SCENE V.
Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him.
Page.
Nay, do not fly; I think, we've watcht you now;
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
Mrs. Page.
I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher.
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husbands? do not these fair Yoaks9 note
Become the Forest better than the Town?
Ford.
Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now? master
Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave, here are
his horns, master Brook; and, master Brook, he hath
enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his
cudgel, and twenty pounds of mony, which must be
paid to master Brook; his horses are arrested for it,
master Brook.
Mrs. Ford.
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could
never meet. I will never take you for my love again,
but I will always count you my deer.
Fal.
I do begin to perceive, that I am made an ass.
-- 553 --
Ford.
Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.
Fal.
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 surprize of my
powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd
belief, in despight of the teeth of all rhime and
reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may
be made a jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill imployment!
Eva.
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
Ford.
Well said, fairy Hugh.
Eva.
And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford.
I will never mistrust my wife again, 'till thou
art able to woo her in good English.
Fal.
Have I laid my brain in the sun and dry'd it,
that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as
this? am I ridden with a Welch goat too? shall I have
a coxcomb of frize? 'tis time, I were choak'd with a
piece of toasted cheese.
Eva.
Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is
all putter.
Fal.
Seese and putter? have I liv'd to stand in the
taunt of one, that makes fritters of English? this is
enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking,
through the Realm.
Mrs. Page.
Why, Sir John, do you think, though
we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the
head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without
scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made
you our delight?
Ford.
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page.
A puft man?
Page.
Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?
Ford.
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page.
And as poor as Job?
-- 554 --
Ford.
And as wicked as his wife?
Eva.
And given to fornications, and to taverns, and
sacks, and wines, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and
swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
Fal.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start
of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the
Welch flannel;1 note
ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me;
use me as you will.
Ford.
Marry, Sir, we'll bring you to Windsor to one
Mr. Brook, that you have cozen'd of mony, to whom
you should have been a pander: over and above that
you have suffer'd, I think, to repay that mony will be
a biting affliction.
2 noteMrs. Ford.
Nay, husband, let That go to make amends:
Forgive that Sum, and so we'll all be Friends.
Ford.
Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last.
Page.
Yet be cheerful, Knight; thou shalt eat a
posset to night at my house, where I will desire thee
to3 note laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell
her, Mr. Slender hath marry'd her daughter.
Mrs. Page.
Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my
daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
[Aside.
-- 555 --
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].