her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty,

and then judge of my merit.

Quick. I will tell her.

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,

Quick. Eight and nine, Sir.

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

[Exit.

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.

Ford. Bless you, Sir.

Fal. Now, master Brook,--you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife?

Ford. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And sped you, Sir?

Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. Ford. How so, Sir? Did she change her determination?

Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a 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 in 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, greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

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 Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, 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 bell-wether: 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 Iman of my kidney, -think of that, that am as subject to heat, as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a miracle, to 'scape

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 Ætna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, master Brook.

Ford. 'Tis past eight already, Sir.

Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. 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 cuckold Ford. [Exit.

Ford. H'm,-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 buck-baskets!-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 half-penny purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible 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 me mad, let the proverb go with me, I'll be horn mad. [Exit.

Eva. 'Oman, forbear.

Mrs Page. Peace!

Mrs Ford. Why?

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 complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, "Peer out, Peer out!" that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. glad the fat knight is not here.

Mrs Ford. Why, does he talk of him?

I am

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 sus

Will. Genitive case?

Eva. Ay.

Will. Genitivo,-horum, harum, horum. Quick. Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! --Never name her, child, if she be a whore. Eva. For shame, 'oman!

Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words. -He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call horum:fie upon you!

Eva. Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers, and the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs Page. Pr'ythee hold thy peace.

Eva. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Eva. It is qui, quæ, quod; if you forget your quis, your ques, and your quods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.

Mrs Page. He is a better scholar than I thought

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?

Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney.

Mrs Ford. There they always used 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 out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,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."

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 thrummed 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 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.

I Serv. Come, come, take it up.

2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again. [lead. I Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much 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, villains!-Somebody call my wife.Youth in a basket!-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 a mad dog!

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

Ford. So say I too, Sir.-[Re-enter Mrs FORD.] 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! [alone. Mrs Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes 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 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.

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 nowhere 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 ho, 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 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 women's clothes, led by Mrs PAGE. Mrs Page. Come, mother Pratt; come, give me your hand.

Ford. I'll "prat" her.-[Beats him.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! 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, never trust me when I open again.

Page. Let's obey his humour a little farther: come, gentlemen.

[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, 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 service.

Mrs Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any farther revenge?

Mrs Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in feesimple, 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?

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 farther afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

Mrs Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly 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 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.

57

and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh 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 trees, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a
In a most hideous and dreadful manner. [chain
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, 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, Disguis'd 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.

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 I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once
With some diffusèd 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.
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.

Mrs Ford.

Mrs Page.

The truth being known,

We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford.

The children must
Be practis'd well to this, or they'll ne'er do 't.
Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours;
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 vizards.

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:-[Aside.] and in that time

Shall master Slender steal my Nan away,
And marry her at Eton.-[To them.] 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 properAnd tricking for our fairies.

Fal. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

[ties,

Sim. What, Sir?

Fal. To have her, or no. told me so.

Go; say the woman

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 him 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.

SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Host and SIMPLE.

[Exit.

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

Sim. Marry, Sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from master Slender.

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 descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy? fie!

Enter FALSTaff.

Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone.

Sim. Pray you, Sir, was 't not the wise woman of Brentford?

Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell: what would you with her?

Sim. My master, Sir, master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, Sir, whether one Nym, Sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

Fal. I spake with the old woman about it.
Sim. And what says she, I pray, Sir?

Fal. Marry, she says that the very same man, that beguiled master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it.

Sim. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.

Fal. What are they? let us know.

Host. Ay, come; quick.

Sim. I may not conceal then, Sir.

Host. Conceal them, or thou diest.

Sim. Why, Sir, they were nothing but about mistress Anne Page; to know, if it were my master's fortune to have her, or no.

Sim. May I be bold to say so, Sir?

Fal. Ay, Sir Tike, who more bold? Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit.

Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?

Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.

Enter BARDOLPH.

Bard. Out, alas, Sir! cozenage, mere cozenage! Host. Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto.

Bard. Run away, with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

Host. They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS.

Eva. Where is mine host?
Host. What is the matter, Sir?

Eva. Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town, tells me, there is three cousin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good-will, look you: you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be cozened. you well.

Enter Doctor CAIUS.

Fare [Exit.

Caius. Vere is mine host de Jarretière? Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma.

Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me, dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat de court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu.

[Exit. Host. Hue and cry, villain! go. Assist me, knight. I am undone !-Fly, run, hue and cry, villain!-I am undone!

[Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH.

Fal. I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened, and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me: I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.