MRS. FORD. He's a birding, sweet sir John. MRS. PAGE. [Within.] What hoa, gossip Ford! what hoa! MRS. FORD. Step into the chamber, sir John. Enter Mrs. PAGE. [Exit FALSTAFF. MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart? who's at home besides yourself? MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people. MRS. PAGE. Indeed? MRS. FORD. No, certainly ;-Speak louder. [Aside. MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here. MRS. FORD. Why? MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes' again: he so takes on 2 yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, Peer-out, Peer-out!3 that any madness, I ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, 1 lunes] i. e. lunacy, frenzy. See a note on The Winter's Tale, Act II. Sc. II. The folio reads-lines, instead of lunes. The elder quartos—his old vaine again. STEEVENS. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 2 - he so TAKES ON-] To take on, which is now used for to grieve, seems to be used by our author for to rage. Perhaps it was applied to any passion. JOHNSON. It is used by Nash in Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, 1592, in the same sense: "Some will take on like a madman, if they see a pig come to the table." Malone. 3 Peer-out!] That is, appear horns. Shakspeare is at his old lunes. JOHNSON. Shakspeare here refers to the practice of children, when they call on a snail to push forth his horns : "Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole, "Or else I'll beat you black as a coal." HENLEY. to this his distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here. MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him? MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears, he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband, he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery. MRS. FORD. How near is he, mistress Page? MRS. PAGE. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. MRS. FORD. I am undone !—the knight is here. MRS. PAGE. Why, then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you?-Away with him, away with him; better shame than murder. MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? Re-enter FALSTAFF. FAL. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: May I not go out, ere he come ? MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? 4- watch the door with PISTOLS,] This is one of Shakspeare's anachronisms. DOUCE. Thus, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Thaliard says: "Can get him once within my pistol's length," &c. and Thaliard was one of the courtiers of Antiochus the third, who reigned 200 years before Christ; a period rather too early for the use of pistols. STEEVENS. FAL. What shall I do ?-I'll creep up into the chimney. MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces: Creep into the kiln-hole ". FAL. Where is it? 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 such places, and goes to them by his note: There is no hiding you in the house. FAL. I'll go out then. MRS. PAGE. If you go blance, you die, sir John. guised, 8 out in your own semUnless you go out dis MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him? MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape. 5 But what make you here?] i. e. what do you here? MALONE. The same phrase occurs in the first scene of As You Like It : Now, sir! what make you here!" STEEVENS. It occurs in Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, and many others of our author's plays. Boswell. 6 - creep into the kiln-hole.] I suspect, these words belong to Mrs. Page. See Mrs. Ford's next speech. That, however, may be a second thought; a correction of her former proposal : but the other supposition is more probable. MALOne. 7 an ABSTRACT] i. e. a list, an inventory. STEEvens. Rather, a short note or description. So, in Hamlet: "The abstract, and brief chronicle of the times." MALONE. 8 Mrs. Page. If you go, &c.] In the first folio, by the mistake of the compositor, the name of Mrs. Ford is prefixed to this speech and the next. For the correction now made I am answerable. The editor of the second folio put the two speeches together, and gave them both to Mrs. Ford. The threat of danger from without ascertains the first to belong to Mrs. Page. See her speech on Falstaff's re-entrance. MALONE. FAL. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief. MRS. FORD. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too: Run up, sir John. MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet sir John: mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight put on the gown the while. [Exit FALSTAFF. MRS. FORD. I would, my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears, she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her. MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming? MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and 9 - her THRUM'D hat, and her MUFFLER too:] The thrum is the end of a weaver's warp, and, we may suppose, was used for the purpose of making coarse hats. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "O fates, come, come, "Cut thread and thrum." A muffler was some part of dress that covered the face. So, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594: "Now is she bare fac'd to be seen :-strait on her muffler. goes." 66 Again, in Laneham's account of Queen Elizabeth's entertainment at Kenelworth Castle, 1575: his mother lent him a nu mufflar for a napkin, that was tyed to hiz gyrdl for lozyng." STEEVENS. The muffler was a part of female attire, which only covered the lower half of the face. DOUCE. See it fully explained in Mr. Douce's Observations on Shakspeare, vol. i. P. 75. BOSWELL. A thrum'd hat was made of very coarse woollen cloth. See Minsheu's Dict, 1617, in v. Thrum'd is, formed of thrums. MALONE. talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. 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 men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit. MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough'. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, [Exit. 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, despatch. 1 SERV. Come, come, take it up. [Exit. 2 SERV. Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again. 3 misuse HIM enough.] Him, which was accidentally omitted in the first folio, was inserted by the editor of the second. MALONE. 2 Still swine, &c.] This is a proverbial sentence. See Ray's Collection. MALONE. 3 of KNIGHT] The only authentick copy, the first folio, reads-" full of knight." The editor of the second-" of the knight;" I think, unnecessarily. We have just had―" hard at door." MALONE. At door, is a frequent provincial ellipsis. Full of knight is a phrase without example; and the present speaker (one of Ford's drudges) was not meant for a dealer in grotesque language. I therefore read with the second folio. STEEVENS. |