FALSTAFF

Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the King? But not kissed your Keepers daughter? I will answer it strait, I have done all this: That is now answered. 'Twere better for you if it were known in con cell: you'll be laughed at. Good words? good Cabidge; Slender, I broke your head: what matter have you against me? Pistol. Pistol, did you pick M. Slenders purse? Is this true, Pistol ? What say you Scarlet, and John ? You hear all these matters denied, Gentlemen; you hear it. Mistress Ford, by my troth you are very well met: by your leave good Mistress. Mine Host of the Garter ? Truly mine Host ; I must turn away some of my followers. I fit at ten pounds a week. Bardolf, follow him: a Tapster is a good trade: and old Cloak, makes a new Jerkin: a withered Servingman, a fresh Tapster: go, adieu. I am glad I am so acquit of this Tinderbox: his Thefts were too open: his filching was Like and unskilful Singer, he kept not time. Well sirs, I am almost out at heals. There is no remedy: I must conicatch, I must shift. Which of you know Ford of this Town? My honest Lads, I will tell you what I am about. No quips now Pistol : (Indeed I am in the waste two yards about: but I am now about no waste: I am a bout thrift) briefly: I do mean to make love to Fords wife: I spy entertainment in her: she discourses: she carves: she gives the leere of invitation: I can construe the Actium of her familiar style, & the hardest voice of her behaviour (to be englished rightly) is, I am Sir John Falstafs. Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husbands Purse: he hath a legend of Angels. I have writ me here a letter to her: & here anon there to Pages wife, who even now gave me good eyes too; examined my parts with most judicious illiads: some times the beam of her view, guilded my foot: some times my portly belly. Oh she did so course over my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye, did seem to scorch me up Like a burning-glass: here's another letter to her: She bears the Purse too: She is a Region in Guiana : all gold, and bounty: I will be Cheaters to them both, and they shall be Exchequers to me: they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both: Go, bear thou this Letter to Mistress Page ; and thou this to Mistress Ford : we will thrive (Lads) we will thrive. Hold Sirrah, bear you these Letters tightly, Sail Like my Pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avant, vanish Like hailstones; go, Trudge; plod away ith' hoof: seek shelter, pack: Falstaff will learn the honour of the age, French-thrift, you Rogues, my self, and skirted Page. I will not lend thee a penny. Not a penny: I have been content (Sir,) you should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated up on my good friends for three Repreeues for you, and your Coach-fellow Nim ; or else you had looked through the grate, Like a Geminy of Baboons: I am damned in hell, for swearing to Gentlemen my friends, you were good Soldiers, and tall-fellowes. And when Mistress Bright lost the handle of her Fan, I took't upon mine ho nou_r_ thou hadst it not. Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I'll en danger my soul, gratis ? at a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you: go, a short knife, and a throng, to your Manor of Pickthatch: go, you'll not bear a Letter for me you rogue? you stand upon your honour: why, (thou unconfinable baseness) it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my hononor precise: I, I, I my self sometime, leaving the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am feign to shuffle: to hedge, and to lurch, and yet, you Rogue, will en-sconce your rags; your Cat-a-Moun taine-lookes, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating-oathes, under the shelter of your honour? you will not do it? you? Let her approach. Good-morrow, goodwife. Good maid then. I do believe the swearer; what with me? Two thousand (fair woman) and isle vouchsafe thee the hearing. Well, on; Mistress Ford, you say. I warrant thee, nobody hears: mine own people, mine own people. Well; Mistress Ford, what of her? Mistress Ford : come, Mistress Ford. But what says she to me? be brief my good she- Mercury. Ten, and eleven. Ten, and eleven. Woman, commend me to her, I will not fail her. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my good parts aside, I have no other charms. But I pray thee tell me this: has Fords wife, and Pages wife acquainted each other, how they love me? Why, I will. Farethee-well, commend me to them both: there's my purse, I am yet thy debtor: Boy, go along with this woman, this news distracts me. Sayest thou so (old Jack ) go thy ways: I'll make more of thy old body then I have done: will they yet look after thee? wilt thou after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? good Body, I thank thee: let them say it's grossly done, so it be fairly done, no matter. Broom is his name? Call him in: such Brooms are welcome to me, that ore' flows such liquour: ah would, Mistress Ford and Mi stress Page, have I encompassed you? go to, via. And you sir: would you speak with me? You're welcome, what's your will? give us leave Drawer. Good Master Broom, I desire more acquaintance of you. Money is a good Soldier (Sir) and will on. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your Porter. Speak (good Master Broom ) I shall be glad to be your Servant. Very well Sir, proceed. Well Sir. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands? Have you importuned her to such a purpose? Of what quality was your love then? To what purpose have you unfolded this to me? Oh Sir. