WILL. Genitive case ? EVA. Ay. WILL. Genitive,-horum, harum, horum. QUICK. 'Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her!-never name her, child, if she be a whore. EVA. For shame, 'oman. QUICK. You do ill to teach the child such words; he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call horum: -fie upon you! EVA. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires. MRS. PAGE. Pr'ythee hold thy peace. EVA. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. WILL. Forsooth, I have forgot. Eva. It is ki, kæ, cod; if you forget your kies, your kæs, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go. MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was. EVA. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, mistress Page. MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good sir Hugh. [Exit SIR HUGH. Get you home, boy.-Come, we stay too long. a Sprag-] Sprack, i.e. quick, ready, sprightly. [Exeunt. b In his old lunes again;] The folio reads, lines; the correction SCENE II.-A Room in Ford's House. Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD. FAL. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance: I see, you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now? MRS. FORD. He's a birding, sweet sir John. MRS. PAGE. [Without.] What hoa, gossip Ford! MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again; he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, 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. MRS. FORD. I am undone !—the knight is here. 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 was made by Theobald. The quarto reads, in his old vaine again. should I bestow him? shall I put him into the basket again? Re-enter FALSTAFF. FAL. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket; may I not go out, ere he come? 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 kilnhole. 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, MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him? MRS. PAGE. Alas the day! I know not. There is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler,(2) and a kerchief, and so escape. FAL. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief. MRS. FORD. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrummed hat, and her muffler too: run up, sir John. MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet sir John: mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [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. a MRS. PAGE. If you go out, &c.] This, as well as the next speech, is given to Mrs. Ford in the folio, 1623. b A ging,-] The old text reads gin. Ging, from the AngloSaxon, genge, a flock, is an old word used for gang. Thus, in Ben Jonson's "New Inn," Act I. Sc. 1: 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.(3) 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. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be and yet merry, honest too: We do not act, that often jest and laugh; 'Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the draff. [Exit. Re-enter MISTRESS 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. [Exit. 1 SERV. Come, come, take it up. 2 SERV. Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again. 1 SERV. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS. FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again ?-Set down the basket, villain:-somebody call my wife :- -Youth in a basket!-O, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging," a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say! come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching! PAGE. Why, this passes, master Ford! you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. с EVA. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! SHAL. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed. Enter MISTRESS FORD. FORD. So say I too, sir.-Come hither, mistress Ford; mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!-I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? (*) First folio, liefe as. This passes,-] Surpasses belief. Sec note (c), page 614. 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! MRS. FORD. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. 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 not he 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. a His wife's leman.] Leman, lover, paramour. It was applied to both sexes, though more frequently to females. b Such daubery as this, &c.] Daubery means gullery, juggling, and the like; but from the invariable punctuation of the passage FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for. PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain. 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, As 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 hoa, 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. She 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. 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. in modern editions, it appears to have been taken for some abusive epithet applied to the supposed witch. e Let him not strike the old woman.] The folio, 1623, omits, not, which was supplied in that of 1632. 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 cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. I PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, 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 further 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 further 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. (*) First folio, his. a They must come off;] That is, pay. The expression in this sense is met with as early as Chaucer: 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 to-morrow 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; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'l sauce them. Come. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-A Room in Ford's House. Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS. EVA. "T is 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,§ In him that was of late an heretic, PAGE. "T is well, 't is well; no more. spoke of. PAGE. HOW! to send him word they'll meet him in the park at midnight! fie, fie; he'll never come. EVA. You say, he has peen thrown in the rivers; and has peen grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks, there should pe terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks, his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires. PAGE. So think I too. (*) First folio, Germane desires. (t) First folio, him. "Come off, and let me riden hastily; 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 Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, In a most hideous and dreadful manner: 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: MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device; come, And in this shape; when you have brought him thither, What shall be done with him? what is your plot? MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and thus: с Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth, (*) First folio, make. a And takes the cattle;] To take, meant to bewitch, to blast with disease. Thus in "Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 1:— -"then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm." b Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.] This line, restored from the quarto, is shown by Page's next speech to be indispensable. c Ouphes,-] Elves, goblins. d Diffused song;] Irregular, wild. To-pinch-] To was very anciently used in connexion with verbs, as we conjoin be. Thus Gower, De Confessione Amantis, b. iv. fol. 7: FORD. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook: He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come. MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that: go, get us properties, And tricking for our fairies. 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 MISTRESS FORD. I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will, her. SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Host and SIMPLE. HOST. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap. SIM. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender. HOST. There's his chamber, his house, his "All to-tore is myn araie." And Chaucer, Reeve's Tale, 1. 4275: -"nose and mouth to-broke." And Spenser has all to-rent, all to-torn, where we should say allbe-torn, all-be-rent, &c. f In that tire-] The first folio has, "in that time," which was corrected by Theobald. g What, thick-skin?] This term of abuse, bearing the same meaning as our, thick-head, occurs again in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act III. Sc. 2, where Puck, speaking of Bottom, says :"The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort, Who Pyramus presented in their sport." |