The Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗

basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MRS. 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?

FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.

MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.

MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.

FALSTAFF. Where is it?

MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, 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.

MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised, -

MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?

MRS. 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.

FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief.

MRS. FORD. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has a gown above.

MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is; and there's her thrummed hat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.

MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.

MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight; put on the gown the while.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming?

MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

MRS. 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.

MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress him like the witch of Brainford.

MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.

[Exit.]

MRS. 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.
We do not act that often jest and laugh;
'Tis old but true: 'Still swine eats all the draff.'

[Exit.]

[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS.]

MRS. 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.

[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 lief as bear so much lead.

[Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, 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, 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!

PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford! you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

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. -

[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.]

Come hither, 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?

MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

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

[Pulling clothes out of the basket.]

PAGE. This passes!

MRS. 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!

MRS. FORD. 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.

MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

PAGE. Here's no man.

SHALLOW. By my fidelity, 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.

[Servants carry away the basket.]

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 me 'As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.

MRS. FORD. What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

FORD. Old woman? what old woman's that?

MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.

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 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!

MRS. FORD. Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, led by MISTRESS PAGE.]

MRS. PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

FORD. I'll prat her. - [Beats him.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.

[Exit FALSTAFF.]

MRS. PAGE. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.

FORD. Hang her, witch!

EVANS. By 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 her muffler.

FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow; 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, CAIUS, and EVANS.]

MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

MRS. FORD. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully methought.

MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

MRS. 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 way of waste, attempt us again.

MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

MRS. 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 shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

MRS. 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.

MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I would not have things cool.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 3. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.]

BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow 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; I have turned away my other guests. They must come off; I'll sauce them. Come.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 4. A room in FORD'S house.

[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon.

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

MRS. 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, 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.

MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes, And let us two devise to bring him thither.

MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle, And makes milch-kine 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 Received, and did deliver to our age, This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

PAGE. Why, yet there want not many that do fear In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak. But what of this?

MRS. FORD. Marry, this is