Slen. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for mo money than I'll speak of. Shal. We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer. Slen. I hope, I have your good will, father Page. Page. You have, master Slender; I stand wholly for you:-but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether. Caius. Ay, by gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush. Host. What say you to young master Fenton? hé capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holyday, he smells April and May: he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in ais buttons; he will carry't. Page. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having :3 he kept company with the wild Prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth 1 have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way. Ford. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster.Master doctor, you shall go;-so shall you, master Page;-And you, Sir Hugh. Shal. Well, fare you well:-we shall have the freer wooing at master Page's. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER. Caius. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon. [Exit RUGBY. Host. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. [Exit Host. Ford. [Aside.] I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine^ first with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles? All. Have with you, to see this monster. SCENE III. A Room in Ford's House. MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE. [Exeunt. Enter Mrs. Ford. What, John! what, Robert! Mrs. Page. Quickly! quickly: Is the basket basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames' side. Mrs. Page. You will do it? Mrs. Ford. I have told them over and over they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants. Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin. Enter ROBIN. Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket ? what news with you? Rob. My master Sir John has come in at your back door, mistress Ford; and requests your company. Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-lent," ha~e you been true to us? Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away. Mrs. Page. Thou art a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.-I'll go hide me. Mrs. Ford. Do so:-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue. hiss me. [Exit ROBIN. Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, [Exit MRS. PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Go to then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion ;—we'll teach him to know turtles from jays." Enter FALSTAFF. Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough Mrs. Ford. O sweet Sir John! Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady. Mrs. Ford. I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady. Fal. Let the court of France show me such another; I see how thine eye would emulate the buck-diamond': Thou hast the right arched bent1o of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance." Mrs. Ford. I warrant :-What, Robin, I say, Enter Servants with a basket. Mrs. Page. Come, come, come. Mrs. Ford. Here, set it down. Mrs Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief. Mrs Ford. A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither. Fal. By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou would'st make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent mo tion to thy gait, in a semi-circled farthingale. I seo Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John what thou wert, if fortune thy foe12 were not: naand Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-ture is thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it. house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there's no such thing and (without any pause, or staggering) take this in me. To speak out of the common style, superior to the vulgar, in allusion to the better dress worn on holidays. So in K. Henry IV. P. I. "With many holiday and lady terms." 2 Alluding to an ancient custom among rustics, of trying whether they should succeed with their mistresses by carrying the flower called bachelor's buttons in their pockets. They judged of their good or bad success by their growing or not growing there. Hence, to wear bachelor's buttons, seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried. 3i. e. Fortune or possessions. So, in Twelfth Night: My having is not much; I'll make division of my present with you: 4 Canary is the name of a dance as well as of a wine. Pipe-wine is wine, not from the bottle but the pipe or cask. The jest consists in the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a cask of wine and a musical instrument. I'll give him pipe wine, which will make him dance.' 5 Bleachers of linen. 7 A stuffed puppet thrown at throughout lent, as cocks were at shrovetide. So, in 'The Weakest goes to the Wall,' 1600. The word 'A mere anotomy a Jack of Lent.' "some jay of Italy 10 First folio-beauty. 11 That is, any fanciful head-dress worn by the cele brated beauties of Venice, or approved by them. In how merly held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melanmuch request the Venetian tire or head-dress was for. choly, 1624. Let her have the Spanish gait, the Venetian tire, Italian compliments and endowments." ballad enumerating all the misfortunes that fall on 12 Fortune my Foe is the beginning of a popular old mankind through the caprice of Fortune. The tune was the same with that of Death and the Lady,' to 6 Young sparrow-hawk, here used as a jocular term which the metrical lamentations of extraordinary cri for a small child. minals were chanted for two hundred years and more. Fal. