Read The Merry Wives of Windsor Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
Aside to Fenton
choice.
O, what a world of vile
ill-favoured
33
faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you,
a word with you.
They speak apart
SHALLOW
She’s coming. To her, coz. O boy,
thou hadst a father
37
!
SLENDER
I had a father, Mistress Anne: my uncle can tell you
good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest
how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.
SHALLOW
Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
SLENDER
Ay, that I do, as well as I love any woman in
Gloucestershire.
SHALLOW
He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
SLENDER
Ay, that I will,
come cut and long-tail
45
, under the
degree of a squire.
SHALLOW
He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds
ANNE
Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
SHALLOW
Marry, I thank you for it: I thank you for that good
comfort. She calls you, coz. I’ll leave you.
Stands aside
ANNE
Now, Master Slender.
SLENDER
Now, good Mistress Anne.
ANNE
What is your
will
54
?
SLENDER
My will?
’Od’s heartlings
55
, that’s a pretty jest indeed!
I ne’er made my will yet, I thank heaven. I am not such a
sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
ANNE
I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
SLENDER
Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing
with you. Your father and my uncle hath made
motions
60
. If it
be my luck, so; if not,
happy man be his dole
61
. They can tell
you how things go better than I can. You may ask your
father, here he comes.
[
Enter Page and Mistress Page
]
PAGE
Now, Master Slender — love him, daughter Anne.—
Why, how now? What does Master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to
haunt
66
my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
FENTON
Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
MISTRESS PAGE
Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
PAGE
She is no match for you.
FENTON
Sir, will you hear me?
PAGE
No, good Master Fenton.—
Come, Master Shallow. Come, son Slender, in.—
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
[
Exeunt Page, Shallow and Slender
]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Speak to Mistress Page.
FENTON
Good Mistress Page,
for that
76
I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce
, against all
checks
, rebukes and
manners
78
,
I must
advance the colours
79
of my love
And not retire. Let me have your good will.
ANNE
Good mother, do not marry me to
yond
81
fool.
MISTRESS PAGE
I mean it not, I seek you a better husband.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
That’s my master, Master Doctor.
ANNE
Alas, I had rather be
set quick
84
i’th’earth,
And bowled to death with turnips!
MISTRESS PAGE
Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
I will not be your friend nor enemy:
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I
affected
89
.
Till then, farewell, sir. She must needs go in,
Her father will be angry.
FENTON
Farewell, gentle mistress.— Farewell, Nan.
[
Exeunt Mistress Page and Anne
]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
This is my doing, now. ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you
cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on
Master Fenton.’ This is my doing.
FENTON
I thank thee, and I pray thee
once
96
Gives her a ring and money
tonight, Give my sweet Nan this ring.
There’s
97
for
thy pains.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Now heaven send thee good fortune.
[
Exit Fenton
]
A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and
water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had
Mistress Anne, or I would Master Slender had her: or, in
sooth
103
, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for
them all three, for so I have promised, and I’ll be as good as
my word — but
speciously
for Master Fenton. Well, I must
of
105
another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses.
What a beast am I to slack it!
Exit
running scene 12
Enter Falstaff
FALSTAFF
Bardolph, I say!
[
Enter Bardolph
]
[
Exit Bardolph
]
Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a
barrow
4
of butcher’s
offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served
such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered,
and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift. The rogues
slighted me
8
into the river with as little remorse as they would
have drowned a
blind bitch’s puppies
9
, fifteen i’th’litter. And
you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in
sinking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should
down
11
. I
had been drowned, but that the
shore was shelvy
12
and
shallow — a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man —
and what a thing should I have been when I had been
swelled? I should have been a mountain of
mummy
15
.
[
Enter Bardolph with sack
]
BARDOLPH
Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF
Come. let me pour in some sack to the Thames
water, for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs
for pills to cool the
reins
19
. Call her in.
BARDOLPH
Come in, woman.
[
Enter Mistress Quickly
]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
By your leave, I
cry you mercy
21
! Give your
worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF
Take away these chalices. Go, brew me
To Bardolph
a
pottle
24
of sack finely.
BARDOLPH
With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF
Simple
of itself. I’ll no
pullet-sperm
26
in my brewage.—
How now?
[
Exit Bardolph
]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from
Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford? I have had ford enough. I was thrown
into the
ford
31
, I have my belly full of ford.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Alas the day, good heart, that was not her
fault. She does so
take on with
33
her men: they mistook their
FALSTAFF
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s
promise.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would
yearn
38
your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
a-birding. She desires you once more to come to her between
eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make
you amends, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF
Well, I will visit her. Tell her so, and bid her think
what a man is. Let her consider his
frailty
43
, and then judge of
my merit.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
I will tell her.
FALSTAFF
Do so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF
Well, be gone. I will not
miss
48
her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Peace be with you, sir.
[
Exit
]
FALSTAFF
I marvel I hear not of Master Broom. He sent me
word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.
[
Enter Ford, disguised as Broom
]
FORD
Bless you, sir!
FALSTAFF
Now, Master Broom, you come to know what hath
passed between me and Ford’s wife.
FORD
That indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF
Master Broom, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.
FORD
And
sped you
58
, sir?
FALSTAFF
Very
ill-favouredly
59
, Master Broom.
FORD
How so, sir? Did she change her
determination
60
?
FALSTAFF
No, Master Broom, but the
peaking cornuto
61
her
husband, Master Broom, dwelling in a continual
’larum
62
of
jealousy,
comes me
63
in the instant of our encounter, after we
had embraced, kissed,
protested
64
, and, as it were, spoke the
prologue of our comedy: and at his heels a rabble of his
companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper,
and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.
FORD
What, while you were there?
FALSTAFF
While I was there.
FORD
And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in
one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford’s approach: and,
in her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed
me into a buck-basket.
FORD
A buck-basket?
FALSTAFF
Yes, a buck-basket!
Rammed
76
me in with foul shirts
and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins,
that
77
,
Master Broom, there was the rankest compound of villainous
smell that ever offended nostril.
FORD
And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF
Nay, you shall hear, Master Broom, what I have
suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being
thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford’s
knaves, his
83
hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the
name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane: they took me on their
shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door,
who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket.
I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched
it, but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,
held
89
his hand.
Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul
clothes. But
mark
91
the sequel, Master Broom. I suffered the
pangs of three
several
92
deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to
be
detected with
a jealous
rotten
bell-wether
93
: next, to be
compassed
, like a good
bilbo
in the circumference of a
peck
94
,
hilt to point, heel to head, and then, to be
stopped
95
in like a
strong
distillation
with stinking clothes that
fretted
96
in their
own grease. Think of that, a man of my
kidney
97
, think of
that — that am as subject to heat as butter — a man of
continual
dissolution
99
and thaw: it was a miracle to scape
suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was
more than half stewed in grease like a
Dutch dish
101
, to be
thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that
surge, like a horse-shoe. Think of that — hissing hot —
think of that, Master Broom.
FORD
In
good sadness
105
, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you
have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate. You’ll
undertake her no more?
FALSTAFF
Master Broom, I will be thrown into
Etna
108
, as I have
been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is
this morning gone a-birding. I have received from her
another
embassy
111
of meeting: ’twixt eight and nine is the
hour, Master Broom.
FORD
’Tis past eight already, sir.
FALSTAFF
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.
Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know
how I speed. And the conclusion shall be crowned with your
enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Broom.
Master Broom, you shall cuckold Ford.