Fal. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands? Ford. Never. Fal. Have you importuned her to such a purpose? Ford. Never. Fal. Of what quality was your love then? Ford. Like a fair house, built upon another man's ground, so that I have lost my edifice, by mistaking the place where I erected it. Fal. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me? Ford. When I have told you that, I have told you all. Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet, in other places, she enlargeth her mirth so far, that there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance 19, authentick in your place and person, generally allowed 20 for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations. Fal. O, sir! Ford. Believe it, for you know it:-There is money; spend it, spend it, spend more; spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife: use your art of wooing, win her consent to you; if any man may, you may as soon as any. Fal. Would it apply well. to the vehemency of your affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously. Ford. O, understand my drift! she dwells so se 19 i. e. admitted into all, or the greatest companies. curely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul dares not present itself; she is too bright to be looked against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves; I could drive her then from the ward 21 of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too strongly embattled against me: What say you to't, Sir John? Fal. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife. Ford. O good sir! Fal. Master Brook, I say you shall. Ford. Want no money, Sir John, you shall want none. Fal. Want no mistress Ford, master Brook, you shall want none. I shall be with her (I may tell you), by her own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me: I say, I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed. Ford. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir? Fal. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not-yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say, the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to me well-favoured, I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home. Ford. I would you knew Ford, sir; that you might avoid him, if you saw him. Fal. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! 21 i. e. defence. I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns: master Brook, thou shalt know, I will predominate o'er the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife.-Come to me soon at night:-Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his stile 22; thou, master Brook, shalt know him for a knave and cuckold:come to me soon at night. [Exit. Ford. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! -My heart is ready to crack with impatience.Who says this is improvident jealousy?—My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this?-See the hell of having a false woman! my bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!- -Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason 23, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but cuckold! wittol 24 cuckold! the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass; he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous: I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ 25 bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: 22 This is a phrase from the Herald's Office. Falstaff means that he will add more titles to those Ford is already distinguished by. "was 23 Reginald Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, may be consulted concerning these demons. "Amaimon," he says, King of the East, and Barbatos a great countie or earle." But Randle Holme, in his Academy of Armory, informs us that Amaymon is the chief whose dominion is on the north part of the infernal gulph; and that Barbatos is like a Sagittarius, and has thirty legions under him." 24 A tame contented cuckold knowing himself to be one. From the Saxon wittan, to know. 25 Usquebaugh, then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises : and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealousy!-Eleven o'clock the hour-I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon, than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! [Exit. SCENE III. Windsor Park. Enter CAIUS and RUGBY. Caius. Jack Rugby. Rug. Sir. Caius. Vat is de clock, Jack? Rug. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet. Caius. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come: he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come. Rug. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill him, if he came. Caius. By gar, de herring is no dead, so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him. Rug. Alas, sir, I cannot fence. Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE. Host. 'Bless thee, bully doctor. Shal. Save you, master doctor Caius. Page. Now, good master doctor! Slen. Give you good-morrow, sir. Caius. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for? Host. To see thee fight, to see thee foin 1, to see thee traverse, to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my Esculapius? my Galen? my heart of elders? ha! is he dead, bully Stale1? is he dead? Caius. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of the vorld; he is not show his face. Host. Thou art a Castilian, king-urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy! Caius. I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come. Shal. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions: is it not true, master Page? Page. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace. Shal. Bodykins, master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one: though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, master Page. 1 The ancient term for making a thrust in fencing. 2 Terms in fencing. The stoccado, the réverso, &c. from the Italian. 3 Heart of elder. The joke is that elder has a heart of pith. 4 Bully-stale and king-urinal, these epithets will be sufficiently obvious to those who recollect the prevalence of empirical waterdoctors. Castilian, a cant word (like Cataian and Ethiopian), appears to have been generally used as a term of reproach after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The Host avails himself of the poor doctor's ignorance of English phraseology in applying to him these high-sounding opprobrious epithets; he here means to call him coward. |