He draws Slender aside

Marry, this, coz: there is, as ’twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me?

SLENDER Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable. If it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

SHALLOW Nay, but understand me.

SLENDER So I do, sir.

EVANS Give ear to his motions. Master Slender, I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

SLENDER Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says. I pray you pardon me. He’s a Justice of Peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

EVANS But that is not the question. The question is concerning your marriage.

SHALLOW Ay, there’s the point, sir.

EVANS Marry, is it, the very point of it—to Mistress Anne Page.

SLENDER Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

EVANS But can you affection the ’oman ? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips—for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

SHALLOW Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDER I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVANS Nay, Got’s lords and his ladies, you must speak positable if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOW That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

SLENDER I will do a greater thing than that upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

SHALLOW Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz. What I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDER I will marry her, sir, at your request. But if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say ‘marry her’, I will marry her. That I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

EVANS It is a fery discretion answer, save the faul’ is in the ’ord ‘dissolutely’. The ’ort is, according to our meaning, ‘resolutely’. His meaning is good.

SHALLOW Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDER Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.

Enter Anne Page

SHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne.—Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne.

ANNE The dinner is on the table. My father desires your worships’ company.

SHALLOW I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

EVANS ’Od’s plessed will, I will not be absence at the grace. Exeunt Shallow and Evans

ANNE (to Slender) Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDER No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. (To Simple) Go, sirrah; for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow. Exit Simple A Justice of Peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE I may not go in without your worship. They will not sit till you come.

SLENDER I’faith, I’ll eat nothing. I thank you as much as though I did.

ANNE I pray you, sir, walk in.

⌈Dogs bark within⌉

SLENDER I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th‘other day, with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence—three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes—and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’th’ town?

ANNE I think there are, sir. I heard them talked of.

SLENDER I love the sport well—but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

ANNE Ay, indeed, sir.

SLENDER That’s meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain. But I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed. But women, indeed, cannot abide ’em. They are very ill-favoured, rough things.

Enter Page

PAGE Come, gentle Master Slender, come. We stay for you.

SLENDER I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

PAGE By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir. Come, come.

SLENDER Nay, pray you lead the way.

PAGE Come on, sir.

SLENDER Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNE Not I, sir. Pray you keep on.

SLENDER Truly, I will not go first, truly, la. I will not do you that wrong.

ANNE I pray you, sir.

SLENDER I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong, indeed, la.

Exeunt ⌈Slender first, the others following⌉

1.2 Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple, ⌈from dinner⌉

EVANS Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius’ house which is the way. And there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his ’oman, or his dry-nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.

SIMPLE Well, sir.

EVANS Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter, for it is a ’oman that altogethers acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page. And the letter is to desire and require her to solicit your master’s desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you be gone. ⌈Exit Simple⌉ I will make an end of my dinner; there’s pippins and cheese to come. Exit

1.3 Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nim, Pistol, and Robin

SIR JOHN Mine Host of the Garter!

Enter the Host of the Garter

HOST What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.

SIR JOHN Truly, mine Host, I must turn away some of my followers.

HOST Discard, bully Hercules, cashier. Let them wag. Trot, trot.

SIR JOHN I sit at ten pounds a week.

HOST Thou’rt an emperor: Caesar, kaiser, and pheezer. I will entertain Bardolph. He shall draw, he shall tap. Said I well, bully Hector? 11

SIR JOHN Do so, good mine Host.

HOST I have spoke; let him follow. (To Bardolph) Let me see thee froth and lime. I am at a word: follow. Exit

SIR JOHN Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade. An old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

BARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired. I will thrive.

⌈Exit⌉

PISTOL

O base Hungarian wight, wilt thou the spigot wield?

NIM He was gotten in drink; his mind is not heroic. Is not the humour conceited?

SIR JOHN I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox. His thefts were too open. His filching was like an unskilful singer: he kept not time.

Him The good humour is to steal at a minute’s rest.

PISTOL

‘Convey’ the wise it call. ‘Steal’? Foh, a fico for the

phrase!

SIR JOHN Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

PISTOL Why then, let kibes ensue.

SIR JOHN There is no remedy: I must cony-catch, I must shift.

PISTOL Young ravens must have food.

SIR JOHN Which of you know Ford of this town?

PISTOL I ken the wight. He is of substance good.

SIR JOHN My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

PISTOL Two yards and more.

SIR JOHN No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about. But I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford’s wife. I spy entertainment in her. She discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation. I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is ‘I am Sir John Falstaff’s’.

PISTOL He hath studied her well, and translated her will: out of honesty, into English.

NIM The anchor is deep. Will that humour pass?

SIR JOHN Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husband’s purse; he hath a legion of angels.