Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and

SIR HUGH EVANS.

Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?-Set down the basket, villain:-Somebody call my wife: You, youth in a basket, come out here!—O, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging 10, a pack, a conspiracy against me: Now, shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say! come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching. Page. Why, this passes 11! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog!

Shal. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed. Enter MRS. FORD.

Ford. So say I too, sir. Come hither, mistress Ford; mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!-I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

Mrs. Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

Ford. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah. [Pulls the clothes out of the basket. Page. This passes!

Mrs. Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

Ford. I shall find you anon.

Eva. 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away.

Ford. Empty the basket, I say.

Mrs. Ford. Why, man, why?

Ford. Master Page, as I am a man,

there was

one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this

10 Gang.

11 Surpasses, or goes beyond all bounds.

basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

Page. Here's no man.

Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you 12.

Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.

Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for.

Page. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. Ford. Help to search my house this one time; if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman 13. Satisfy me once

more; once more search with me.

Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery 14 as this is; beyond our element; we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

12 i. e. This is below your character, unworthy of you.'
13 Lover.
14 Falsehood, imposition.

Enter FALSTAFF in women's clothes, led by

MRS. PAGE.

Mrs. Page. Come, mother Pratt, come, give me your hand.

Ford. I'll prat her:

-Out of my door, you

witch! [beats him] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon 15! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAff. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it ;-Tis a goodly credit for you.

Ford. Hang her, witch!

Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler.

Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no trail 16, never trust me when I open again.

Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen.

[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHALLOW, and EVANS. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hang o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of woman-hood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

15 Means much the same as scall or scab, from Rogneuse, FR. 16 Expressions taken from the chase. Trail is the scent left by the passage of the game. To cry out is to open, or bark. VOL. I.

A A

Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in feesimple, with fine and recovery 17, he will never, I think, in the way of waste attempt us again.

18

Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant they'll have him publickly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no period 19 to the jest, should he not be publickly shamed. Mrs. Page. Come to the forge with it then, shape it: I would not have things cool.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.

Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

Host. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court: Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?

Bard. Ay, sir, I'll call them to you.

Host, They shall have my horses; but I'll make

17 Ritson remarks that Shakspeare had been long enough in an attorney's office to know that fee-simple is the largest estate, and fine and recovery the strongest assurance, known to English Law.' How Mrs. Page acquired her knowledge of these terms he has not informed us.

18 This is another forensic expression. Mr. Steevens says that the meaning of the passage is, "he will not make further attempts to ruin us by corrupting our virtue and destroying our reputation." 19 i. e. right period, or proper catastrophe.

them pay, I'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off20; I'll sauce them; Come.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in Ford's House.

Enter PAGE, FORD, MRS. PAGE, MRS. FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.

Eva. 'Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon.

Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour.

Ford. Pardon me, wife: Henceforth do what thou wilt;

I rather will suspect the sun with cold1,

Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand,

In him that was of late an heretick,

As firm as faith.

Page.

'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in submission,

As in offence;

But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us publick sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page. How! to send him word they'll meet him
in the park at midnight! fie, fie; he'll never come.
Eva. You say, he has been thrown into the rivers;
and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman;

20 To come off is to pay, to come down (as we now say), with a sum of money. It is a phrase of frequent occurrence in old plays. 1 The reading in the text was Mr. Rowe's. The old copies read I rather will suspect the sun with gold.'