The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 360

ANNE. I come to him. [Aside] This is my father's choice.

O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and longtail, under the degree of a squire.

SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.

ANNE. Now, Master Slender- SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne- ANNE. What is your will?

SLENDER. My Will! 'Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?

SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask your father; here he comes.

Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE

PAGE. Now, Master Slender! Love him, daughter Anne- Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here?

You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.

I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.

FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.

MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.

PAGE. She is no match for you.

FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?

PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.

Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender; in.

Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.

FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love, And not retire. Let me have your good will.

ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.

MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

QUICKLY. That's my master, Master Doctor.

ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' th' earth.

And bowl'd to death with turnips.

MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton, I will not be your friend, nor enemy; My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected; Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in; Her father will be angry.

FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.

Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE QUICKLY. 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.

FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.

QUICKLY. 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 5.

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 liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and b.u.t.ter'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 b.i.t.c.h's puppies, fifteen i' th' litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as h.e.l.l I should down. I had been drown'd but that the sh.o.r.e was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack

BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd s...o...b..a.l.l.s for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFF. 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!

QUICKLY. 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.

QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!

She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

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

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 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.

QUICKLY. I will tell her.

FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?

QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.

FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.

QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir. Exit FALSTAFF. 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!

FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what hath pa.s.s'd between me and Ford's wife?

FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.

FALSTAFF. 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-favouredly, Master Brook.

FORD. How so, sir; did she change her determination?

FALSTAFF. 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 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. 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 convey'd me into a buck-basket.

FORD. A buck-basket!

FALSTAFF. 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?

FALSTAFF. 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 suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compa.s.s'd like a good bilbo in the circ.u.mference 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 b.u.t.ter; 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.