The Merry Wives of Windsor (15 page)

MISTRESS FORD
    I would my husband would meet him in this

shape
⁷²
. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears

she’s a witch, forbade her my house and hath threatened to

beat her.

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
    Ay, in
good sadness
⁷⁸
is he, and talks of the basket

too, howsoever he hath had
intelligence
⁷⁹
.

MISTRESS FORD
    We’ll
try
⁸⁰
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.

MISTRESS FORD
    I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with

the basket. Go up, I’ll bring linen for him straight.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Hang him,
dishonest
⁸⁷
varlet! We cannot misuse him enough.

We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,

Wives may be merry, and yet
honest
⁸⁹
too.

We do not
act
⁹⁰
that often jest and laugh,

’Tis old but true:
still
swine eat all the
draff
⁹¹
.

MISTRESS FORD
    Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders.

Your master is
hard at
⁹³
door. If he bid you set it down, obey

him. Quickly,
dispatch
⁹⁴
.

JOHN
    Come, come, take it up.

ROBERT
    Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

JOHN
    I hope not, I had
as lief
⁹⁷
bear so much

lead.

FORD
    
Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
⁹⁹

way then to unfool me again?— Set down the

basket, villain.

Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O, you

panderly
rascals, there’s a knot, a
gin
¹⁰³
, a pack, a conspiracy

against me.
Now shall the devil be shamed
¹⁰⁴
. What, wife, I say!

Come, come forth. Behold what honest clothes you send

forth to bleaching.

PAGE
    Why, this
passes
¹⁰⁷
, Master Ford. You are not to go

loose any longer, you must
be pinioned
¹⁰⁸
.

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.

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 any dishonesty.

FORD
    Well said, brazen-face,
hold it out
¹¹⁸
! Come forth,

sirrah!

PAGE
    This passes.

MISTRESS FORD
    Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORD
    I shall find you anon.

EVANS
    ’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s

clothes? Come away.

FORD
    Empty the basket, I say!

PAGE
    Why, man, why?

FORD
    Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed

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
¹³²

death.

PAGE
    Here’s no man.

SHALLOW
    By my
fidelity
¹³⁵
, this is not well, Master Ford. This

wrongs you.

EVANS
    Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the

imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.

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
¹⁴²
, let me forever

be your
table-sport
¹⁴³
. Let them say of me, ‘As jealous as Ford,

that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s
leman
¹⁴⁴
.’ 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.

FORD
    Old woman? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORD
    Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

FORD
    A witch, a
quean
, an old
cozening
¹⁵¹
quean! Have I not

forbid her my house? She comes
of
¹⁵²
errands, does she? We are

simple men, we do not know what’s brought to pass
under
¹⁵³

the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by

spells,
by th’figure
, and such
daubery
¹⁵⁵
as this is, beyond our

element
¹⁵⁶
. We know nothing. Come down, you

witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say!

MISTRESS FORD
    Nay, good sweet husband.— Good gentlemen,

let him not strike the old woman.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Come,
Mother Prat
¹⁶⁰
, come, give me your hand.

FORD
    I’ll
prat
¹⁶¹
her. Out of my door, you witch,

you
rag
, you baggage, you polecat, you
runnion
¹⁶²
! Out, out! I’ll

conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

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
¹⁶⁶
.

FORD
    Hang her, witch!

EVANS
    
By yea and no
¹⁶⁸
, 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.

See but the issue of my jealousy. If I
cry out thus upon no
¹⁷²

trail, never trust me when I
open
¹⁷³
again.

PAGE
    Let’s
obey his humour
¹⁷⁴
a little further. Come,

gentlemen.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

MISTRESS FORD
    Nay, by th’mass, that he did not: he beat him

most unpitifully, methought.

MISTRESS PAGE
    I’ll have the cudgel
hallowed
¹⁷⁹
and hung o’er the

altar. It hath done
meritorious
¹⁸⁰
service.

MISTRESS FORD
    What think you? May we, with the
warrant
¹⁸¹
of

womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue

him with any further revenge?

MISTRESS PAGE
    The spirit of
wantonness
¹⁸⁴
is, sure, scared out of

him. If the devil have him not in
fee-simple
, with
fine and
¹⁸⁵

recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of
waste
¹⁸⁶
, attempt

us again.

MISTRESS FORD
    Shall we tell our husbands how we have
served
¹⁸⁸

him?

MISTRESS PAGE
    Yes, by all means, if it be but to scrape the

figures
¹⁹¹
out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their

hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further

afflicted, we two will still be the
ministers
¹⁹³
.

MISTRESS FORD
    I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed,

and methinks there would be no
period
¹⁹⁵
to the jest, should he

not be publicly shamed.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Come, to the
forge
with it, then
shape it
¹⁹⁷
. I would

not have things cool.

BARDOLPH
    Sir, the German desires to have three of your horses.

The duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are

going to meet him.

HOST
    What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear

not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen.

They speak English?

BARDOLPH
    Ay, sir. I’ll call them to you.

HOST
    They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay,

I’ll
sauce them
. They have had my house a week
at command
⁹
.

I have turned away my other guests. They must
come off
¹⁰
, I’ll

sauce them. Come.

EVANS
    
’Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman
¹
as ever I

did look upon.

PAGE
    And did he send you both these letters at
an instant
³
?

MISTRESS PAGE
    Within a quarter of an hour.

FORD
    Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt.

I rather will suspect the sun with cold

Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,

In him that was of late an
heretic
⁸
,

As firm as faith.

PAGE
    ’Tis well, ’tis well, no more.

Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.

But let our plot go forward. Let our wives

Yet once again, to make us public sport,

Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,

Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.

FORD
    There is no better way than that they spoke of.

PAGE
    How? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park

at midnight? Fie, fie, he’ll never come.

EVANS
    You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has

been grievously peaten as an old ’oman. Methinks there

should be terrors in him, that he should not come. Methinks

his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.

PAGE
    So think I too.

MISTRESS FORD
    Devise but how you’ll
use
²⁴
him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.

MISTRESS PAGE
    There is an old tale goes that
Herne the hunter
²⁶
,

Sometime
²⁷
a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great
ragged
²⁹
horns,

And there he
blasts
the tree, and
takes
³⁰
the cattle,

And makes
milch-kine
³¹
yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed
eld
³⁴

Received and did deliver to our age

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

PAGE
    Why, yet there
want
³⁷
not many that do fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s Oak.

But what of this?

MISTRESS FORD
    Marry, this is our device:

That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

PAGE
    Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,

And in this
shape
⁴³
. When you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MISTRESS PAGE
    That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:

Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,

And three or four more of their
growth
⁴⁷
, we’ll dress

Like
urchins
,
oafs
⁴⁸
and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen
tapers
⁴⁹
on their heads,

And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,

As Falstaff, she and I are newly met,

Let them from forth a
sawpit
⁵²
rush at once

With some
diffusèd
⁵³
song. Upon their sight,

We two in great amazèdness will fly:

Then let them all encircle him about,

And fairy-like to pinch the unclean knight,

And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,

In their so sacred paths he dares to tread

In shape profane.

MISTRESS FORD
    And till he tell the truth,

Let the supposèd fairies pinch him
sound
⁶¹
,

And burn him with their tapers.

MISTRESS PAGE
    The truth being known,

We’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,

And mock him home to Windsor.

FORD
    The children must

Be practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.

EVANS
    I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will

be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

FORD
    That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them
vizards
⁷⁰
.

MISTRESS PAGE
    My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,

Finely attirèd in a robe of white.

PAGE
    That silk will I go buy.— And in that time