SCENE I. Before PAGE'S house. The Merry Wives of Windsor  Shakespeare homepage  |  Merry Wives of Windsor  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. Before PAGE'S house. 

 Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter  MISTRESS 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. 



 Reads  'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though 

 Love use Reason for his physician, 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 

 world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with 

 age to show himself a young gallant! What an 

 unweighed behavior 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  MISTRESS FORD  Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house. 

 MISTRESS PAGE  And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very 

 ill. 

 MISTRESS FORD  Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary. 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Faith, but you do, in my mind. 

 MISTRESS FORD  Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the 

 contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel! 

 MISTRESS PAGE  What's the matter, woman? 

 MISTRESS FORD  O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I 

 could come to such honour! 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is 

 it? dispense with trifles; what is it? 

 MISTRESS FORD  If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, 

 I could be knighted. 

 MISTRESS PAGE  What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights 

 will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the 

 article of thy gentry. 

 MISTRESS 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 'Green Sleeves.' 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? 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and 

 Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery 

 of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy 

 letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I 

 protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a 

 thousand of these letters, writ with blank space 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. 

 MISTRESS FORD  Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very 

 words. What doth he think of us? 

 MISTRESS 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. 

 MISTRESS FORD  'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him 

 above deck. 

 MISTRESS PAGE  So will I	if he come under my hatches, I'll never 

 to sea again. Let's be revenged 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 pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter. 

 MISTRESS FORD  Nay, I will consent to act any villany 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. 

 MISTRESS 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. 

 MISTRESS FORD  You are the happier woman. 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Let's consult together against this greasy knight. 

 Come hither. 



 They retire 

 Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM  FORD  Well, I hope it be not so. 

 PISTOL  Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs: 

 Sir John affects thy wife. 

 FORD  Why, sir, my wife is not young. 

 PISTOL  He wooes 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! 

 PISTOL  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? 

 PISTOL  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 humour 

 of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I 

 should have borne the humoured 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 humour of bread and cheese, 

 and there's the humour of it. Adieu. 



 Exit  PAGE  'The humour 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' the town commended him for a true man. 

 FORD  'Twas a good sensible fellow: well. 

 PAGE  How now, Meg! 



 MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward  MISTRESS PAGE  Whither go you, George? Hark you. 

 MISTRESS FORD  How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy? 

 FORD  I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go. 

 MISTRESS FORD  Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now, 

 will you go, Mistress Page? 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George. 



 Aside to MISTRESS FORD  Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger 

 to this paltry knight. 

 MISTRESS FORD  [Aside to MISTRESS PAGE]  Trust me, I thought on her: 

 she'll fit it. 



 Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY  MISTRESS PAGE  You are come to see my daughter Anne? 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne? 

 MISTRESS PAGE  Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with 

 you. 



 Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS 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 

 towards 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. 

 PAGE  Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes: 

 there is either liquor in his pate or money in his 

 purse when he looks so merrily. 



 Enter Host  How now, mine host! 

 Host  How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman. 

 Cavaleiro-justice, I say! 



 Enter SHALLOW  SHALLOW  I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and 

 twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go 

 with us? we have sport in hand. 

 Host  Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook. 

 SHALLOW  Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh 

 the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor. 

 FORD  Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you. 



 Drawing him aside  Host  What sayest thou, my bully-rook? 

 SHALLOW  [To PAGE]  Will you go with us to behold it? My 

 merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; 

 and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; 

 for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. 

 Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. 



 They converse apart  Host  Hast thou no suit against my knight, my 

 guest-cavaleire? 

 FORD  None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of 

 burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him 

 my name is Brook; only for a jest. 

 Host  My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress; 

 --said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is 

 a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires? 

 SHALLOW  Have with you, mine host. 

 PAGE  I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in 

 his rapier. 

 SHALLOW  Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times 

 you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and 

 I know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis 

 here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long 

 sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats. 

 Host  Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag? 

 PAGE  Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight. 



 Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE  FORD  Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly 

 on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my 

 opinion so easily: she was in his company at Page's 

 house; and what they made there, I know not. Well, 

 I will look further into't: and I have a disguise 

 to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not 

 my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed. 



 Exit  Shakespeare homepage  |  Merry Wives of Windsor  | Act 2, Scene 1 

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