Bardolph.
Fal.
Bardolph, I say!
Bard.
Here, sir.
Fal.
Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.
[Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket,
like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in
the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick,
I'll have my brains ta'en out, and buttered, and give
them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues
slighted me into the river with as little remorse as
they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies6 note, fifteen
i' the litter; and you may know by my size, that
I have a kind of alacrity in sinking: 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.
Re-enter Bardolph, with the Wine.
Bard.
Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with
you.
Fal.
Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
water; for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallowed
snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
Bard.
Come in, woman.
-- 239 --
Enter Mrs. Quickly.
Quick.
By your leave.—I cry you mercy: give your
worship good-morrow.
Fal.
Take away these chalices. Go brew me a
pottle of sack finely.
Bard.
With eggs, sir?
Fal.
Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
brewage.—[Exit Bardolph.]—How now!
Quick.
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from
mistress Ford.
Fal.
Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I
was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
Quick.
Alas the day! good heart, that was not her
fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook
their erection.
Fal.
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's
promise.
Quick.
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would
yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this
morning a birding: she desires you once more to come
to her between eight and nine. I must carry her word
quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.
Fal.
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.
Quick.
I will tell her.
Fal.
Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
Quick.
Eight and nine, sir.
Fal.
Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
Quick.
Peace be with you, sir.
[Exit.
Fal.
I marvel, I hear not of master Brook: he sent
me word to stay within. I like his money well. O!
here he comes.
Enter Ford.
Ford.
Bless you, sir.
-- 240 --
Fal.
Now, master Brook; you come to know what
hath passed between me and Ford's wife?
Ford.
That, indeed, sir John, is my business.
Fal.
Master Brook, I will not lie to you. I was at
her house the hour she appointed me.
Ford.
And sped you, sir?
Fal.
Very ill-favouredly, master Brook.
Ford.
How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
Fal.
No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto
her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual
larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our
encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested,
and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and
at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked
and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to
search his house for his wife's love.
Ford.
What! while you were there?
Fal.
While I was there.
Ford.
And did he search for you, and could not find
you?
Fal.
You shall hear. As good luck would have it,
comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of
Ford's approach; and by her invention7 note, and Ford's
wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
Ford.
A buck-basket!
Fal.
By the Lord, a buck-basket8 note: rammed me in
with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and
greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the
-- 241 --
rankest compound of villainous smell, that ever offended
nostril.
Ford.
And how long lay you there?
Fal.
Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have
suffered, to bring this woman to evil for your good.
Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's
knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress,
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 basket. I quaked for
fear, lest 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 Brook:
I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an
intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten
bell-wether: next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo,
in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to
head: and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation,
with stinking 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
continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle, to
'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath,
when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a
Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled,
glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse shoe; think of
that,—hissing hot,—think of that, master Brook.
Ford.
In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my
sake you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate;
you'll undertake her no more?
Fal.
Master Brook, I will be thrown into Ætna, 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 embassy of meeting; 'twixt
eight and nine is the hour, master Brook.
-- 242 --
Ford.
'Tis past eight already, sir.
Fal.
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.
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 Brook; master Brook, you shall
cuckold Ford.
[Exit.
Ford.
Hum: ha! is this a vision? is this a dream?
do I sleep? Master Ford, awake! awake, master
Ford! there's a hole made in your best coat, master
Ford. This 'tis to be married: this 'tis to have linen,
and buck-baskets.—Well, I will proclaim myself what
I am; I will now take the lecher; he is at my house:
he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should: he
cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepperbox;
but, lest the devil that guides him should aid
him, I will search impossible places. Though what I
am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall
not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad,
let the proverb go with me, I'll be horn mad.
[Exit.
J. Payne Collier [1842–1844], The works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an entirely new collation of the old editions: with the various readings, notes, a life of the poet, and a history of the Early English stage. By J. Payne Collier, Esq. F.S.A. In eight volumes (Whittaker & Co. [etc.], London) [word count] [S10101].
