1    What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-
2    time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?
3    Let me see.
Reads
4    'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though
5    Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him
6    not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more
7    am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry,
8    so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you
9    love sack, and so do I; would you desire better
10   sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at
11   the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,--
12   that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis
13   not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,
14   Thine own true knight,
15   By day or night,
16   Or any kind of light,
17   With all his might
18   For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF'
19   What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked
20   world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with
21   age to show himself a young gallant! What an
22   unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard
23   picked--with the devil's name!--out of my
24   conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?
25   Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What
26   should I say to him? I was then frugal of my
27   mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill
28   in the parliament for the putting down of men. How
29   shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be,
30   as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

31   Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.

32   And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very
33   ill.

34   Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.

35   Faith, but you do, in my mind.

36   Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the
37   contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

38   What's the matter, woman?

39   O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I
40   could come to such honour!

41   Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is
42   it? dispense with trifles; what is it?

43   If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so,
44   I could be knighted.

45   What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights
46   will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the
47   article of thy gentry.

48   We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I
49   might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
50   men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of
51   men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised
52   women's modesty; and gave such orderly and
53   well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I
54   would have sworn his disposition would have gone to
55   the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere
56   and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to
57   the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' What tempest, I trow,
58   threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his
59   belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged
60   on him? I think the best way were to entertain him
61   with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted
62   him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?

63   Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
64   Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery
65   of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy
66   letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I
67   protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a
68   thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
69   different names--sure, more,--and these are of the
70   second edition: he will print them, out of doubt;
71   for he cares not what he puts into the press, when
72   he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess,
73   and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you
74   twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.

75   Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very
76   words. What doth he think of us?

77   Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to
78   wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain
79   myself like one that I am not acquainted withal;
80   for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I
81   know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

82   'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
83   above deck.

84   So will I if he come under my hatches, I'll never
85   to sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's
86   appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in
87   his suit and lead him on with a fine-baited delay,
88   till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.

89   Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him,
90   that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O,
91   that my husband saw this letter! it would give
92   eternal food to his jealousy.

93   Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he's
94   as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause;
95   and that I hope is an unmeasurable distance.

96   You are the happier woman.

97   Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
98   Come hither.

99   Well, I hope it be not so.

100  Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
101  Sir John affects thy wife.

102  Why, sir, my wife is not young.

103  He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,
104  Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
105  He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.

106  Love my wife!

107  With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
108  Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:
109  O, odious is the name!

110  What name, sir?

111  The horn, I say. Farewell.
112  Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night:
113  Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
114  Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
115  Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.

Aside
116   I will be patient; I will find out this.

To PAGE
117   And this is true; I like not the humour
118  of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I
119  should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I
120  have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity.
121  He loves your wife; there's the short and the long.
122  My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis
123  true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife.
124  Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese,
125  and there's the humour of it. Adieu.

126  'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow
127  frights English out of his wits.

128  I will seek out Falstaff.

129  I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

130  If I do find it: well.

131  I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest
132  o' the town commended him for a true man.

133  'Twas a good sensible fellow: well.

134  How now, Meg!

135  Whither go you, George? Hark you.

136  How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy?

137  I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

138  Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now,
139  will you go, Mistress Page?

140  Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George.
Aside to MISTRESS FORD
141  Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger
142  to this paltry knight.

Aside to MISTRESS PAGE
143   Trust me, I thought on her:
144  she'll fit it.

145  You are come to see my daughter Anne?

146  Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

147  Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with
148  you.

149  How now, Master Ford!

150  You heard what this knave told me, did you not?

151  Yes: and you heard what the other told me?

152  Do you think there is truth in them?

153  Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would
154  offer it: but these that accuse him in his intent
155  towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men;
156  very rogues, now they be out of service.

157  Were they his men?

158  Marry, were they.

159  I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at
160  the Garter?

161  Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
162  towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and
163  what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it
164  lie on my head.

165  I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to
166  turn them together. A man may be too confident: I
167  would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus satisfied.

168  Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes:
169  there is either liquor in his pate or money in his
170  purse when he looks so merrily.
Enter Host
171  How now, mine host!

172  How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.
173  Cavaleiro-justice, I say!

174  I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and
175  twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go
176  with us? we have sport in hand.

177  Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

178  Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
179  the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

180  Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.

181  What sayest thou, my bully-rook?

To PAGE
182   Will you go with us to behold it? My
183  merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons;
184  and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places;
185  for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester.
186  Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.

187  Hast thou no suit against my knight, my
188  guest-cavaleire?

189  None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of
190  burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him
191  my name is Brook; only for a jest.

192  My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress;
193  --said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is
194  a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires?

195  Have with you, mine host.

196  I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in
197  his rapier.

198  Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times
199  you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and
200  I know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis
201  here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long
202  sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

203  Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag?

204  Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.

205  Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly
206  on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my
207  opinion so easily: she was in his company at Page's
208  house; and what they made there, I know not. Well,
209  I will look further into't: and I have a disguise
210  to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not
211  my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed.