Fent, Sir, will you hear me?

No, good master Fenton. Come,master Shallow; come, son Slender; in:Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fen

I seek to heal it only by his wealth:
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,- Page.
My riots past, my wild societies:
And tells me, 'tis a thing impossible
I should love thee, but as a property.
Anne. May be, he tells you true.

Fent. No, heaven so speed me in my time to
come!

Albeit, I will confess, thy father's wealth
Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne;
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value'
Than stamps in gold, or surns in sealed bags;
And 'tis the very riches of thyself

That now I aim at.

Anne.

Gentle master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love: still seek it, sir:
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why then-Hark you hither.
[They converse apart.

Enter Shallow, Slender, and Mrs. Quickly. Shal. Break their talk, mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall speak for himself.

Sten. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: slid, 'tis but venturing.

Shal. Be not dismay'd.

Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,-but that I am afeard.

Quick. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you.

Anne. I come to him.-This is my father's

choice.

0, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
[Aside.
Quick. And how does good master Fenton?
Pray you, a word with you.

Shal. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou

hadst a father:

Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him:-Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

ton.

[Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender. Quick. Speak to mistress Page.

Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your
daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and man-
ners,

I must advance the colours of my love,

And not retire: Let me have your good will. Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond' fool.

Mrs. Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

Quick. That's my master, master doctor. Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth,

And bowl'd to death with turnips.

Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself: Good
master Fenton,

I will not be your friend, nor enemy.
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected;
"Till then, farewell, sir:-she must needs go in ;
Her father will be angry.

[Exeunt Mrs. Page and Anne. Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan. Quick. This is my doing, now:-Nay, said 1, will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on master Fenton :-this is my doing.

Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-
night

Give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy
pains.
[Exit.

Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne; or I would master Slender had her; or, in sooth,

Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any wo-I would master Fenton had her: I'will do what man in Gloucestershire.

Shal. He will maintain you like a gentle

you with me?

Sten. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father, and my uncle ave made motions; if it be my luck, so: if not, appy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go, better than I can: You may ask your ather; here he comes.

Enter Page and Mistress Page. Page. Now, master Slender:-Love him, daughter Anne.

Why, how now! what does master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house told yon, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of. Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient. Mrs. Page. Good master Fenton, come not to my child.

Page. She is no match for you.

I can for them all three; for so I have promised,
and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously
for master Fenton. Well, I must of another
errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mis
tresses: What a beast am I to slack it! [Exit.

SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

Fal. Bardolph, I say,-
Bard. Here, sir.

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well; if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i' have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the botthe litter and you may know by my size, that tom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water swells a 'man; and what a thing should I have been, when I had been swelled? I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter Bardolph, with the wine. Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water: for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins Call her in.

Bard. Come in, woman.

Enter Mrs. Quickly. Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: Give your worship good-morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices: Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-[Erit Bardolph. 1-How now? Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship

from mistress Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full

of ford.

Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault; she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine: 1 must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.

Fal. Well, I will visit her: Tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. Quick. I will tell her.

ed it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuck. old, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bellwether: next, to be compassed like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,a man of my kindney,-think of that; that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horseshoe; think of that;-hissing hot,-think of that, master Brook.

Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate: you'll undertake her no more.

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into the Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding: I have received from her ano ther embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten say'st thou ? is the hour, master Brook.
Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I'will not miss her.
Quick. Peace be with you, sir?

Ford. "Tis past eight already, sir.

Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my ap [Exit.pointment: Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: Adieu. You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuck old Ford.

Fal. I marvel, I hear not of master Brook; he sent me word to stay within; I like his money

well.

O, here he comes.

Enter Ford.

mination?

a

Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto, her husband, master Brook, dwelling in continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love."

Ford. What, while you were there?
Fal. While I was there.

Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?

Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.

Ford. A buck-basket?

Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankeat compound of villanous smell, that ever offended nostril.

Exit.

Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a

dream? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, master Ford; there's a hole' made in your best coat, master Ford. This 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen, and buckbaskets!-Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impos sible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the [Exit. proverb go with ine, I'll be horn mad.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. The Street.
Enter Mrs. Page, Mrs. Quickly, and William.
Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already,
think'st thou ?

Quick. Sure, he is by this: or will be presently: but truly, he is very courageous mad, about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.

Mrs. Page. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to school: Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, see.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans.

How now, Sir Hugh? no school to-day?
Eva. No; master Slender is let the boys leave
to play.
Quick. Blessing of his heart.
Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my
son profits nothing in the world at his book;
pray you, ask him some questions in his acci-
dence.

Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil, for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth, by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Dachet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave, their Eva. Come hither, William; hold up your master, in the door; who asked them once or head; come. twice what they had in their basket: I quaked Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah; hold up your for fear,lest the lunatic knave would have search-head; answer your master, be not afraid.

Mrs. Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what

Eva. No, it is lapis; I pray you remember in complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the your prain. Will. Lapis.

Eva. Remember, William ; focative is caret. and he's but a dead man. What a woman are Quick. And that's a good root.

Mrs. Ford. Which way should he go? how Eva. What is your genitive case plural, Wil- should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the liam ? basket again?

Mrs. Ford. He will seek there on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of Eva. Shew me now, William, some declen- such places, and goes to them by his note: There sions of your pronouns.

Mrs. Ford. But is my husband coming? Mrs. Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

Mrs. Page. Heaven guide him to thy hus-follow the imaginations of your own heart: this band's cudge:; and the devil guide his cudgel is jealousies. afterwards! 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. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband Ford. Old woman; what old woman's that? will come into the chamber. Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brent

Mrs. Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.

Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. Mrs. Ford. I'll first direct my mer, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring Erit. linen

for him straight.

Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.

We'll leave a proof by that which we will do,
Wives may be merry, and yet honest too:
We do not act that often jest and laugh;
"Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the draff.
[Erit.

Re-enter Mrs. Ford, with two Servants.
Mrs. Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on
your shoulders; your master is hard at door; if
he bid you set it down, obey him; quickly, des-
patch.
[Erit

1 Serv. Come, come, take it up. 2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of the knight again.

1 Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much

lead.

1

Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Sir
Hugh Evans.

ford.

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 pro-
fession of fortune telling. She works by charms,
by spells, by the figure, and such daubery 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.
Enter Falstaff in woman'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! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.

(Erit Falstaff.

Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

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, 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! master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as mad dog!

a

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 17

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, 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 hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious

Mrs. Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if
you suspect me in any dishonesty.
Ford. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out.service.
Come forth, sirrah.

[Pulls the clothes out of the basket.
Page. This passes!
Mrs. Ford. Are you not ashamed ? let the
clothes alone.

Ford. 1 shall find you anon.

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 7

Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in Eva. 'Tis unreasonable! will you take up your fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never,

I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

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 Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. basket: Why may he not be there again? In my If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuhouse 1 am sure he is: my intelligence is true;ous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we 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.

Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not!

two will still be the ministers.

Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant they'll have him publickly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no period 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-mor row at court, and they are going to meet him. Host What duke should that be comes so seeretly? 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 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 off: 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 7

Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. Ford. Pardon me, wife: Henceforth do what thou wilt;

1 rather will suspect the sun with cold,
Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy
nour stand,

In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.

Page.

Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
And three or four more of their growth, we'll
dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and
white,

With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and 1, are newly met,
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once
With some diffused song; upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness will fly :
Then let them all encircle him about,
And, fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread,
In shape profane.
Mrs. Ford. And till he tell the truth,

And burn him with their tapers.
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
Mrs. Page.

The truth being known,
We'll all present ourselves: dishorn the spirit,"
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford.

The children must Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't. Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a Jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

Ford. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them ho-vizards.

"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 public 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; methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his Besh is punished, he shall have no desires. Page. So think I too.

Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him
when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.
Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne
the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,"

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd

horns;

And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle; And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner:

Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,

Finely attired in a robe of white.

Page. That silk will I go buy ;-and in that
time

Shall master Slender steal my Nan away,
And marry her at Eton. [Aside.] Go send to
Falstaff straight.

Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook;
He'll tell me all his purpose: Sure, he'll come.
Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go get us pro-
perties,

And tricking for our fairies.
Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures,
and fery honest knaveries.

[Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans.
Mrs. Page. Go, mistress Ford,
Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.
[Exit Mrs. Ford.

I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
And he my husband best of all affects:
The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave
her.
[Exit.

SCENE V. A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Simple.

Host. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir

You have heard of such a spirit; and well you John Falstaff from master Slender. know,

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Received, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
Page. Why, yet there want not many, that do

fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak;
But what of this!

Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his
head.

Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come, And in this shape: When you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? what is your plot? Mrs Page. That likewise have we thought upon and thus:

Host. There's his chamber,his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say. Sim. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down: I come to speak with her, indeed.

Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully Sir John? speak from thy lungs military: Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. Fal. [above.] How now, mine host? Host. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman: Let her de scend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable Fie! privacy ? fiel

U. OF ILL LIB.