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Caius. Rugby, come to de Court vit me.-By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door. -Follow my heels, Rugby. [Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY. Quick. You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more than I do with her, I thank Heaven.

Fent. [Within.] Who's within there? ho!

Quick. Who's there, I trow?14 Come near the house, I pray you.

Enter FENTON.

Fent. How now, good woman! how dost thou ?

Quick. The better that it pleases your good Worship to ask. Fent. What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne?

Quick. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by the way; I praise Heaven for it.

Fent. Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit?

Quick. Troth, sir, all is in His hands above: but notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book, she loves you. Have not your Worship a wart above your eye?

Fent. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

Quick. Well, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it is such another Nan; but, I detest,15 an honest maid as ever broke bread: we had an hour's talk of that wart: I shall never laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is given

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14 I trow is here exactly equivalent to I wonder. Shakespeare has it repeatedly in that sense. So in the next scene: What tempest, I trow, threw this whale," &c. Also in Eastward Ho, by Chapman, Jonson, and Marston, iv. I: "What young planet reigns, trow, that old men are so foolish?" See, also, vol. iv., page 213, note II.

15 Detest is a Quicklyism for protest, a strong affirmation.

too much to allicholy and musing: but for you — well, go to. 16

Fent. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou see'st her before me, commend me.

Quick. Will I? i'faith, that I will; and I will tell your Worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence ; 17 and of other wooers.

Fent. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.

Quick. 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. what have I forgot?

Out upon't!

[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.

[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 a soldier can suffice, — that I love thee. I

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16 Go to is an old phrase of varying import, sometimes of rebuke, sometimes of encouragement. Hush up, come on, be off, are among its meanings. 17 Confidence is another Quicklyism for conference.

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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 unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd — 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 fat 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;1 and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

Mrs. Ford. We burn daylight: 2 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 pace together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of Green Sleeves.3 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?

Mrs. 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 war

1 This is probably meant as a covert reflection on the prodigal distribution of knighthood by King James. That "article of gentry" was thereby in a way to grow so hackneyed, that it would rather be an honour not to have been dubbed. Mr. Ford was already a gentleman, and his wife a lady, either by inheritance or by grant from the Heralds' College.

2 A proverbial phrase derived from lighting lamps by daylight, and meaning "we waste time."

3 Green Sleeves is the name of an old popular ballad-tune, which, Chappell says, "has been a favourite tune from the time of Elizabeth to the present day; and is still frequently to be heard in the streets of London." The well-known refrain, "Which nobody can deny," was a part of the ballad. The song itself is lost; but it would seem, from divers allusions to it, that the matter was none of the cleanest.

rant 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.

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.4 I'll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain 5 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 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 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.

4 Here, as often, honesty is used for chastity. So, in this play, we have honest repeatedly for chaste; as at the close of this scene: "If I find her honest, I lose not my labour." And in iv. 2: "Wives may be merry, and yet honest too." See, also, vol. v., page 71, note 6.

5 Strain was much used for stock, lineage, or native quality. Here it seems to have the sense of ingenerate folly, weakness, or vice. Something the same again in iii. 3: "I would all of the same strain were in the same distress." And in The Winter's Tale, iii. 2, we have the verb used, apparently, in the same sense: "With what encounter so uncurrent I have strain'd, t' appear thus." Here strain'd is "evinced an innate streak of evil."

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