William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (238 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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SHALLOW Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
SLENDER Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.
Enter Anne Page
 
SHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne.—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 (
to Slender
) 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. (
To Simple
) Go, sirrah; for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow.
Exit Simple
A Justice of Peace sometime may be beholden 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.
⌈
Dogs bark within
⌉
 
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’th’ 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.
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
⌈
Slender first, the others following
⌉
1.2
Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple
, ⌈
from dinner
⌉
 
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 ’oman, 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 altogethers 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. ⌈
Exit Simple
⌉ I will make an end of my dinner; there’s pippins and cheese to come. Exit
1.3
Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nim, Pistol, and Robin
 
SIR JOHN Mine Host of the Garter!
Enter the Host of the Garter
HOST What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.
SIR JOHN Truly, mine Host, I must turn away some of my followers.
HOST Discard, bully Hercules, cashier. Let them wag. Trot, trot.
SIR JOHN I sit at ten pounds a week.
HOST Thou’rt an emperor: Caesar, kaiser, and pheezer. I will entertain Bardolph. He shall draw, he shall tap. Said I well, bully Hector? 11
SIR JOHN 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
SIR JOHN Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade. An old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.
BARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired. I will thrive.
⌈
Exit
⌉
PISTOL
O base Hungarian wight, wilt thou the spigot wield?
NIM He was gotten in drink; his mind is not heroic. Is not the humour conceited?
SIR JOHN I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox. His thefts were too open. His filching was like an unskilful singer: he kept not time.
Him The good humour is to steal at a minute’s rest.
PISTOL
‘Convey’ the wise it call. ‘Steal’? Foh, a fico for the
phrase!
SIR JOHN Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
PISTOL Why then, let kibes ensue.
SIR JOHN There is no remedy: I must cony-catch, I must shift.
PISTOL Young ravens must have food.
SIR JOHN Which of you know Ford of this town?
PISTOL I ken the wight. He is of substance good.
SIR JOHN My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
PISTOL Two yards and more.
SIR JOHN 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 well, and translated her will: out of honesty, into English.
NIM The anchor is deep. Will that humour pass?
SIR JOHN 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.
NIM The humour rises; it is good. Humour me the angels!
SIR JOHN (
showing letters
) 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.
NIM I thank thee for that humour.
SIR JOHN 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 cheaters 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. (
Giving a letter to Pistol
) Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page, (
giving a letter to Nim)
and thou this to Mistress Ford. We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.
PISTOL (
returning the letter
)
Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all.
NIM (
returning the letter
) I will run no base humour. Here, take the humour-letter. I will keep the haviour of reputation.
SIR JOHN (
to Robin
)
Hold, sirrah. Bear you these letters tightly.
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
He gives Robin the letters
 
Rogues, hence, avaunt! Vanish like hailstones! Go!
Trudge, plod, away o’th’ hoof, seek shelter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the humour of the age:
French thrift, you rogues—myself and skirted page.
Exeunt Sir John and Robin
PISTOL
Let vultures gripe thy guts!—for gourd and fullam
holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.
Tester I’ll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!
NIM
I have operations which be humours of revenge.
PISTOL
Wilt thou revenge?
NIM By welkin and her stars!
PISTOL
With wit or steel?
NIM With both the humours, I.
I will discuss the humour of this love to Ford.
PISTOL
And I to Page shall eke unfold
How Falstaff, varlet vile,
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.
NIM My humour shall not cool. I will incense Ford to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for this revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.
PISTOL
Thou art the Mars of malcontents.
I second thee. Troop on.
Exeunt
1.4
Enter Mistress Quickly and Simple
 
MISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby!
Enter John 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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a seacoal fire.
Exit Rugby
An honest, willing, kind fellow as ever servant shall come in house withal; and, I warrant you, no telltale, nor no breedbate. 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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY And Master Slender’s your master ?
SIMPLE Ay, forsooth.
MISTRESS 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 Cain-coloured beard.
MISTRESS QUICKLY A softly spirited 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.
MISTRESS 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 Yes, indeed does he.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish—
Enter Rugby
 
RUGBY Out, alas, here comes my master! ⌈
Exit
⌉
MISTRESS QUICKLY We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; for God’s sake, go into this closet. He will not stay long.
Simple steps into the closet
 
What, John Rugby! John! What, John, I say!
⌈
Enter Rugby
⌉
 
⌈
Speaking loudly
⌉ Go, John, go enquire for my master. I
doubt he be not well, that he comes not home.
⌈
Exit Rugby
⌉
(
Singing
) ’And down, down, adown-a’ (etc.)
Enter Doctor Caius
 
CAIUS Vat is you sing? I do not like dese toys. Pray you go and vetch me in my closet un
boîtier
vert—a box, a green-a box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth, I’ll fetch it you. (Aside) I am glad he went not in himself. If he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

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