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 Yoaks
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.

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?

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; ^{7 note}I am not able to answer the Welch flannel; 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.

Mrs. Ford.
Nay, husband, let That go to make amends:
Forgive that Summ, 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 to 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's wife.