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

lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth: therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another; I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer; save, the fall is in the ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our meaning, 'resolutely.' His meaning is good.

SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

[Re-enter ANNE PAGE.]

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.

SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!

EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS.]

ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow.

[Exit SIMPLE.]

A justice of peace sometime may be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.

SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did.

ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.

SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes - and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' the town?

ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?

ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.

SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed; but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things.

[Re-enter PAGE.]

PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.

PAGE. Come on, sir.

SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.

SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do you that wrong.

ANNE. I pray you, sir.

SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong indeed, la!

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 2. The same.

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.]

EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.

SIMPLE. Well, sir.

EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.]

FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!

HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.

FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.

HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot, trot.

FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.

HOST. Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I well, bully Hector?

FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.

HOST. I have spoke; let him follow. [To BARDOLPH] Let me see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade; an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive.

PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot wield?

[Exit BARDOLPH.]

NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?

FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer - he kept not time.

NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minim's rest.

PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! A fico for the phrase!

FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.

FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift.

PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.

FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?

PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.

FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

PISTOL. Two yards, and more.

FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'

PISTOL. He hath studied her will, and translated her will out of honesty into English.

NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?

FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.

PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.

NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.

FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.

NYM. I thank thee for that humour.

FALSTAFF. O! she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass. Here's another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheator to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become, And by my side wear steel? then Lucifer take all!

NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.

FALSTAFF. [To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away o' hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of this age; French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.

[Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN.]

PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poor; Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack, Base Phrygian Turk!

NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of revenge.

PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge?

NYM. By welkin and her star!

PISTOL. With wit or steel?

NYM. With both the humours, I: I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.

PISTOL.
And I to Ford shall eke unfold
How Falstaff, varlet vile,
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.

NYM. My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous: that is my true humour.

PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee; troop on.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 4. A room in DOCTOR CAIUS'S house.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, and SIMPLE.]

QUICKLY. What, John Rugby!

[Enter RUGBY.]

I pray thee go to the casement, and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming: if he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English.

RUGBY. I'll go watch.

QUICKLY. Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.

[Exit RUGBY.]

An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no breed-bate; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?

SIMPLE. Ay, for fault of a better.

QUICKLY. And Master Slender's your master?

SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth.

QUICKLY. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover's paring-knife?

SIMPLE. No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a little yellow beard - a cane-coloured beard.

QUICKLY. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?

SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a warrener.

QUICKLY. How say you? - O! I should remember him. Does he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

SIMPLE.