Call her in.
Bard. Come in, woman!
[Enter Mistress] Quickly.
Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy! Give your worship good morrow.
Fal. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.
Bard. With eggs, sir?
Fal. Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit Bardolph.] How now?
Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
Fal. Mistress Ford? I have had ford enough. I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault. She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.
Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her, between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I warrant you.
Fal. Well, I will visit her, tell her so. And bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.
Quick. I will tell her.
Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou?
Quick. Eight and nine, sir.
Fal. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
Quick. Peace be with you, sir.
[Exit.]
Fal. I marvel I hear not of Master [Brook]; he sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.
[Enter] Ford [disguised].
Ford. Bless you, sir!
Fal. Now, Master [Brook], you come to know what hath pass’d between me and Ford’s wife?
Ford. That indeed, Sir John, is my business.
Fal. Master [Brook], I will not lie to you. I was at her house the hour she appointed me.
Ford. And sped you, sir?
Fal. Very ill-favoredly, Master [Brook].
Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
Fal. No, Master [Brook], but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master [Brook], dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embrac’d, kiss’d, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok’d and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wive’s love.
Ford. What? While you were there?
Fal. While I was there.
Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and in her invention, and Ford’s wive’s distraction, they convey’d me into a buck- basket.
Ford. A buck-basket?
Fal. [By the Lord], a buck-basket! Ramm’d me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master [Brook], there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
Ford. And how long lay you there?
Fal. Nay, you shall hear, Master [Brook], what I have suffer’d to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm’d in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were call’d forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane. They took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who ask’d them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quak’d for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have search’d it; but fate (ordaining he should be a cuckold) held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master [Brook]. I suffer’d the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealious rotten bell-wether; next, to be compass’d like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to be stopp’d in like a strong distillation with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that—a man of my kidney. Think of that—that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath (when I was more than half stew’d in grease, like a Dutch dish) to be thrown into the Thames, and cool’d, glowing-hot, in that surge, like a horse- shoe; think of that—hissing-hot—think of that, Master [Brook].
Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffer’d all this. My suit then is desperate; you’ll undertake her no more?
Fal. Master [Brook], I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding. I have receiv’d from her another ambassy of meeting. ’Twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master [Brook].
Ford. ’Tis past eight already, sir.
Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crown’d with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master [Brook]. Master [Brook], you shall cuckold Ford.
[Exit.]
Ford. Hum! ha? Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake! awake, Master Ford! There’s a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ’tis to be married! This ’tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am. I will now take the lecher; he is at my house. He cannot scape me; ’tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn-mad.
Exit.
¶
ACT IV
Scene I
Enter Mistress Page, [Mistress] Quickly, William.
Mrs. Page. Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?
Quick. Sure he is by this—or will be presently. But truly he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires
