FENTONWell, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her before me, commend me.
QUICKLY
Will I? i' faith, that we will; and I will tell your worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers.
FENTON
Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
QUICKLY
Farewell to your worship. —
[Exit FENTON.]
Truly, an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon 't, what have I forgot?
[Exit.]
ACT II
SCENE I. Before Page's house
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter.]
MRS. PAGE
What! have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see.
"Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there's sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's more sympathy; you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say, pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase; but I say, Love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,
Or any kind of light,
With all his might,
For thee to fight,
JOHN FALSTAFF."
What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant. What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard picked, with the devil's name! out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth:—Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.
[Enter MISTRESS FORD.]
MRS. FORD
Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house.
MRS. PAGE
And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.
MRS. FORD
Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary.
MRS. PAGE
Faith, but you do, in my mind.
MRS. FORD
Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to the contrary. O, Mistress Page! give me some counsel.
MRS. PAGE
What's the matter, woman?
MRS. FORD
O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honour!
MRS. PAGE
Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What is it?—Dispense with trifles;—what is it?
MRS. FORD
If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.
MRS. PAGE
What? thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.
MRS. FORD
We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women's modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of "Greensleeves." What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?
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