Nym.
Ford.
Well, I hope, it be not so.
Pist.
Hope is a* note curtail-dog in some affairs.
Sir John affects thy wife.
Ford.
Why, Sir, my wife is not young.
Pist.
He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor.
Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves thy gally-mawfry, Ford, perpend.
Ford.
Love my wife?
Pist.
With liver burning hot: prevent, or go thou,
like Sir Acteon, he, with Ring-wood at thy heels—
O, odious is the name.
Ford.
What name, Sir?
Pist.
The horn, I say: farewel.
Take heed, have open eye; for thieves do foot by night.
Take heed ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds affright.
Away, Sir corporal Nym.—9 note
-- 478 --
Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
[Exit Pistol.
Ford.
I will be patient; I will find out this.
Nym.
And this is true: I like not the humour of
lying; he hath wrong'd me in some humours: I
should have born the humour'd letter to her; but I
have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity1 note
—
He loves your wife; there's the short and the long.—
My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch;
'tis true—my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your
Wife.—Adieu; I love not the humour of bread and
cheese: adieu.
[Exit Nym.
Page.
The humour of it, quoth a'! here's a fellow,
frights humour out of its wits.
Ford.
I will seek out Falstaff.
Page.
I never heard such a drawling, affecting
rogue.
Ford.
If I do find it: well.
Page.
I will not believe such a2 note
Cataian, tho' the
priest o' th' town commended him for a true man.
Ford.
'Twas a good sensible fellow—well.
-- 479 --
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
