"

Peer out, Peer out!" that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs. Page. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here: now he shall see his own foolery.

Mrs. Ford. How near is he, mistress Page? Mrs. Page. Hard by; at street end he will be here anon. [here. Mrs. Ford. I am undone !-the knight is Mrs. Page. Why then, you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with

him! better shame, than murder.

Mrs. Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter Falstaff.

Fal. No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go out ere he comes?

Mrs. Page. Alas! three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney.

Mrs. Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

Fal. Where is it?

Mrs. Ford, He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note there is no hiding you in the house.

Fal. I'll go out, then.

Mrs. Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,

[Exit Falstaff. Mrs. Ford. I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

Mrs. Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

Mrs. Ford. But is my husband coming?

Mrs. Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

Mrs. Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.

Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. Mrs. Ford. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit.

Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.

[do,

We'll leave a proof, by that which we will Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act, that often jest and laugh; 'Tis old, but true," Still swine eat all the draff." [Exit. Re-enter Mrs. Ford, with two Servants. Mrs. Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him : quickly, despatch.

I Serv. Come, come, take it up.

[Exit. [again.

Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as

Mrs. Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty. Ford. Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. -Come forth, sirrah.

[Pulls the clothes out of the basket. Page. This passes! [clothes alone. Mrs. Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the Ford. I shall find you anon. Eva. "Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. Ford. Empty the basket, I say! Mrs. Ford. Why, man, why,Ford. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may he not be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.-Pluck me out all the linen.

Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

Page. Here's no man.

Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you.

Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart this is jealousies.

Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for. Page. No, nor nowhere else, but in your brain.

:

"As

Ford. Help to search my house this one time if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman." Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.

Mrs. Ford. What ho, mistress Page! come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Ford. Old woman! what old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing.-Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say!

Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband,good gentlemen, let him not strike the old

woman.

Enter Falstaff in women's clothes, led by Mrs. Page. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Pratt; come, give me your hand.

Ford. I'll "prat" her.-[Beats him.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit Falstaff. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it.-'Tis a goodly credit for you.

Ford. Hang her, witch!

Eva. By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler.

Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow: see but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

Page. Let's obey his humour a little farther: come, gentlemen. [Exeunt Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Evans. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.

Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any farther revenge?

Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.

Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any farther afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it, then; shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Bardolph.

Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

Host. What duke should that be, comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?

Bard. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.

Host. They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay; I'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at command; Í have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'll sauce them. Come.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-A Room in Ford's House.

Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans.

Eva. 'Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon.

Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. Ford. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do

what thou wilt;

I rather will suspect the sun with cold

honour stand,

In him that was of late a heretic,

As firm as faith.

Page.

never come.

Eva. You say, he has been thrown into the rivers, and has been grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires. Page. So think I too.

Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither. Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;

[cattle, And there he blasts the trees, and takes the And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you
know

The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
Page. Why, yet there want not many, that
do fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.
But what of this?

Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device: That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us, Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.

[come,

Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll And in this shape when you have brought

And, fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
Mrs. Ford. And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
Mrs. Page. The truth being known,
We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford.

The children must Be practis'd well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours; I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber. I'll go buy

Ford. That will be excellent. them vizards.

Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,

Finely attired in a robe of white. Page. That silk will I go buy :-[Aside] and in that time

Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, And marry her at Eton.-[To them.] Go, send to Falstaff straight. [Brook :

Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come. Mrs. Page. Fear not you that. Go, get us And tricking for our fairies. [properties, Eva. Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.

[Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans. Mrs. Page. Go, mistress Ford, Send Quickly to Sir John, to know his mind. [Exit Mrs. Ford.

I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
And him my husband best of all affects.
The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have
her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to
crave her.
[Exit.

SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and Simple.

him thither,

Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from master Slender.

Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed: 'tis painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say.

Sim. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed.

Host. Ha a fat woman? the knight may be robbed: I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully Sir John! speak from thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. Fal. [Above. How now, mine host! Host. Here's a Bohemian Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy? fie! Enter Falstaff.

Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. Sim. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford?

Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell: what would you with her?

Sim. My master, sir, master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

Fal. I spake with the old woman about it. Sim. And what says she, I pray, sir? Fal. Marry, she says that the very same man, that beguiled master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it.

Sim. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her, too, from him.

Fal. What are they? let us know.
Host. Ay, come; quick.

Sim. I may not conceal them, sir. Host. Conceal them, or thou diest. Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about mistress Anne Page; to know, if it were my master's fortune to have her, or no. Fal. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune. Sim. What, sir? [woman told me so. Fal. To have her, or no. Go; say the Sim. May I be bold to say so, sir? Fal. Ay, Sir Tike, who more bold? Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit. Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee? Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.

Bard. Run away, with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

Host. They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not say they be fled : Germans are honest men. Enter Sir Hugh Evans. Eva. Where is mine host? Host. What is the matter, sir?

Eva. Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town, tells me, there is three cousin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. 1 tell you for good-will, look you: you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well. [Exit. Enter Doctor Caius. Caius. Vere is mine host de Jarretiere? Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma.

Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat ; but it is tella-me, dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat de court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit.

Host. Hue and cry, villain! go.-Assist me, knight.-I am undone !-Fly, run, hue and cry, villain !-I am undone !

[Exeunt Host and Bardolph.

If

Fal. I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened, and beaten too. it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me: I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. Enter Mistress Quickly. Now, whence come you?

Quick. From the two parties, forsooth.

I

Enter Bardolph. Bard. Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!