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A room in 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 it. Have I lived to be carried
in a basket like a barrow of butcher's offal? and to be thrown in the
Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains tane
out and buttered, 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 drowned
a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen in the litter: and you may know by my size,
that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking: if the bottom were as deep as
hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and
shallow: a death that I abhor: for the water swells a man; and what a thing
should I have been when I had been swelled? I should have been a mountain of
mummy.
[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 swallowed snowballs, for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
BARDOLPH
Come in woman.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY]
MISTRESS 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. How now?
[Exit BARDOLPH]
MISTRESS 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.
MISTRESS 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.
MISTRESS 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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
I will tell her.
FALSTAFF
Do so. Between nine and ten sayst thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Eight and nine sir.
FALSTAFF
Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
MISTRESS 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.
Oh, here he comes.
[Enter FORD]
FORD
Bless you sir.
FALSTAFF
Now master Brook, you come to know
What hath passed 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-favoredly 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 embraced, kissed, 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 conveyed me into a buck-basket.
FORD
A buck-basket?
FALSTAFF
Yes: a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks,
foul stockings, greasy napkins, that (Master Brook) there was the rankest
compound of villanous smell, that ever offended nostril.
FORD
And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF
Nay, you shall hear (Master Brook) what I have suffered, to bring this woman
to evil, for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's
knaves, his hinds, were called 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 asked them once or twice
what they had in their basket? I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave
would have searched 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 compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference
of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head. And then to be stopped 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 butter; 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
stewed in grease (like a Dutch dish) to be thrown into the Thames, and
cooled, glowing hot, in that surge like a horse-shoe; think of
that; hissing hot: think of that (Master Brook).
FORD
In good sadness sir, I am sorry, that for my sake you have sufferd all this.
My
suit then is desperate: you'll undertake her no more?
FALSTAFF
Master Brook: I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I
will leave her thus: Her husband is this morning gone a-birding: I have
received from her another embassy of meeting: 'twixt eight and nine is the
hour (Master Brook).
FORD
'Tis past eight already sir.
FALSTAFF
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment: Come to me at your
convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed: and the conclusion shall
be crowned with your enjoying her: Adieu: You shall have her (Master Brook)
Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.
[Exit]
FORD
Hum: ha? is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford awake,
awake Master Ford: there's a hole 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, nor into a pepper-box: but lest the devil that guides him,
should aid him, I will search impossible places: Though what I am, 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.
[Exit]