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The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 3 Scene 5

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

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,

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

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

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.

[Exit BARDOLPH]

How now!

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, sayest 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. O, 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

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?

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, 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]

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