devil himself should aid him, I'll search unpossible places! I'll about it,1816.1 lest I repent too late.
    1820 Exit Ford.