Wives may be merry, and yet honest, too.

We do not act that often jest and laugh.

’Tis old but true: ’Still swine eats all the draff’. Exit

Enter ⌈Mistress Ford, with⌉ John and Robert

MISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders. Your master is hard at door. If he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch! Exit

⌈JOHN⌉ Come, come, take it up.

⌈ROBERT⌉ Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

⌈JOHN⌉ I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

They lift the basket.

Enter Master Ford, Master Page, Doctor Caius, Sir

Hugh Evans, and Justice Shallow

FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? (To John and Robert) Set down the basket, villains.

John and Robert set down the basket

Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! ! O, you panderly rascals! There’s a knot, a gang, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed.—What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching.

PAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford. You are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

EVANS Why, this is lunatics; this is mad as a mad dog.

SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

FORD So say I too, sir.

Enter Mistress Ford

Come hither, Mistress Ford ! Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

MISTRESS FORD God be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

FORD Well said, brazen-face; hold it out.

He opens the basket and starts to take out clothes

Come forth, sirrah!

PAGE This passes.

MISTRESS FORD (to Ford) Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORD I shall find you anon.

EVANS ’Tis unreasonable: will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come, away.

FORD ⌈to John and Robert⌉ Empty the basket, I say.

⌈PAGE⌉ Why, man, why?

FORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is. My intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable. ⌈To John and Robert⌉ Pluck me out all the linen.

He takes out clothes

MISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.

PAGE Here’s no man.

SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford.

This wrongs you.

EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.

FORD Well, he’s not here I seek for.

PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

FORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, ‘As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman’. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. ⌈Exeunt⌉ John and Robert with the basket⌉

MISTRESS FORD What ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down. My husband will come into the chamber.

FORD Old woman? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORD Why, it is my maid’s Aunt of Brentford.

FORD A witch, a quean, an old, cozening quean! ! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’ figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.—Come down, you witch, you hag, you ! Come down, I say!

⌈Enter Mistress Page, and Sir John Falstaff,

disguised as an old woman.⌉

⌈Ford makes towards them⌉

MISTRESS FORD Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Sir John) Come, Mother Prat. Come, give me your hand.

FORD I’ll prat her!

He beats Sir John

Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you! Exit Sir John

MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it.—’Tis a goodly credit for you!

FORD Hang her, witch!

EVANS By Jeshu, I think the ‘oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under his muffler.

FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. See but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

PAGE Let’s obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen. Exeunt the men

MISTRESS PAGE By my troth, he beat him most pitifully.

MISTRESS FORD Nay, by th’ mass, that he did not—he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

MISTRESS PAGE I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious service.

MISTRESS FORD What think you—may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

MISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is sure scared out of him. If the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste attempt us again.

MISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

MISTRESS PAGE Yes, by all means, if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor, unvirtuous, fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

MISTRESS FORD I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed, and methinks there would be no period to the jest should he not be publicly shamed.

MISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it, then shape it. I would not have things cool. Exeunt

4.3 Enter the Host of the Garter and Bardolph

BARDOLPH Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses. The Duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

HOST What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen. They speak English?

BARDOLPH Ay, sir. I’ll call them to you.

HOST They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them. They have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests. They must come off: I’ll sauce them. Come. Exeunt

4.4 Enter Master Page, Master Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans

EVANS ‘Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon.

PAGE And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

MISTRESS PAGE Within a quarter of an hour.

FORD

Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt.

I rather will suspect the sun with cold

Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour

stand,

In him that was of late an heretic,

As firm as faith.

PAGE ’Tis well, ’tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in submission

As in offence.

But let our plot go forward. Let our wives

Yet once again, to make us public sport,