for different names (sure, more!); and these are of the second edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press, when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion. Well—I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
Mrs. Ford. Why, this is the very same: the very hand; the very words. What doth he think of us?
Mrs. Page. Nay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for sure unless he know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.
Mrs. Ford. ‘Boarding,’ call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.
Mrs. Page. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I’ll never to sea again. Let’s be reveng’d on him: let’s appoint him a meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn’d his horses to mine host of the Garter.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him, that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O that my husband saw this letter! it would give eternal food to his jealousy.
Mrs. Page. Why, look where he comes; and my good man too. He’s as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause, and that (I hope) is an unmeasurable distance.
Mrs. Ford. You are the happier woman.
Mrs. Page. Let’s consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.
[They retire.]
[Enter] Ford [with] Pistol; Page [with] Nym.
Ford. Well, I hope it be not so.
Pist. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs. Sir John affects thy wife.
Ford. Why, sir, my wife is not young.
Pist.
He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
He loves the gallimaufry, Ford. Perpend.
Ford. Love my wife?
Pist.
With liver burning hot. Prevent; or go thou
Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels—
O, odious is the name!
Ford. What name, sir?
Pist.
The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night.
Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing.
Away, Sir Corporal Nym!
Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
[Exit.]
Ford [Aside.] I will be patient; I will find out this.
Nym [To Page.] And this is true; I like not the humor of lying. He hath wrong’d me in some humors. I should have borne the humor’d letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife: there’s the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch; ’tis true; my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humor of bread and cheese [and there’s the humor of it]. Adieu.
[Exit.]
Page. “The humor of it,” quoth ’a! Here’s a fellow frights English out of his wits.
Ford. I will seek out Falstaff.
Page. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
Ford. If I do find it—well.
Page. I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o’ th’ town commended him for a true man.
Ford. ’Twas a good sensible fellow—well.
[Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford come forward.]
Page. How now, Meg?
Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George, hark you?
Mrs. Ford. How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
Ford. I melancholy? I am not melancholy. Get you home; go.
Mrs. Ford. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now. Will you go, Mistress Page?
Mrs. Page. Have with you. You’ll come to dinner, George? [Aside to Mrs. Ford.] Look who comes yonder. She shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.
Mrs. Ford [Aside to Mrs. Page.] Trust me, I thought on her. She’ll fit it.
[Enter Mistress] Quickly.
Mrs. Page. You are come to see my daughter Anne?
Quick. Ay, forsooth; and I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
Mrs. Page. Go in with us and see. We have an hour’s talk with you.
[Exeunt Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Quickly.]
Page. How now, Master Ford?
Ford. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
Page. Yes, and you heard what the other told me?
Ford. Do you think there is truth in them?
Page. Hang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it; but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men—very rogues, now they be out of service.
Ford. Were they his men?
Page. Marry, were they.
Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?
Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.
Ford. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.
[Enter] Host.
Page.
