Host. What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May he will carry 't, he will carry 't; 'tis in 70 his buttons; he will carry 't.

Page. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: 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 I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

Ford. I beseech you heartily, some of you go 80 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 Shal. and Slen. 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.

Ford. [Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine 90

first with him; I'll make him dance.

go, gentles?

Will you

All. Have with you to see this monster.

[Exeunt.

70. 'tis in his buttons, it is 'in him,' within his compass or

power.

SCENE III. A room in FORD's house.

Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. What, John! What, Robert! Mrs. Page. Quickly, quickly! Is the buckbasket

Mrs. Ford. I warrant. Wnat, 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. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew- 10 house and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take this 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 ha' 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?

14. whitsters, bleachers.

22. eyas-musket, young male sparrow-hawk.

20

Rob. My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-Lent, have 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'rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.

hide me.

I'll go

Mrs. Ford. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone. [Exit Robin.] Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

30

Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, 40 hiss me.

[Exit. 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.

Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough this is the period of my ambition: 0 this blessed hour!

:

Mrs. Ford. O sweet Sir

27. Jack-a-Lent, a puppet used as a mark for boys to throw at during Lent.

43. pumpion, pumpkin.

44. turtles from jays, faithful wives from loose women. Imogen fears that her husband has been won by 'some jay of Italy.'

45. Have I caught thee, my

John !

heavenly jewel? A form of
greeting adapted from the open-
ing of the Second Song of
Sidney's Astrophel and Stella
(where the lover finds Stella
sleeping) :-

Haue I caught my heau'nly jewell,
Teaching sleepe most faire to be?
Now will I teach her that she,
When she wakes, is too too cruell.

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!

50

Fal. 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-tire, the tire- 60 valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.

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 wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, 70

thou canst not hide it.

Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there's no such thing in me.

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 hawthornbuds, that come like women in men's apparel,

50. cog, beguile.

60. ship-tire, headdress resembling a ship in full sail.

60. tire-valiant, a fantastic headdress.

61. of Venetian admittance, in fashion at Venice. 'The Venetian tire' was still

prized, like

'the Spanish gait,' by English ladies when Burton wrote twenty-five years later.

69. if Fortune thy foe were not, an allusion to the ballad : 'Fortune my Foe, why dost thou frown on me?'

77. hawthorn-buds, dandies.

and smell like Bucklersbury in simple-time; I cannot but I love thee; none but thee; and 80 thou deservest it.

Mrs. Ford. Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.

Fal. Thou mightst 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; 90 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.

Mrs. Ford. Pray you, do so:

tattling woman.

she's a very

[Falstaff hides himself.

Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN.

What's the matter? how now!

Mrs. Page. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, you 're overthrown, you're 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 !

79. Bucklersbury, a street in London, the headquarters of the grocers and apothecaries.

79. in simple-time in the

100

season when medicinal herbs were gathered.

85. Counter-gate, the gate of the Counter, the chief London debtors' prison.