The Complete Works of Shakespeare. William Shakespeare

then farewell, sir; she must needs go in,

      Her father will be angry.

       Fent.

      Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.

       [Exeunt Mrs. Page and Anne.]

      Quick. This is my doing now. “Nay,” said I, “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.

      Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit Fenton.] 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, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promis’d, 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 mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!

       Exit.

       ¶

Scene V

       Enter Falstaff.

      Fal. Bardolph, I say!

       [Enter] Bardolph.

      Bard. Here, sir.

      Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack, put a toast in’t. [Exit Bardolph.] Have I liv’d to be carried in a basket like a barrow of butcher’s offal? and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, [and] I be serv’d 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 drown’d a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ th’ litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; [and] the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drown’d, 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 swell’d! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

       [Enter Bardolph with sack.]

      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 swallow’d snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

      Bard. Come in, woman!

       [Enter Mistress] 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. [Exit Bardolph.] 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. I 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.

      Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou?

      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 [disguised].

      Ford. Bless you, sir!

      Fal. Now, Master [Brook], you come to know what hath pass’d 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-favoredly, 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 embrac’d, kiss’d, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok’d and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wive’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 wive’s distraction, they convey’d me into a buck- basket.

      Ford. A buck-basket?

      Fal. [By the Lord], a buck-basket! Ramm’d 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 suffer’d to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm’d in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were call’d 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 ask’d them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quak’d for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have search’d 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 suffer’d the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealious rotten bell-wether; next, to be compass’d like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to be stopp’d in like a strong distillation with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that—a man 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 suffocation. And in the height of this bath (when I was more than half stew’d in grease, like a Dutch dish) to be thrown into the Thames, and cool’d, glowing-hot, in that surge, like a horse- shoe; think of that—hissing-hot—think of that, Master [Brook].

      Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffer’d all this. My suit then is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?

      Fal. Master [Brook],