Enter ⌜Sir John⌝ Falstaff ⌜and⌝ Mistress Ford.FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth, not
145
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love,5 but in all the accoutrement, compliment, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?MISTRESS FORD He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.MISTRESS PAGE, ⌜within⌝ What ho, gossip Ford! What ho!MISTRESS FORD 10Step into th’ chamber, Sir John.⌜Falstaff exits.⌝Enter Mistress Page.MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides yourself?MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people.MISTRESS PAGE Indeed?MISTRESS FORD 15No, certainly. ⌜Aside to her.⌝ Speak louder.MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.MISTRESS FORD Why?MISTRESS PAGE 20Why, woman, your husband is in his old ⌜lunes⌝ again. He so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion soever, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying25 “Peer out, peer out!” that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience to 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 30Of 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 of35 his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here. Now he shall see his own foolery.
147
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page?MISTRESS PAGE Hard by, at street end. He will be here anon.MISTRESS FORD 40I 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 45Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?⌜Enter Sir John Falstaff.⌝FALSTAFF No, I’ll come no more i’ th’ basket. May I not go out ere he come?MISTRESS PAGE 50Alas, 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 here?FALSTAFF What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the55 chimney.MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their birding pieces.⌜MISTRESS PAGE⌝ Creep into the kiln-hole.FALSTAFF Where is it?MISTRESS FORD 60He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.FALSTAFF 65I’ll go out, then.MISTRESS ⌜PAGE⌝ If you go out in your own semblance, 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 no70 woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he
149
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.FALSTAFF Good hearts, devise something. Any extremity rather than a mischief.MISTRESS FORD 75My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him. She’s as big as he is. And there’s her thrummed hat and her muffler too.—Run up, Sir John.MISTRESS FORD 80Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you straight. Put on the gown the while.⌜Falstaff exits.⌝MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him85 in this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford. He swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!MISTRESS FORD 90But is my husband coming?MISTRESS PAGE Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.MISTRESS FORD We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men95 to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.MISTRESS FORD I’ll first direct my men what they shall100 do with the basket. Go up. I’ll bring linen for him straight.⌜She exits.⌝MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet! We cannot misuse ⌜him⌝ enough. We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,105 Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
151
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
We do not act that often jest and laugh; ’Tis old but true: “Still swine eats all the draff.”⌜She exits.⌝⌜Enter Mistress Ford with Robert and John,
who bring the buck-basket.⌝MISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders. Your master is hard at door. If he bid110 you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch.⌜She exits.⌝⌜ROBERT⌝ Come, come, take it up.⌜JOHN⌝ Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.⌜ROBERT⌝ I hope not. I had lief as bear so much lead.⌜They pick up the basket.⌝Enter Ford, Page, ⌜Doctor⌝ Caius, ⌜Sir Hugh⌝
Evans, ⌜and⌝ Shallow.FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you115 any way then to unfool me again?—Set down the basket, villain. ⌜They put the basket down.⌝ Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O, you panderly rascals! There’s a knot, a ⌜gang,⌝ a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be120 shamed.—What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!PAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford! You are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.SIR HUGH 125Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog.SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.FORD So say I too, sir.⌜Enter Mistress Ford.⌝ Come hither, Mistress Ford.—Mistress Ford, the130 honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature,
153
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
that hath the jealous fool to her husband!—I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?MISTRESS FORD Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.FORD 135Well said, brazen-face. Hold it out.—Come forth, sirrah.⌜He pulls clothes out of the basket.⌝PAGE This passes.MISTRESS FORD Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.FORD 140I shall find you anon.SIR HUGH ’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come, away.FORD, ⌜to the Servants⌝ Empty the basket, I say.MISTRESS FORD Why, man, why?FORD 145Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is. My intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable.—Pluck me out all the linen.MISTRESS FORD 150If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.⌜Robert and John empty the basket.⌝PAGE Here’s no man.SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford. This wrongs you.SIR HUGH 155Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.FORD Well, he’s not here I seek for.PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.FORD 160Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no color for my extremity. Let me forever be your table-sport. Let them say of me “As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.” Satisfy me once165 more. Once more search with me.⌜Robert and John refill the basket and carry it off.⌝
155
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 2
MISTRESS FORD, ⌜calling offstage⌝ What ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down. My husband will come into the chamber.FORD “Old woman”? What old woman’s that?MISTRESS FORD 170Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.FORD A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of175 fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’ figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.— Come down, you witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say!⌜Ford seizes a cudgel.⌝MISTRESS FORD Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen,180 let him ⌜not⌝ strike the old woman.⌜Enter Mistress Page and Sir John Falstaff disguised
as an old woman.⌝MISTRESS PAGE Come, Mother Pratt; come, give me your hand.FORD I’ll pratt her. ⌜(He beats Falstaff.)⌝ Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat,185 you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you!⌜Falstaff exits.⌝MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it.—’Tis a goodly credit190 for you.FORD Hang her, witch!SIR HUGH By yea and no, I think the ’oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under ⌜her⌝ muffler.FORD 195Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. See but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.
157
The Merry Wives of Windsor
ACT 4. SC. 3
PAGE Let’s obey his humor a little further. Come,200 gentlemen.⌜Ford, Page, Caius, Sir Hugh, and Shallow exit.⌝MISTRESS PAGE Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.MISTRESS FORD Nay, by th’ Mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.MISTRESS PAGE I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung205 o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious service.MISTRESS FORD What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?MISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is, sure,210 scared out of him. If the devil have him not in fee simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.MISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?MISTRESS PAGE 215Yes, by all means—if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.MISTRESS FORD 220I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed, and methinks there would be no period to the jest should he not be publicly shamed.MISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it, then shape it. I would not have things cool.They exit.
The Merry Wives of Windsor: 
