The Merry Wives of Windsor: ACT III , SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: ACT III


	Introduction

	ACT I

	ACT II

	ACT III

		SCENE I. A field near Frogmore.

		SCENE II. A street.

		SCENE III. A room in FORD'S house.

		SCENE IV. A room in PAGE'S house.

		SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.

	ACT IV

	ACT V

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SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

FALSTAFF

Bardolph, I say,--

BARDOLPH

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.

Exit BARDOLPH

      Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a
5     barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the
      Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick,
      I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give
      them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues
      slighted me into the river with as little remorse as
10    they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies,
      fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size
      that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the
      bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had
      been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and
15    shallow,--a death that I abhor; for the water swells
      a man; and what a thing should I have been when I
      had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack

BARDOLPH

Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

FALSTAFF

      Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my
20    belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for
      pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

BARDOLPH

Come in, woman!

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

MISTRESS QUICKLY

By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship
good morrow.

FALSTAFF

25 Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of
sack finely.

BARDOLPH

With eggs, sir?

FALSTAFF

Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.

Exit BARDOLPH

How now!

MISTRESS QUICKLY

30 Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.

FALSTAFF

Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown
into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault:
she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

FALSTAFF

35 So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

MISTRESS QUICKLY

      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
40    quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.

FALSTAFF

      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.

MISTRESS QUICKLY

I will tell her.

FALSTAFF

45 Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Eight and nine, sir.

FALSTAFF

Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Peace be with you, sir.

Exit

FALSTAFF

I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word
50 to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.

Enter FORD

FORD

Bless you, sir!

FALSTAFF

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

FORD

That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

FALSTAFF

55 Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.

FORD

And sped you, sir?

FALSTAFF

Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.

FORD

How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

FALSTAFF

60    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;
65    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?

FALSTAFF

While I was there.

FORD

70 And did he search for you, and could not find you?

FALSTAFF

      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

75 A buck-basket!

FALSTAFF

      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 villanous smell that ever offended nostril.

FORD

80 And how long lay you there?

FALSTAFF

      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
85    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
90    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
95    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
100   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
105   half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be
      thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot,
      in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of
      that,--hissing hot,--think of that, Master Brook.

FORD

      In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you
110   have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;
      you'll undertake her no more?

FALSTAFF

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

FORD

'Tis past eight already, sir.

FALSTAFF

      Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.
      Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall
120   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

      Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I
125   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
130   house; he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he
      should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny 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,
135   yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame:
      if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go
      with me: I'll be horn-mad.

Exit

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