The Merry Wives of Windsor. William Shakespeare

was then frugal of my mirth:—Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

      [Enter MISTRESS FORD.]

      MRS. FORD

       Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.

       MRS. PAGE

       And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.

       MRS. FORD

       Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.

       MRS. PAGE

       Faith, but you do, in my mind.

       MRS. FORD

       Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to the contrary. O, Mistress Page! give me some counsel.

       MRS. PAGE

       What's the matter, woman?

       MRS. FORD

       O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honour!

       MRS. PAGE

       Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What is it?—Dispense with trifles;—what is it?

       MRS. FORD

       If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.

       MRS. PAGE

       What? thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

       MRS. FORD

       We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women's modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of "Greensleeves." What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?