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee, there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury' in simple-time; I cannot but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it. Mrs. Ford. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you Love mistress Page. Fal. Thou might'st as well say, I love to walk by the Counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln." Mrs. Ford. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it. Fal. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it. Mrs. Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind. Rob. [within.] Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here's mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently. Fal. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras.4 Mrs. Ford. Pray you, woman. do so; she's a very tattling [FALSTAFF hides himself. Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN. What's the matter? how now? Mrs. Page. O mistress Ford, what have you done? You're ashamed, you are overthrown, you are undone for ever. Mrs. Ford. What's the matter, good mistress Page? Mrs. Page. O well-a-day, mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion! Mrs. Ford. What cause of suspicion? Mrs. Page. What cause of suspicion ?-Out upon you! how am I mistook in you! Mrs. Ford. Why, alas! what's the matter? Mrs. Page. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman, that, he says, is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence: You are undone. Mrs. Ford. Speak louder.—[Aside.]—”Tis not so, I hope. Mrs. Page. Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. Fcome before to tell you: If you know yourself clear, why I am glad of it: but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed: call all your senses to you; defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever. Mrs. Ford. What shall I do?-There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame, so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound, he were out of the house. 1 Formerly chiefly inhabited by druggists, who sold all kinds of herbs green as well as dry. 2 The Counter as a prison was odious to Falstaff. 3 So, in Coriolanus Whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens." The name of this prison was a frequent subject of jocularity with our ancestors. Shakspeare has availed himself of it in the Comedy of Errors. My old acquaintance Baret records one pleasantly enough in his Alvearie, 1573.-"We saie merrily of him who hath been in the Counter or such like places of prison: He can sing his counter-tenor very well. And in anger we say, I will make you sing a counter-tenor for this geare: meaning imprisonment." 4 The spaces left between the walls and wooden frames on which the tapestry was hung, were not more commodious to our ancestors, than to the authors of ancient dramatic pieces. 5 Bleaching time. 6 These words, which are characteristic, and spoken to Mrs. Page aside, deserve to be restored from the old quarto. He had used the same words before to Mrs. Ford. Mrs. Page. For shame, never stand, you had rather, and you had rather; your husband's here at hand, bethink you of some convence: in the house you cannot hide him.-O, how have you deceived me!-Look, here is a basket; if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking: Or, it is whiting-time', send him by your two men to Datchet mead. Mrs. Ford. He's too big to go in there: What shall I do? Re-enter FALSTAFF. Fal. Let me see't; let me see't! O let me see't! I'll in, I'll in ;-follow your friend's counsel:-I'll in. Mrs. Page. What! Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight? Fal. I love thee, and none but thee; help me away: let me creep in here; I'll never. [He goes into the basket; they cover him with foul linen. Mrs. Page. Help to cover your master, boy: Call your men, mistress Ford:-You dissembling knight! Mrs. Ford. What, John, Robert, John! [Exit Robin; Re-enter Servants.] Go take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the cowl-staff?" look, how you drumble: carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead; quickly, come. Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH Ford. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve it.-How now? whither bear you this? Serv. To the laundress, forsooth. Mrs. Ford. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buckwashing. Ford. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck! buck! buck? Ay, buck? I warrant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear. [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers, search, seek, find out: I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox:-Let me stop this way first;-So, now uncape.' 10 Page. Good master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much. Ford. True, master Page.-Up, gentlemen; you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. [Erit. Eva. This is fery fantastical humours, and jealousies. Caius. By gar, 'tis no de fashion of France: it is not jealous in France. Page. Nay, follow him, gentlemen, see the issue of his search. [Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS. Mrs. Page. Is there not a double excellency in this? Mrs. Ford, I know not which pleases me better, my husband is deceived, or Sir John. that 7 A staff used for carrying a cowl or tub with two handles to fetch water in. "Bicollo, a cowle-staffe to carie behind and before with, as they use in Italy to carie two buckets at once."-Florio's Dictionary, 1598. 8 To drumble and drone meant to move sluggishly. To drumble, in Devonshire, means to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. A drumble drone, in the western dialect signifies a drone or humble-bee. That master genius of modern times, who knows so skilfully how to adapt his language to the characters and manners of the age in which his fable is laid, has adopted this word in The Fortunes of Nigel,' vol. ii. p. 298:-"Why how she drumbles-I warrant she stops to take a sip on the road." 9 Dennis observes that, it is not likely Falstaff would suffer himself to be carried to Datchet mead, which is half a mile from Windsor; and it is plain that they could not carry him, if he made any resistance.' 