William Shakespeare : Complete Collection (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry...). William Shakespeare

      Evans. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

      Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.

      Evans. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

      Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

      Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze? ’Tis time I were chok’d with a piece of toasted cheese.

      Evans. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.

      Fal. ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’! Have I liv’d to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.

      Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

      Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax?

      Mrs. Page. A puff’d man?

      Page. Old, cold, wither’d, and of intolerable entrails?

      Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Sathan?

      Page. And as poor as Job?

      Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

      Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

      Fal. Well, I am your theme. You have the start of me, I am dejected. I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will.

      Ford. Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master [Brook] that you have cozen’d of money, to whom you should have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffer’d, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

      Page. Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.

      Mrs. Page [Aside.] Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.

       [Enter Slender.]

      Slen. Whoa ho, ho! father Page!

      Page. Son? how now? how now, son? have you dispatch’d?

      Slen. Dispatch’d? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t. Would I were hang’d la, else!

      Page. Of what, son?

      Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ th’ church, I would have swing’d him, or he should have swing’d me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!—and ’tis a postmaster’s boy.

      Page. Upon my life then, you took the wrong.

      Slen. When need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him (for all he was in woman’s apparel) I would not have had him.

      Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

      Slen. I went to her in [white] and cried “mum,” and she cried “budget,” as Anne and I had appointed, and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

      Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose; turn’d my daughter into [green]; and indeed she is now with the Doctor at the dean’ry, and there married.

       [Enter Caius.]

      Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozen’d. I ha’ married oon garsoon, a boy; oon pesant, by gar. A boy! It is not Anne Page. By gar, I am cozen’d.

      Mrs. Page. Why? did you take her in [green]?

      Caius. Ay, be-gar, and ’tis a boy. Be-gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.

       [Exit.]

      Ford. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

      Page. My heart misgives me. Here comes Master Fenton.

       [Enter Fenton and Anne Page.]

      How now, Master Fenton?

       Anne.

      Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

      Page. Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

       Mrs. Page.

      Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

       Fent.

      You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.

      You would have married her most shamefully,

      Where there was no proportion held in love.

      The truth is, she and I (long since contracted)

      Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.

      Th’ offense is holy that she hath committed,

      And this deceit loses the name of craft,

      Of disobedience, or unduteous title,

      Since therein she doth evitate and shun

      A thousand irreligious cursed hours

      Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

       Ford.

      Stand not amaz’d; here is no remedy.

      In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;

      Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

      Fal. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc’d.

       Page.

      Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

      What cannot be eschew’d must be embrac’d.

       Fal.

      When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas’d.

       Mrs. Page.

      Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

      Heaven give you many, many merry days!

      Good husband, let us every one go home,

      And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire—

      Sir John and all.

       Ford.

      Let it be so. Sir John,

      To Master [Brook] you yet shall hold your word,

      For he to-night shall lie with Mistress Ford.

       Exeunt.

       ¶

       Robert Smirke, p. — Isaac Taylor, e.