The Merry Wives of Windsor

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ACT III SCENE V	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't.
[Exit BARDOLPH]
	Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a
	barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the	5
	Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick,
	I'll have my brains ta'en 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,	10
	fifteen i' 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	15
	a man; and what a thing should I have been when I
	had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
[Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack]
BARDOLPH	Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF	Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my
	belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for	20
	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	25
	sack finely.
BARDOLPH	With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF	Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
[Exit BARDOLPH]
	How now!
MISTRESS QUICKLY	Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.	30
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.	35
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.	40
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, sayest thou?	45
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. O, here he comes.	50
[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	55
	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	60
	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	65
	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?	70
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!	75
FALSTAFF	By the Lord, 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?	80
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	85
	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	90
	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	95
	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	100
	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	105
	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, I am sorry that for my sake you
	have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate;	110
	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	115
	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	120
	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!	125
	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	130
	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:	135
	if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go
	with me: I'll be horn-mad.
[Exit]