MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart!

MISTRESS PAGE Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you ask him some questions in his accidence.

EVANS Come hither, William. Hold up your head. Come.

MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah. Hold up your head.

Answer your master; be not afraid.

EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM TWO.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say ‘’Od’s nouns’.

EVANS Peace your tattlings!—What is ‘fair’, William?

WILLIAM ‘Pulcher’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats? There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

EVANS You are a very simplicity ‘oman. I pray you peace.—What is ‘lapis’, William?

WILLIAM A stone.

EVANS And what is ‘a stone’, William?

WILLIAM A pebble.

EVANS No, it is ‘lapis’. I pray you remember in your prain.

WILLIAM ‘Lapis’.

EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?

WILLIAM Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined. Singulariter nominativo: ‘hic, haec, hoc’.

EVANS Nominativo: ‘hig, hag, hog’. Pray you mark: genitivo: ‘huius’. Well, what is your accusative case?

WILLIAM Accusativo: ‘hinc’—

EVANS I pray you have your remembrance, child.

Accusativo: ‘hing, hang, hog’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY ’Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

EVANS Leave your prabbles, ’oman!—What is the focative case, William?

WILLIAM O—vocativo, O—

EVANS Remember, William, focative is caret.

MISTRESS QUICKLY And that’s a good root.

EVANS ’Oman, forbear.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Mistress Quickly) Peace.

EVANS What is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM Genitive case?

EVANS Ay.

WILLIAM Genitivo: ‘horum, harum, horum’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Vengeance of Jenny’s case! Fie on her!

Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

EVANS For shame, ’oman!

MISTRESS QUICKLY You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘whorum’. Fie upon you!

EVANS ’Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Mistress Quickly) Prithee, hold thy peace.

EVANS Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

WILLIAM Forsooth, I have forgot.

EVANS It is ‘qui, que, quod’. If you forget your ‘qui’s, your ‘que‘s, and your ‘quod’s, you must be preeches. Go your ways and play; go.

MISTRESS PAGE He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

EVANS He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

MISTRESS PAGE Adieu, good Sir Hugh. Exit Evans

Get you home, boy. Exit William

(To Mistress Quickly) Come, we stay too long. Exeunt

4.2 Enter Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Ford

SIR JOHN Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth: not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MISTRESS FORD He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGE (within) What ho, gossip Ford, what ho!

MISTRESS FORD Step into th’ chamber, Sir John.

Sir John steps into the chamber

Enter Mistress Page

MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides yourself?

MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people.

MISTRESS PAGE Indeed?

MISTRESS FORD No, certainly. (Aside to her) Speak louder.

MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MISTRESS FORD Why?

MISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old lines again. He so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion soever, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying ‘Peer out, peer out!’, that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him?

MISTRESS PAGE Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket, protests to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here. Now he shall see his own foolery.

MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGE Hard by at street end. He will be here anon. 35

MISTRESS FORD I am undone: the knight is here.

MISTRESS PAGE Why then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! Better shame than murder.

MISTRESS FORD Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Sir John comes forth from the chamber

SIR JOHN No, I’ll come no more i’th’ basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out. Otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

SIR JOHN What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.

⌈MISTRESS PAGE⌉ Creep into the kiln-hole.

SIR JOHN Where is it?

MISTRESS FORD He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.

SIR JOHN I’ll go out, then.

MISTRESS ⌈PAGE⌉ If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John—unless you go out disguised.

MISTRESS FORD How might we disguise him?

MISTRESS PAGE Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.

SIR JOHN Good hearts, devise something. Any extremity rather than a mischief.

MISTRESS FORD My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is; and there’s her thrummed hat, and her muffler too.—Run up, Sir John.

MISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and

I will look some linen for your head.

MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you straight. Put on the gown the while. Exit Sir John

MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him in this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford. He swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

MISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming?

MISTRESS PAGE Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

MISTRESS FORD We’ll try that, for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.

MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.

MISTRESS FORD I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.

MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet ! We cannot misuse him enough. ⌈Exit Mistress Ford⌉

We’ll leave a proof by that which we will do,