The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Author:William Shakespeare
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Published: 2010-09-27T04:51:33.019167+00:00

MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh. Exit SIR HUGH

Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long. Exeunt

SCENE 2.

FORD'S house

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD

FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my

sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MRS. FORD. He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MRS. PAGE. [Within] What hoa, gossip Ford, what hoa!

MRS. FORD. Step into th' chamber, Sir John. Exit FALSTAFF

Enter MISTRESS PAGE

MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who's at home besides

yourself?

MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people.

MRS. PAGE. Indeed?

MRS. FORD. No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder.

MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MRS. FORD. Why?

MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes

again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails

against all married mankind; so curses an Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying 'Peer-out, peer-out!' that any madness I ever yet beheld seem'd but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?

MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the

rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

MRS. FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?

MRS. PAGE. Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.

MRS. FORD. I am undone: the knight is here.

MRS. PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,

away with him; better shame than murder.

MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow

him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney. MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their

birding-pieces.

MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.

FALSTAFF. Where is it?

MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.

FALSTAFF. I'll go out then.

MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,

Sir John. Unless you go out disguis'd.

MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?

MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know

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