ARKCODEX
Act II, Scene 1
1Before Page’s house.
2Enter Mistress Page, with a letter.
3Mistress PageWhat! have I ’scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see. She reads.
“Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there’s sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there’s more sympathy; you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say, pity me: ’tis not a soldier-like phrase; but I say, Love me.
What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant. What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard picked, with the devil’s name! out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth:—Heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.
By me,
John Falstaff.”
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might
For thee to fight,
4Enter Mistress Ford.
5Mistress FordMistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.
6Mistress PageAnd, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.
7Mistress FordNay, I’ll ne’er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.
8Mistress PageFaith, but you do, in my mind.
9Mistress FordWell, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to the contrary. O, Mistress Page! give me some counsel.
10Mistress PageWhat’s the matter, woman?
11Mistress FordO woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honour!
12Mistress PageHang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What is it?—Dispense with trifles;—what is it?
13Mistress FordIf I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.
14Mistress PageWhat? thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.
15Mistress FordWe burn daylight: hands her a letter here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men’s liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women’s modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of “Greensleeves.” What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?
16Mistress PageHolding the two letters side by side. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here’s the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names, sure, more, and these are of the second edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press, when he would put us two: I had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
17Mistress FordTaking Mistress Page’s letter. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very words. What doth he think of us?
18Mistress PageNay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
19Mistress Ford“Boarding” call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.
20Mistress PageSo will I; if he come under my hatches, I’ll never to sea again. Let’s be revenged on him; let’s appoint him a meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.
21Mistress FordNay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food to his jealousy.
22Mistress PageWhy, look where he comes; and my good man too: he’s as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.
23Mistress FordYou are the happier woman.
24Mistress PageLet’s consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.
25They retire.
26Enter Fordand Pistol, and Page and Nym in pairs.
27FordWell, I hope it be not so.
28PistolHope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
Sir John affects thy wife.
29FordWhy, sir, my wife is not young.
30PistolHe woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
31FordLove my wife!
32PistolWith liver burning hot: prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.—
O! odious is the name!
33FordWhat name, sir?
34PistolThe horn, I say. Farewell:
35Take heed; have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;
Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
To Page. Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.
36Exit Pistol.
37FordAside. I will be patient: I will find out this.
38NymTo Page. And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there’s the short and the long.
39My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch ’tis true.
My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu.
I love not the humour of bread and cheese;
and there’s the humour of it. Adieu.
40Exit Nym.
41PageAside. “The humour of it,” quoth ’a! Here’s a fellow frights English out of his wits.
42FordI will seek out Falstaff.
43PageI never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
44FordIf I do find it: well.
45PageI will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o’ the town commended him for a true man.
46Ford’Twas a good sensible fellow: well.
47PageHow now, Meg!
48Mistress Page and Mistress Ford come forward, having heard all.
49Mistress PageWhither go you, George?—Hark you. They speak together.
50Mistress FordDemure. How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?
51FordStarts. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go. He turns away.
52Mistress FordFaith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now. Will you go, Mistress Page?
53Mistress PageHave with you. You’ll come to dinner, George? Aside to Mistress Ford. Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.
54Mistress FordAside to Mistress Page. Trust me, I thought on her: she’ll fit it.
55Enter Mistress Quickly.
56Mistress PageYou are come to see my daughter Anne?
57Mistress QuicklyAy, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
58Mistress PageGo in with us and see; we’d have an hour’s talk with you.
59Exeunt Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Mistress Quickly.
60PageHow now, Master Ford!
61FordRouses. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
62PageYes; and you heard what the other told me?
63FordDo you think there is truth in them?
64PageHang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it; but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service.
65FordWere they his men?
66PageMarry, were they.
67FordI like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?
68PageAy, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.
69FordI do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would have nothing “lie on my head”: I cannot be thus satisfied.
70PageLook where my ranting host of the Garter comes. There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse when he looks so merrily.
71Enter Host and Justice Shallow following at a distance.
72How now, mine host!
73HostHow now, bully-rook! Thou’rt a gentleman. Turns and calls. Cavaliero-justice, I say!
74Justice ShallowBreathless. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? We have sport in hand.
75HostTell him, cavaliero-justice; tell him, bully-rook.
76Justice ShallowSir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
77FordGood mine host o’ the Garter, a word with you.
78HostWhat say’st thou, my bully-rook?
79They go aside.
80Justice ShallowTo Page. Will you go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.
81They converse apart.
82HostHast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaliero?
83FordNone, I protest: but I’ll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brook, only for a jest.
84HostMy hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well? and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. Will you go, mynheers? Going.
85Justice ShallowHave with you, mine host.
86PageI have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.
87Justice ShallowTut, sir! I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: ’tis the heart, Master Page; ’tis here, ’tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
88HostCalling. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
89PageHave with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.
90Exeunt Host, Justice Shallow, and Page.
91FordThough Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his wife’s frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily. She was in his company at Page’s house, and what they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into’t; and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, ’tis labour well bestowed.
92Exit.