The Merry Wives of Windsor Read Online Free PDF Page B

to, then. We’ll use this unwholesome
    humidity , this gross watery pumpion 33 . We’ll teach him to
    know turtles from jays 34 .
    [
Enter Falstaff
]
    FALSTAFF Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel 35 ? Why, now
    let me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the period 36 of
    my ambition. O this blessèd hour!
    MISTRESS FORD     O sweet Sir John!
    FALSTAFF     Mistress Ford, I cannot cog , I cannot prate 39 , Mistress
    Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were
    dead. I’ll speak it before the best lord. I would make thee my
    lady.
    MISTRESS FORD     I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful
    lady!
    FALSTAFF     Let the court of France show me such another. I see
    how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast the
    right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the ship-tire 47 ,
    the tire-valiant , or any tire of Venetian admittance 48 .
    MISTRESS FORD     A plain kerchief , Sir John: my brows become 49
    nothing else, nor that well neither.
    FALSTAFF     Thou art a tyrant to say so: thou wouldst make an
    absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of thy foot 52 would give
    an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale 53 .
    I see what thou wert if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy 54
    friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.
    MISTRESS FORD     Believe me, there’s no such thing in me.
    FALSTAFF     What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee
    there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog
    and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping
    hawthorn-buds 60 that come like women in men’s apparel and
    smell like Bucklersbury in simple time 61 . I cannot. But I love
    thee, none but thee —and thou deservest it.
    MISTRESS FORD     Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress
    Page.
    FALSTAFF     Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the
    Counter-gate , which is as hateful to me as the reek 66 of a
    lime-kiln 67 .
    MISTRESS FORD     Well, heaven knows how I love you, and you
    shall one day find it.
    FALSTAFF     Keep in that mind, I’ll deserve it.
    MISTRESS FORD     Nay, I must tell you, so you do, or else I could not
    be in that mind.
    ROBIN     Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford, here’s
    Speaks within or enters
    Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing 74
    and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently 75 .
    FALSTAFF     She shall not see me: I will ensconce me 76 behind the
    arras 77 .
    Falstaff hides himself
    MISTRESS FORD     Pray you, do so: she’s a very tattling woman.
    [
Enter Mistress Page
]
    Robin may enter here
    What’s the matter? How now?
    MISTRESS PAGE     O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re
    shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone 81 forever!
    MISTRESS FORD     What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
    MISTRESS PAGE     O, well-a-day 83 , Mistress Ford, having an honest
    man to 84 your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
    MISTRESS FORD     What cause of suspicion?
    MISTRESS PAGE     What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! 86 How
    am I mistook in you?
    MISTRESS FORD     Why, alas, what’s the matter?
    MISTRESS PAGE     Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all
    the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he
    says is here now in the house by your consent, to take an ill
    advantage of his absence. You are undone.
    MISTRESS FORD     ’Tis not so, I hope.
    MISTRESS PAGE     Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a
    man here! But ’tis most certain your husband’s coming,
    with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I
    come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear 97 , why, I am
    glad of it: but if you have a friend 98 here, convey, convey him
    out. Be not amazed 99 , call all your senses to you, defend your
    reputation, or bid farewell to your good life 100 forever.
    MISTRESS FORD     What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear
    friend —