See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town? FORD Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. MISTRESS FORD Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.
I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer. FALSTAFF I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. FALSTAFF And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment! SIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD Well said, fairy Hugh. SIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English. FALSTAFF Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall Ihave a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. SIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter. FALSTAFF 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?
This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. MISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? FORD What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? MISTRESS PAGE A puffed man? PAGE Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails? FORD And one that is as slanderous as Satan? PAGE And as poor as Job? FORD And as wicked as his wife? SIR HUGH EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FALSTAFF Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; Iam dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me:
use me as you will. FORD Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter. MISTRESS PAGE [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
Enter SLENDER SLENDER Whoa ho! ho, father Page! PAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? SLENDER Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. PAGE Of what, son? SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis a postmaster's boy. PAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. SLENDER What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him. PAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLENDER I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,'
and she cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed;and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy. MISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter DOCTOR CAIUS DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened:
I ha'married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. MISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green? DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
Exit FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? PAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
How now, Master Fenton! ANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon! PAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender? MISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid? FENTON You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed;And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. FORD Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. FALSTAFF I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. PAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced. FALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. MISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;Sir John and all. FORD Let it be so. Sir John, To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
Exeunt
