SIR JOHN By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so. Thou wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semicircled farthingale. I see what thou wert if fortune, thy foe, were, with nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

MISTRESS FORD Believe me, there’s no such thing in me. SIR JOHN What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a-many of these lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men’s apparel and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I cannot. But I love thee, none but thee; and thou deservest it.

MISTRESS FORD Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.

SIR JOHN Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.

MISTRESS FORD Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it.

SIR JOHN Keep in that mind. I’ll deserve it.

MISTRESS FORD Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind.

Enter Robin

ROBIN Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! Here’s Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

SIR JOHN She shall not see me. I will ensconce me behind the arras.

MISTRESS FORD Pray you do so; she’s a very tattling woman.

Sir John hides behind the arras.

Enter Mistress Page

What’s the matter? How now?

MISTRESS PAGE O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone for ever.

MISTRESS FORD What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGE O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! Having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

MISTRESS FORD What cause of suspicion?

MISTRESS PAGE What cause of suspicion? Out upon you!

How am I mistook in you

MISTRESS FORD Why, alas, what’s the matter?

MISTRESS PAGE Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.

MISTRESS FORD ’Tis not so, I hope.

MISTRESS PAGE Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a man here! But ’tis most certain your husband’s coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed. Call all your senses to you. Defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.

MISTRESS FORD What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril. I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.

MISTRESS PAGE For shame, never stand ‘you had rather’ and ‘you had rather’. Your husband’s here at hand. Bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket. If he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him as if it were going to bucking. Or—it is whiting time—send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.

MISTRESS FORD He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?

SIR JOHN (coming forward) Let me see’t, let me see’t, O let me see’t! I’ll in, I’ll in. Follow your friend’s counsel; I’ll in.

MISTRESS PAGE What, Sir John Falstaff! (Aside to him) Are these your letters, knight?

SIR JOHN (aside to Mistress Page) I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here.

He goes into the basket

I’ll never—

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford put foul clothes over him

MISTRESS PAGE (to Robin) Help to cover your master, boy.—Call your men, Mistress Ford. ⌈Aside to Sir John⌉ You dissembling knight!

MISTRESS FORD What, John! Robert, John!

Enter John and Robert

Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the cowl-staff?

John and Robert fit the cowl-staff

Look how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead. Quickly, come!

They lift the basket and start to leave.

Enter Master Ford, Master Page, Doctor Caius, and

Sir Hugh Evans

FORD (to Page, Caius, and Evans) Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why then, make sport at me; then let me be your jest—1 deserve it. (To John and Robert) How now? Whither bear you this?

⌈JOHN⌉ To the laundress, forsooth.

MISTRESS FORD Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing!

FORD Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck? Ay, buck, I warrant you, buck. And of the season too, it shall appear.

⌈Exeunt John and Robert, with the basket⌉

Gentlemen, I have dreamt tonight. I’ll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys. Ascend my chambers, search, seek, find out. I’ll warrant we’ll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.

He locks the door

So, now, uncoop.

PAGE Good Master Ford, be contented. You wrong yourself too much.

FORD True, Master Page.—Up, gentlemen! You shall see sport anon. Follow me, gentlemen. Exit

EVANS This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

CAIDS By Gar, ’tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France.

PAGE Nay, follow him, gentlemen. See the issue of his search. Exeunt Caius, Evans, and Page

MISTRESS PAGE Is there not a double excellency in this?

MISTRESS FORD I know not which pleases me better: that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGE What a taking was he in when your husband asked what was in the basket!

MISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing, so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

MISTRESS FORD I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff’s being here, for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now.

MISTRESS PAGE I will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.

MISTRESS FORD Shall we send that foolish carrion Mistress Quickly to him, and excuse his throwing into the water, and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

MISTRESS PAGE We will do it. Let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock, to have amends.

Enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Evans

FORD I cannot find him. Maybe the knave bragged of that he could not compass.

MISTRESS PAGE (aside to Mistress Ford) Heard you that?

MISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

FORD Ay, I do so.

MISTRESS FORD Heaven make me better than your thoughts!

FORD Amen.

MISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

FORD Ay, ay, I must bear it.

EVANS If there be anypody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgement!

CAIUS Be Gar, nor I too. There is nobodies.

PAGE Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha’ your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

FORD ’Tis my fault, Master Page. I suffer for it.

EVANS You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a ’omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

CAIUS By Gar, I see ’tis an honest woman.