to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A man may hear this shower sing in the wind!-and Falstaff's boy with her!-Good plots!-they are laid; and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him; then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so-seeming mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actæon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbors shall cry aim. [Clock strikes.] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search; there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be rather praised for this, than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm, that Falstaff is there: I will go.

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Host, SIR HUGH EVANS, CAIUS, and RUGBY.

Shal. Page, &c. Well met, master Ford.

Ford. Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home; and, I pray you all, go with me.

Shal. I must excuse myself, master Ford.

Slen. And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I'll speak off.

Shal. We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

Slen. I hope I have your good will, father Page.

Page. You have, master Slender; I stand wholly for you:-but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

Caius. Ay, by gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

Host. What say you to young master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holyday, he smells April and May:

1 Specious.

2

2 Out of the common style, superior to the vulgar, in allusion to the better dress worn on holydays.

he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; 1 he will carry't.

Page. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

Ford. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster.-Master doctor,

you shall go;-so shall you, master Page;-and you, Sir Hugh.

Shal. Well, fare you well:-we shall have the freer wooing at master Page's.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and SLender. Caius. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

[Exit RUGBY. Host. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

[Exit Host. Ford. [Aside.] I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

All. Have with you, to see this monster. [Exeunt.

1 Alluding to an ancient custom among rustics, of trying whether they should succeed with their mistresses by carrying the flower called bachelor's buttons in their pockets. They judged of their good or bad success by their growing or not growing there. Hence, to wear bachelor's buttons, seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried.

2 i. e. Fortune or possessions.

3 Canary is the name of a dance as well as of a wine. Pipe-wine is wine not from the bottle, but the pipe or cask. The jest consists in the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a cask of wine and a musical instrument. "I'll give him pipe wine, which will make him dance."

SCENE III. A Room in Ford's House.

Enter MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. What, John! what, Robert!

Mrs. Page. Quickly! quickly: Is the buck-basket— Mrs. Ford. I warrant:-What, Robin, I say! ·

Mrs. Page.

Enter Servants with a basket.

Come, come, come.

Mrs. Ford. Here, set it down.

Mrs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brewhouse; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and (without any pause, or staggering) take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames's side.

1

Mrs. Page. You will do it?

Mrs. Ford. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are

called.

[Exeunt Servants.

Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin.

Enter ROBIN.

Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket? news with you! ?

what

Rob. My master Sir John has come in at your back door, mistress Ford, and requests your company. Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-lent, have you been true to us?

Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into

1 Bleachers of linen.

2 Young sparrow-hawk, here used as a jocular term for a small child. 3 A stuffed puppet thrown at throughout Lent, as cocks were at Shrovetide.

everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away.

Mrs. Page. Thou art a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.-I'll go hide me.

Mrs. Ford. Do so:-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue. [Exit ROBIN. Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit MRS. PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Go to then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion;—we'll teach him to know turtles from jays.'

Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour! Mrs. Ford. O sweet Sir John!

Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

Mrs. Ford. I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady.

Fal. Let the court of France show me such another; I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.1

Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

Fal. By the Lord,5 thou art a traitor to say so: thou would'st make an absolute courtier; and the firm fix

1 i. e. honest women from loose ones.

2 This is the first line in the second song of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.

3 First folio:-beauty.

4 In how much request the Venetian tire or head-dress was formerly held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624. "Let her have the Spanish gait, the Venetian tire, Italian compliments and endowments."

5 The folio of 1623 omits the words "By the Lord," and reads "Thou art a tyrant."

ture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if fortune thy foe' were not: nature is thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it.

Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there's no such thing in me. Fal. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee, there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury2 in simple-time; I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it.

Mrs. Ford. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love mistress Page.

Fal. Thou might'st as well say, I love to walk by the Counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.

Mrs. Ford. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it.

Fal. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind.

Rob. [Within.] Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here's mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

Fal. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras.4

Mrs. Ford. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling [FALSTAFF hides himself.

woman.

Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN.

What's the matter? how now?
Mrs. Page. O mistress Ford, what have

you done?

1 Fortune my foe is the beginning of a popular old ballad enumerating all the misfortunes that fall on mankind through the caprice of fortune. 2 Formerly chiefly inhabited by druggists, who sold all kind of herbs, green as well as dry.

3 The Counter as a prison was odious to Falstaff.

4 i. e. in the space left between the walls and wooden frames on which the tapestry was hung.