10 Hanmer proposed to read uncouple; but, perhaps, uncape had the same signification. It means, at any rate, to begin the hunt after him, when the holes for cs. cape had been stopped Mrs. Page. What a taking was he in, when your | SCENE IV. A Room in Page's House. Enter husband asked who was in the basket! Mrs. Page. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit. Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress. Mrs. Ford. I think my husband hath some specral suspicion of Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now And we Mrs. Page. I will lay a plot to try that will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. Mrs. Ford. Shall we send that foolish carrion, mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment? Mrs. Page. We'll do it; let him be sent for to- Ford. I cannot find him: may be the knave brag- FENTON and MISTRESS ANNE PAGE. Fent. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Gentle master Fenton, Mrs. Ford. Ay, ay, peace :-You use me well, Cannot attain it, why then-Hark you hither. master Ford, do you? Ford. Ay, I do so. [They converse apart Mrs. Ford. Heaven make you better than your Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MRS. QUICKLY. thoughts? Ford. Amen. Mrs. Page. You do yourself mighty wrong, master Ford. Ford. Ay, ay; I must bear it. Eva. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment. Caius. By gar, nor I too; dere is no bodies. Page. Fie, fie, master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not have your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle. Ford. 'Tis my fault, master Page: I suffer for it. Eva. You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too. Caius. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman. Ford. Well;-I promised you a dinner:-Come, come, walk in the park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you, why I have done this.-Come, wife;-Come, mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me." Page. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush: Shall it be so? Ford. Any thing. Eva. If there is one, I shall make two in the company. Caius. If there be one or two, I shall make-a de turd. Eva. In your teeth: for shame. Ford. Pray you go, master Page. Eva. I pray you now remembrance to-morrow, on the lousy knave, mine host. Caius. Dat is good; by gar, vit all my heart. Eva. A lousy knave; to have his gibes, and his mockeries. [Exeunt. I Ritson thinks we should read what. This emendation is supported by a subsequent passage, where Falstaff says: "the jealous knave asked them once or twice what was in the basket." It is remarkable that Ford asked no such question. 2 Some light may be given to those who shall endea. vour to calculate the increase of English wealth, by observing that Latymer, in the time of Edward VI. mentions it as a proof of his father's prosperity, "that though but a yeoman, he gave his daughters five pounds each for their portion." At the latter end of Elizabeth, seven hundred pounds were such a temptation to court ship, as made all other motives suspected. Congreve makes twelve thousand pounds more than counterbalance to the affection of Belinda. No poet will now My his favourite character at less than fifty thousand. Below we have: Shal. Break their talk, mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall speak for himself. Slen. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: slid, tis but venturing. Shal. Be not dismay'd. Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard. Quick. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you. Anne. I come to him.-This is my father's choice. Quick. And how does good master Fenton? Shal. She's coming, to her, coz. O'boy, thou hadst a father! Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne ;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him :--Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long tail,4 under the degree of a 'squire, Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself. for Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you. Anne. Now, master Slender. Slen. My will? od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. Anne. I mean, master Slender, what would you with me? 'O, what a world of vile ill favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! 3 A shaft was a long arrow, and a bolt a thick short The proverb probably means "I'll make something or other of it.-I will do it by some means or other." one. 4 The sense is obviously "Come who will to contend with me, under the degree of a squire," Cut and longtail means all kinds of curtail curs, and sporting do ge and all others. It is a phrase of frequent occurrence writers of the period; every kind of dog being com hended under cut and longtail, every rank of peop the expression when inctaphorically used. Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE. Why, how now! what does master Fenton here? Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient. Enter MRS. QUICKLY. Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: Give your worship good-morrow. Fal. Take away these chalices:6 Go brew me a Page. She is no match for you. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. In such a righteous fashion as I do, fool. Mrs. Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better Quick. That's my master, master doctor. Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself: Good I will not be your friend, nor enemy. [Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE. Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan. Quick. This is my doing, now:-Nay, said I, will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on master Fenton:-this is my doing. Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to night Give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy pains. SCENE V. A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Fal. Bardolph, I say, Bard. Here, sir. Bar. With eggs, sir? Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-Exit BARDOLPH.]-How now? Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford. Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of ford. Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault; she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. Quick. 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 war rant you. Fal. 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. Quick. I will tell her." Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten say'st thou ? [Exit. Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her. Enter FORD. Fal. Now, master Brook? you come to know Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determi nation? Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto, her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual [Exit.'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? Fal. While I was there. Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARD.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well; if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, 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 bitch's blind 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 This is a proverbial expression of frequent occur rence. The apparent signification here is: Happiness be his portion who succeeds best,' but the general meaning of the phrase may be interpreted: 'Let his portion Ford. And did he search for you, and could not you? find Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buckbasket. or lot be happy man.' Dole is the past participle and past tense of the A. 8. verb Dalan, to deal, to divide, to distribute. 2 i. e. some time to-night. 3 Specially. 4 Neglect 5 Pity. 6 Cups. 7 M. Mason proposes to read direction, but perhaps the change is not necessary Ford. A buck-basket? Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell, that ever offended nostril. Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in a 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 bellwether: next, to be compassed like a good bilbo,2 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 suffered all this. My suit then is desperate; you'll undertake her no more. Fal. 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. Fal. 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. bring my young man here to school: Look, where How now Quick. Blessing of his heart! Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my son profits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. Eva. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one num Quick. Poulcats! there are fairer things than poulcats, sure. Eva. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you peace. What is lapis, William? Will. A stone. Eva. And what is a stone, William? Eva. No, it is lapis; I pray you remember in your prain. Will. Lapis. Eva. That is good, William. What is he, William, that does lend articles? Will. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc. Eva. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark genetivo, hujus: Well, what is your accusative case? Will. Accusativo, hine. Eva. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo, hing, hang, hog. Quick. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. Eva. Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William? Will. O-vocativo, O. Eva. Remember, William; focative is caret. Eva. 'Oman, forbear. Mrs. Page. Peace. Eva. What is your genitive case plural, William ? Eva. Ay Will. Genetivo,-horum, harum, horum. Eva. For shame, 'oman. 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 my--never name her, child, if she be a whore. self 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 [Exit. horn mad. ACT IV. SCENE I.-The Street.-Enter MRS. PAGE, MRS. Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou? he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words: fast enough of themselves; and to call horum:fie upon you! Eva. "Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish christian creatures as I would desires. Mrs. Puge. Pr'ythee hold thy peace. Eva. Show me now, William, some declension of your pronouns. Will. Forsooth, I have forgot. Eva. It is ki, ka, cod; if you forget your kics, your kes, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go. Quick. Sure, he is by this; or will be presently:sions, has this very phrase-detected with, for impeachbut truly, he is very courageous mad, about his ed with, or held in suspicion by :-throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly. Mrs. Page. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but 1 With, by, and of were used indiscriminately with much licence by our ancestors, Thus in a subsequent passage of this play we have: I sooner would suspect the sun with cold.' Detected appears to have been used in the sense of suspected, impeached. Cavendish. In his Metrical VI "What is he of our bloode that wold not be sory To heare our names with vile fame so detected." Detected must have the same meaning here, for Fal staff was not discovered, but suspected by the jealous Ford. Some modern editors have unwarrantably sub stituted by for with. 2 A Bilbo is a Spanish blade remarkable for its tem per and flexibility. The best were made at Bilboa, town in Biscay. 4 Outrageous 8 Make myself ready. |