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

Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear.

[Exeunt SERVANTS with the basket.]

Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first. [Locking the door.] So, now uncape.

PAGE. Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.

FORD. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport anon; follow me, gentlemen.

[Exit.]

EVANS. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

CAIUS. By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.

PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.

[Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS.]

MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this?

MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.

MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket!

MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now.

MRS. PAGE. I will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.

MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water, and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow eight o'clock, to have amends.

[Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

FORD. I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass.

MRS. PAGE. [Aside to MRS. FORD.] Heard you that?

MRS. FORD. [Aside to MRS. PAGE.] Ay, ay, peace. - You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

FORD. Ay, I do so.

MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

FORD. Amen!

MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it.

EVANS. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment!

CAIUS. Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.

PAGE. Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

FORD. 'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it.

EVANS. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

CAIUS. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.

FORD. Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park: I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come, Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me.

PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

FORD. Any thing.

EVANS. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

FORD. Pray you go, Master Page.

EVANS. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy knave, mine host.

CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.

EVANS. A lousy knave! to have his gibes and his mockeries!

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 4. A room in PAGE'S house.

[Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.]

FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.

ANNE. Alas! how then?

FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object, I am too great of birth; And that my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth. Besides these, other bars he lays before me, My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me 'tis a thing impossible I should love thee but as a property.

ANNE. May be he tells you true.

FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags; And 'tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at.

ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir. If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why then, - hark you hither.

[They converse apart.]

[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.

SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't. 'Slid, 'tis but venturing.

SHALLOW. Be not dismayed.

SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard.

QUICKLY. Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.

ANNE. I come to him. [Aside.] This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

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, under the degree of a squire.

SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

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.

ANNE. Now, Master Slender.

SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne. -

ANNE. What is your will?

SLENDER. My will! 'od's heartlings, 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; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! 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 my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.

FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

MRS. 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.]

QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.

FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love And not retire: let me have your good will.

ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

QUICKLY. That's my master, Master doctor.

ANNE. Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth. And bowl'd to death with turnips.

MRS. 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. Till then, farewell, sir: she must needs go in; Her father will be angry.

FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.

[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.}

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 to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.

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, 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 another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it!

[Exit.]


SCENE 5. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.]

FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say, -

BARDOLPH. Here, sir.

FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.

[Exit BARDOLPH.]

Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? 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 into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the 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. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the 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. Call her in.

BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

QUICKLY. By your leave. I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.

BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?

FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.