his horns, Master Brook : and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. MRS FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer. FAL. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD. Ay, and an and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. FAL. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 't is upon ill employment! EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh. EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. FAL. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, 122 despite of the teeth of] An emphatic conjunction of "despite" and "in the teeth of." 123 Jack-a-Lent] See supra, III, iii, 22, where the word has already been cited and explained. 112 117 130 that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? "Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter. FAL. "Seese" and "putter"? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. MRS PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? PAGE. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails? FORD. And as wicked as his wife? EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FAL. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of 134 a coxcomb of frise] A professional fool's cap made of the rough woollen cloth which was a leading Welsh manufacture. 153 pribbles and prabbles] See note on I, i, 50, supra, and cf. IV, i, 45, supra,, " leave your prabbles." 140 150 me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will. FORD. Marry, sir, we 'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pandar: over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter. MRS PAGE. [Aside.] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? SLEN. Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on 't; would I were hanged, la, else! PAGE. Of what, son? SLEN. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had 156 ignorance plummet o'er me] ignorance, helplessness overcomes me with its leaden weight. "Plummet is the weight of lead attached to the "plumbline." Cf. Shirley's Love in Amaze, IV, 2: "What! art melancholy? What hath hung plummets on thy nimble soul?" 162 171 not been i' the church, I should have swinged me. would have swinged him, or he If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! — and 't is a postmaster's boy. PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. SLEN. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him. PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLEN. I went to her in white, and cried "mum," and she cried "budget," as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy. MRS PAGE. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married. 180 192 Enter CAIUS CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. MRS PAGE. Why, did you take her in green ? CAIUS. Ay, by gar, and 't is a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit. FORD. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? PAGE. My heart misgives me: - here comes Master Fenton. Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE How now, Master Fenton ! ANNE. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon ! PAGE. Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender ? MRS PAGE. Why went you not with master doctor, maid? FENT. You do amaze her: hear the truth of it. A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; FAL. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. 221 stand] a hiding place in the forest, whence the huntsman aims his arrow at the deer. Cf. L. L. L., IV, i, 10. 201 210 220 |