ACT II. SCENE 1.
Before PAGE'S house
Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter
| MRS.PAGE. | What! have I scap'd love-letters in the holiday-time
of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let
me see
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[Reads]
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'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. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might,
For thee to fight,
JOHN FALSTAFF.'
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 pick'd-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
reveng'd on him? for reveng'd I will be, as sure as his guts
are made of puddings.
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Enter MISTRESS FORD
| MRS.FORD. | Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your
house.
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| MRS.PAGE. | And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look
very ill.
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| MRS.FORD. | Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to
the contrary.
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| MRS.PAGE. | Faith, but you do, in my mind.
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| MRS.FORD. | Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to
the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel.
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| MRS.PAGE. | What's the matter, woman?
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| MRS.FORD. | O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,
I could come to such honour!
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| MRS.PAGE. | write_ads(1,1)> Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What
is it? Dispense with trifles; what is it?
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| MRS.FORD. | If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment
or so, I could be knighted.
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| MRS.PAGE. | What? Thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights
will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy
gentry.
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| MRS.FORD. | We burn daylight. 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; prais'd 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?
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| MRS.PAGE. | 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.
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| MRS.FORD. | Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the
very words. What doth he think of us?
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| MRS.PAGE. | Nay, 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.
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| MRS.FORD. | 'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
above deck.
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| MRS.PAGE. | So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never
to sea again. Let's be reveng'd 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 pawn'd his
horses to mine host of the Garter.
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| MRS.FORD. | Nay, 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.
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| MRS.PAGE. | Why, 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.
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| MRS.FORD. | You are the happier woman.
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| MRS.PAGE. | Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
Come hither
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[They retire]
Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with Nym
| FORD. | Well, I hope it be not so.
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| PISTOL. | Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
Sir John affects thy wife.
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| FORD. | Why, sir, my wife is not young.
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| PISTOL. | He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
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| FORD. | Love my wife!
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| PISTOL. | With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.
O, odious is the name!
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| FORD. | What name, sir?
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| PISTOL. | The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;
Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
Believe it, Page; he speaks sense
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Exit PISTOL
| FORD. | [Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this.
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| NYM. | [To PAGE] And this is true; I like not the humour of
lying. He hath wronged me in some humours; I should
have borne the humour'd 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.
My 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
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Exit Nym
| PAGE. | 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights
English out of his wits.
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| FORD. | I will seek out Falstaff.
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| PAGE. | I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
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| FORD. | If I do find it-well.
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| PAGE. | I will not believe such a Cataian though the priest o'
th' town commended him for a true man.
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| FORD. | 'Twas a good sensible fellow. Well.
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MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward
| PAGE. | How now, Meg!
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| MRS.PAGE. | Whither go you, George? Hark you.
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| MRS.FORD. | How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
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| FORD. | I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home;
go.
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| MRS.FORD. | Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
Will you go, Mistress Page?
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Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
| MRS.PAGE. | Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?
[Aside to MRS. FORD] Look who comes yonder; she shall
be our messenger to this paltry knight.
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| MRS.FORD. | [Aside to MRS. PAGE] Trust me, I thought on
her; she'll fit it.
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| MRS.PAGE. | You are come to see my daughter Anne?
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| QUICKLY. | Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
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| MRS.PAGE. | Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk
with you
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Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
MISTRESS QUICKLY
| PAGE. | How now, Master Ford!
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| FORD. | You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
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| PAGE. | Yes; and you heard what the other told me?
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| FORD. | Do you think there is truth in them?
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| PAGE. | Hang '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.
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| FORD. | Were they his men?
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| PAGE. | Marry, were they.
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| FORD. | I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the
Garter?
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| PAGE. | Ay, 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.
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| FORD. | I 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.
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Enter HOST
| PAGE. | Look 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. How now, mine host!
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| HOST. | How now, bully rook! Thou'rt a gentleman. [To
SHALLOW following] Cavaleiro Justice, I say.
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Enter SHALLOW
| SHALLOW. | 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.
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| HOST. | Tell him, Cavaleiro Justice; tell him, bully rook.
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| SHALLOW. | Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
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| FORD. | Good mine host o' th' Garter, a word with you.
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| HOST. | What say'st thou, my bully rook? [They go aside]
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| SHALLOW. | [To 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
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[They converse apart]
| HOST. | Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleiro.
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| FORD. | None, 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.
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| HOST. | My 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?
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| SHALLOW. | Have with you, mine host.
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| PAGE. | I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his
rapier.
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| SHALLOW. | Tut, 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.
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| HOST. | Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
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| PAGE. | Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than
fight
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Exeunt all but FORD
| FORD. | Though 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
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Exit
Next
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