William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (243 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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Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
 
MISTRESS FORD What, John! What, Robert!
MISTRESS PAGE Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-
MISTRESS FORD I warrant.—What, Robert, I say!
MISTRESS PAGE Come, come, come!
Enter John and Robert, with a buck-basket
 
MISTRESS FORD Here, set it down.
MISTRESS PAGE Give your men the charge. We must be brief.
MISTRESS FORD Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders. That done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames’ side.
MISTRESS PAGE (
to John and Robert
) You will do it?
MISTRESS FORD I ha’ told them over and over; they lack no direction.—Be gone, and come when you are called.
Exeunt John and Robert
Enter Robin
 
MISTRESS PAGE Here comes little Robin.
MISTRESS FORD How now, my eyas-musket, what news with you?
ROBIN My master Sir John is come in at your back door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.
MISTRESS PAGE You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
ROBIN Ay, I’ll be sworn. My master knows not of your being here, and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he swears he’ll turn me away.
MISTRESS PAGE Thou’rt a good boy. This secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.—I’ll go hide me.
MISTRESS FORD Do so. (To Robin) Go tell thy master I am alone.
Exit Robin
Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
MISTRESS PAGE I warrant thee. If I do not act it, hiss me.
MISTRESS FORD Go to, then. ⌈
Exit Mistress Page
⌉
We’ll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery
pumpkin. We’ll teach him to know turtles from jays.
Enter Sir John Falstaff
 
SIR JOHN Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough. This is the period of my ambition. O, this blessed hour!
MISTRESS FORD O sweet Sir John!
SIR JOHN Mistress Ford, I cannot cog; I cannot prate, Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead. I’ll speak it before the best lord. I would make thee my lady.
MISTRESS FORD I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful lady.
SIR JOHN Let the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond. Thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.
MISTRESS FORD A plain kerchief, Sir John—my brows become nothing else, nor that well neither.
SIR JOHN By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so. Thou wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semicircled farthingale. I see what thou wert if fortune, thy foe, were, with nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.
MISTRESS FORD Believe me, there’s no such thing in me. SIR JOHN What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a-many of these lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men’s apparel and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I cannot. But I love thee, none but thee; and thou deservest it.
MISTRESS FORD Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.
SIR JOHN Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.
MISTRESS FORD Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it.
SIR JOHN Keep in that mind. I’ll deserve it.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind.
Enter Robin
 
ROBIN Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! Here’s Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
SIR JOHN She shall not see me. I will ensconce me behind the arras.
MISTRESS FORD Pray you do so; she’s a very tattling woman.
Sir John hides behind the arras.
Enter Mistress Page
 
What’s the matter? How now?
MISTRESS PAGE O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever.
MISTRESS FORD What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! Having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
MISTRESS FORD What cause of suspicion?
MISTRESS PAGE What cause of suspicion? Out upon you!
How am I mistook in you
MISTRESS FORD Why, alas, what’s the matter?
MISTRESS PAGE Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.
MISTRESS FORD ’Tis not so, I hope.
MISTRESS PAGE Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a man here! But ’tis most certain your husband’s coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed. Call all your senses to you. Defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.
MISTRESS FORD What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril. I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.
MISTRESS PAGE For shame, never stand ‘you had rather’ and ‘you had rather’. Your husband’s here at hand. Bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket. If he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him as if it were going to bucking. Or—it is whiting time—send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.
MISTRESS FORD He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?
SIR JOHN (
coming forward
) Let me see’t, let me see’t, O let me see’t! I’ll in, I’ll in. Follow your friend’s counsel; I’ll in.
MISTRESS PAGE What, Sir John Falstaff! (
Aside to him
) Are these your letters, knight?
SIR JOHN (aside to Mistress Page) I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.
He goes into the basket
 
I’ll never—
Mistress Page and Mistress Ford put foul clothes over him
 
MISTRESS PAGE (
to Robin
) Help to cover your master, boy.—Call your men, Mistress Ford. ⌈
Aside to Sir John
⌉ You dissembling knight!
MISTRESS FORD What, John! Robert, John!
Enter John and Robert
 
Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the cowl-staff?
John and Robert fit the cowl-staff
 
Look how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead. Quickly, come!
They lift the basket and start to leave.
Enter Master Ford, Master Page, Doctor Caius, and
Sir Hugh Evans
 
FORD (to Page, Caius, and Evans) Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why then, make sport at me; then let me be your jest—1 deserve it. (To John and
Robert
) How now? Whither bear you this?
⌈JOHN⌉ To the laundress, forsooth.
MISTRESS FORD Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing!
FORD 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 John and Robert, with the basket
⌉
 
Gentlemen, I have dreamt tonight. 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.
 
He locks the door
 
So, now, uncoop.
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.
CAIDS 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 Caius, Evans, and Page
MISTRESS PAGE Is there not a double excellency in this?
MISTRESS FORD I know not which pleases me better: that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.
MISTRESS PAGE What a taking was he in when your husband asked what was in the basket!
MISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing, so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.
MISTRESS 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.
MISTRESS 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.
MISTRESS 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?
MISTRESS PAGE We will do it. Let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock, to have amends.
Enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Evans
 
FORD I cannot find him. Maybe the knave bragged of that he could not compass.
MISTRESS PAGE (
aside to Mistress Ford
) Heard you that?
MISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
FORD Ay, I do so.
MISTRESS FORD Heaven make me better than your thoughts!
FORD Amen.
MISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
FORD Ay, ay, I must bear it.
EVANS If there be anypody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgement!
CAIUS Be Gar, nor I too. There is nobodies.
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 (
to Caius and Evans
) Let’s go in, gentlemen. (
Aside to them
) But trust me, we’ll mock him. (
To Ford, Caius, and Evans
) I do invite you tomorrow 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 Anything.
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.

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