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection that I should win what you would enjoy? Me thinks you prescribe to your self very preposterously. Master Broom, I will first make bold with your money: next, give me your hand: and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Fords wife. I say you shall. Want no Mistress Ford (Master Broom ) you shall want none: I shall be with her (I may tell you) by her own appointment, even as you came in to me, her assi stant, or goe-betweene, parted from me: I say I shall be with her between ten and eleven: for at that time the iealious-rascally-knaue her husband will be forth: come you to me at night, you shall know how I speed. Hang him (poor Cuckoldly knave) I know him not: yet I wrong him to call him poor: They say the jealous wittolly-knaue hath masses of money, for the which his wife seems to me well-fauourd: I will use her as the key of the Cuckoldly-rogues Coffer, & ther's my harvest-home. Hang him, mechanicall-salt-butter rogue; I will stare him out of his wits: I will awe-him with my cud gell: it shall hang Like a Meteor over the Cuckolds horns: Master Broom, thou shalt know, I will predominate oh ver the pezant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night: Ford is a knave, and I will aggra vate his style: thou (Master Broom ) shalt know him for knave, and Cuckold. Come to me soon at night. Have I caught thee, my heavenly Jewel? Why now let me die, for I have lived long enough: This is the perjod of my ambition: Oh this blessed hour. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate (Missed. 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. Let the Court of France show me such another: I see how thine eye would emulate the Diamond: Thou hast the right arched-beauty of the brow, that becomes the Ship-tyre, the Tyre-valiant, or any Tire of Venetian admittance. Thou art a tyrant to say so: thou wouldst make and absolute Courtier, and the firm fixture of thy foot, would give and excellent motion to thy gate, in a semi circled Farthingale. I see what thou Wertenberg if Fortune thy foe, were not Nature thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it. What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee. Ther's something extraordinary in thee: Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, Like a-manie of these lisping-hauthorne buds, that come Like women in men's apparel, and smell Like. Bucklers-berry in sim ple time: I cannot, but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deservest it. Thou mightest as well say, I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me, as the reek of a Lime-kill. Keep in that mind, I'll deserve it. She shall not see me, I will ensconce me behind the Arras. Let me see't, let me see't, Oh let me see't: I'll in, I'll in: Follow your friends counsel, I'll in. I love thee, help me away: let me creep in here: isle never— Bardolf I say. Go, fetch me a quart of Sack, put a tossed in't. Have I lived to be carried in a Basket Like a barrow of butchers Offal? and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains 'tane out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a Newyears gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse, as they would have drown'de a blind bitches Puppies, fifteen in that litter: and you may know by my size, that I have a kind of alacrity in sink king: 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. Come, let me pour in some Sack to the Thames water: for my bellies as cold as if I had swallowed snow bals, for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. Take away these Chalices: Go, brew me a pottle of Sack finely. Simple of it self: I'll no Pullet-Spersme in my brewage. How now? Missed. Ford? I have had Ford enough: I was thrown into the Ford; I have my belly full of Ford. So did I mine, to built upon a foolish Woman's promise. 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. Do so. Between nine and ten sayest thou? Well, be gone: I will not miss her. I marvel I hear not of M r Broom : he sent me word to stay within: I Like his money well. O, here be comes. Now M. Broom, you come to know What hath passed between me, and Fords wife. M. Broom I will not lie to you, I was at her house the hour she appointed me. very ill-favoredly M. Broom. No (M. Broom ) but the peaking Curnuto her hus band (M. Broom ) dwelling in a continual alarm of ielou sie, coms me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, & (as it were) spoke the prologue of our Comedy: and at his heals, a rabble of his compa nions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and (forsooth) to search his house for his wives Love. While I was there. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Missed. Page gives intelligence of Fords ap proch: and in her invention, and Fords wives distraction, they conveyed me into a bucke-basket. Yes: a Buck-basket: rammed me in with foul Shirts and Smocks, Socks, foul Stockings, greasy Napkins, that (Master Broom ) there was the rankest compound of villainous smell, that ever offended no strill. Nay, you shall hear (Master Broom ) what I hau suffered, to bring this woman to evil, for your good: Being thus cramed in the Basket, a couple of Fords knaves, his Hinds, were called forth by their Mi stris, 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 Bas ket? I quaked for fear least 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 Broom ) I suffered the pangs of three several death's: First, and intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten Bell-weather: Next to be compassed Like a good Bilbo in the circum ference of a Peck, hilt to point, heel to head. And then to be stopped in Like a strong distillation with stink king 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 conti nuall dissolution, and thaw: it was a miracle to escape suffocation. And in the height of this Both (when I was more then half stewed in grease (Like a Dutch dish) to be thrown into the Thames, and cold, glowing-hot, in that serge Like a Horse shoo; think of that; hissing hight: think of that (Master Broom. ) Master Broom : 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 ambassy of me ting: betwixt eight and nine is the hour (Master Broom. ) Is it? I will then address me to my appoint meant: 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 Broom ) Master Broom, you shall cuckold Ford. Mi. Ford, Your sorrow hath eaten up my suff rance; I see you are obsequious in your love, and I pro fesse requital to a hairs breadth, not only Missed. Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accustrement, compliment, and ceremony of it: But are you sure of your husband now? No, I'll come no more in that Basket: May I not go out ere he come? What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney. Where is it? I'll go out then. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather then a mischief. How now, mine Host? There was (mine Host) and old-fat-woman even now with me, but she's gone. I marry was it (Mussel-shell) what would you with her? I spoke with the old woman about it. Marry she says, that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his Chain, cozon'd him of it. What are they? let us know. I may not conceal them (Sir.) It's, it's his fortune. To have her, or no: go; say the woman told me so. I Sir: Like who more bold. I that there was (mine Host ) one that hath taught me more wit, then ever I learned before in my life: and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my lear ning. I would all the world might be cozond, for I have been cozond and beaten too: if it should come to the ear of the Court, how I have been transformed; and how my transformation hath been washd, and cudgeld, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquour Fishermens-boots with me: I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crestfallen as a dride-peare: I never prospered, since I forswore my self at Primer : well, if my wind were but long enough; I would repent: Now? Whence come you? The Devil take one party, and his Dam the other: and so they shall be both bestowed; I have suf feared more for their sakes; more then the villainous in constancy of men disposition is able to bear. What tellest thou me of black, and blue? I was beaten my self into all the colours of the Rain bow: and I was Like to be apprehended for the Witch of Braineford, but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the Actium of and old woman delivered me, the knave Constable had set me ith' Stocks, ith' come mon Stocks, for a Witch. Come up into my Chamber. Prithee no more prattling: go, I'll hold, this is the third time: I hope good luck lies in odd numbers: Away, go, they say there is Divinity in odd Numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death: away. I went to her (Master Broom ) as you see, Like a poore-old-man, but I came from her (Master Broom ) Like a poore-old-woman; that same knave ( Ford his hus band) hath the sinnest mad devil of jealousy in him (Ma ster Broom ) that ever governed Frenzy. I will tell you, he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman: (for in the shape of Man (Master Broom ) I fear not Goliah with a Weavers beam, because I know also, life is a Shuttle) I am in hast, go along with me, I'll tell you all (Master Broom :) since I plucked Geese, played True nt, and whipped Top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten, till lately. Follow me, I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow, strange things in hand (M. Broom ) follow. The Windsor-bell hath stroke twelve: the Mi nute drawes-on: Now the hot-bloodied-Gods assist me: Remember lou , thou was't a Bull for thy Europa, Love set on thy horns. Oh powerful Love, that in some re spects makes a Beast a Man: in some other, a Man a beast. You were also (Jupiter) a Swan, for the love of Leda : Oh omnipotent Love, how never the God drew to the come plexion of a Goose: a fault done first in the form of a beast, (Oh Jove, a beastly fault:) and then another fault, in the semblance of a Foul, think on't (Jove) a fowle-fault. When Gods have hight backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor Stag, and the fattest (I think) in that Forest. Send me a cool rut-time (Jove) or who can blame me to piss my Tallow? Who comes here? my Do? My Do, with the black Scut? Let the sky rain Potatoes: let it thunder, to the tune of Green sleeves, haile-kissing Comfits, and snow Eringoes: Let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. Divide me Like a brib'd-Bucke, each a Haunch: I will keep my sides to my self, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk; and my horns I bequeathe your husbands. Am I a Woodman, would? Speak I Like Herne the Hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience, he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome. What should this be? I think the devil will not have me damned, Least the oil that's in me should set hell on fire; He would never else cross me thus. They are Fairies, he that speaks to them shall die, I'll wink, and couch: No man their works must eye. Heavens defend me from that Welsh Fairy, Least he transform me to a piece of Cheese. O, o, o. I do begin to perceive that I am made and Ass. And these are not Fairies I was three or four times in the thought they were not Fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the fop pery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were Fairies. See now how wit may be made a Iacke-a-Lent, when it's upon ill employment. Have I laid my brain in the Sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross overreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welch Goat too? Shall I have a Coxcomb of Freeze? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted Cheese. Cheese, and Butter? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes Fritters of English? This is e nough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the Realm. Well, I am your Theme: you have the start of me. I am dejected: I am not able to answer the Welch Flannel, Ignorance it self is a plummet over me, use me as you will. I am glad, though you have taken a special stand to strike at me, that your Arrow hath glanced. When night-dogges run, all sorts of Dear are chaced. Do so (good mine Host. Away I say, time wears, hold up your head & mince. How now M. Broom? Master Broom, the mat ter will be known to night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Hernes-Oake, and you shall see wonders.