The Merry Wives of Windsor (14 page)

FORD
    Hum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I

sleep? Master Ford awake, awake, Master Ford! There’s a
hole
¹²⁰

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

house. He cannot scape me, ’tis impossible he should. He

cannot creep into a
halfpenny purse
¹²⁵
, nor into a pepper-box.

But, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will

search impossible places. Though
what I am
¹²⁷
I cannot avoid,

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
¹³⁰
.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    Sure he is
by this
²
, or will be presently. But

truly he is very
courageous
³
mad about his throwing into the

water. Mistress Ford desires you to come
suddenly
⁴
.

MISTRESS PAGE
    I’ll be with her by and by. I’ll but bring my young

man here to school. Look where his master comes. ’Tis a

playing-day
⁷
, I see.

How now, Sir Hugh, no school today?

EVANS
    No, Master Slender
is let the boys leave to play
⁹
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    Blessing of his heart!

MISTRESS PAGE
    Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits

nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some

questions in his
accidence
¹³
.

EVANS
    Come hither, William. Hold up your head. Come.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Come on, sirrah, hold up your head. Answer

your master, be not afraid.

EVANS
    William, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM PAGE
    
Two
¹⁸
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    Truly, I thought there had been one number

more, because they say,
‘Od’s nouns’
²⁰
.

EVANS
    
Peace your tattlings!
²¹
What is ‘fair’, William?

WILLIAM PAGE
    
Pulcher
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    
Polecats
²³
? There are fairer things than polecats,

sure.

EVANS
    You are a very simplicity ’oman. I pray you peace.

What is
lapis
, William?

WILLIAM PAGE
    A stone.

EVANS
    And what is ‘a stone’, William?

WILLIAM PAGE
    A pebble.

EVANS
    No, it is
lapis
. I pray you, remember in your prain.

WILLIAM PAGE
    
Lapis
.

EVANS
    That is a good William. What is he, William, that

does lend
articles
³³
?

WILLIAM PAGE
    
Articles are borrowed of the
pronoun
³⁴
, and be

thus declined:

Singulariter
³⁶
, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc
.

EVANS
    
Nominativo, hig, hag, hog
, pray you mark:
genitivo
³⁷
,

huius
. Well, what is your accusative case?

WILLIAM PAGE
    
Accusativo,
hinc
³⁹
—

EVANS
    I pray you, have your remembrance, child,
accusativo
,

hing, hang, hog
⁴¹
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    
‘Hang-hog’
⁴²
is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

EVANS
    Leave your
prabbles
, ’oman. What is the
focative
⁴³

case
⁴⁴
, William?

WILLIAM PAGE
    O, —
vocativo
,
O
⁴⁵
.

EVANS
    Remember, William, focative is
caret
⁴⁶
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    And that’s a good root.

EVANS
    ’Oman, forbear.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Peace!

EVANS
    What is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM PAGE
    Genitive case?

EVANS
    Ay.

WILLIAM PAGE
    Genitive:
horum
,
harum
⁵³
, horum
.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    
Vengeance of
Ginny’s case
⁵⁴
, fie on her! Never

name her, child, if she be a whore.

EVANS
    For shame, ’oman.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    You do ill to teach the child such words: he

teaches him to
hick and to hack
⁵⁸
, which they’ll do fast enough

of themselves, and to call ‘horum’ — fie upon you!

EVANS
    ’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.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Prithee, hold thy peace.

EVANS
    Show me now, William, some
declensions
⁶⁵
of your

pronouns.

WILLIAM PAGE
    Forsooth, I have forgot.

EVANS
    It is
qui, quae, quod
. If you forget your
quies
, your

quaes
, and your
quods
, you must be
preeches
⁶⁹
. Go your ways,

and play, go.

MISTRESS PAGE
    He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

EVANS
    He is a good
sprag
⁷²
memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Adieu, good Sir Hugh.

Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.

FALSTAFF
    Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my

sufferance
. I see you are
obsequious
²
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
⁴
,

complement
and ceremony of it. But are you
sure of
⁵
your

husband now?

MISTRESS FORD
    He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGE
    What, ho,
gossip
⁸
Ford! What, ho!

MISTRESS FORD
    Step into th’chamber, Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGE
    How now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides

yourself?

MISTRESS FORD
    Why, none but mine own
people
¹²
.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Indeed?

MISTRESS FORD
    No, certainly.— Speak louder.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MISTRESS FORD
    Why?

MISTRESS PAGE
    Why, woman, your husband is in his old
lines
¹⁷

again: he so
takes on
¹⁸
yonder with my husband, so rails

against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters

of what
complexion
²⁰
soever, and so buffets himself on the

forehead, crying, ‘
Peer out
²¹
, peer out!’, that any madness I

ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility and patience

to
²³
this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is

not here.

MISTRESS FORD
    Why, does he talk of him?

MISTRESS 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
³⁰
of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not

here: now he shall see his own foolery.

MISTRESS FORD
    How near is he, Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGE
    Hard by, at street end. He will be here anon.

MISTRESS FORD
    I am undone. The knight is here.

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS FORD
    Which way should he go? How should I
bestow
³⁸

him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

[
Enter Falstaff
]

FALSTAFF
    No, I’ll come no more i’th’basket. May I not go out

ere he come?

MISTRESS 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
⁴⁴
here?

FALSTAFF
    What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

MISTRESS FORD
    There they always
use to discharge their birding-
⁴⁶

pieces. Creep into the
kiln-hole
⁴⁷
.

FALSTAFF
    Where is it?

MISTRESS FORD
    He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,

coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an
abstract
⁵⁰
for

the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his

note: there is no hiding you in the house.

FALSTAFF
    I’ll go out then.

MISTRESS PAGE
    If you go out in your own
semblance
⁵⁴
, you die,

Sir John — unless you go out disguised.

MISTRESS FORD
    How might we disguise him?

MISTRESS 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
⁵⁹
and a kerchief, and so escape.

FALSTAFF
    Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather

than a
mischief
⁶¹
.

MISTRESS FORD
    My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of
Brentford
⁶²
,

has a gown
above
⁶³
.

MISTRESS PAGE
    On my word, it will serve him: she’s as big as he

is — and there’s her
thrummed
⁶⁵
hat and her muffler too. Run

up, Sir John.

MISTRESS FORD
    Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will

look
⁶⁸
some linen for your head.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you
straight
⁶⁹
: put

on the gown
the while
⁷⁰
.