Be gone, and come when you are called.

[Exeunt John and Robert]

MISTRESS PAGE    Here comes little Robin.

[Enter Robin]

MISTRESS FORD    How now, my eyas-musket18? What news with

you?

ROBIN    My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door,

Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

MISTRESS PAGE    You little Jack-a-Lent22, have you been true to us?

ROBIN    Ay, I’ll be sworn. My master knows not of your

being here and hath threatened to put me into everlasting

liberty if I tell you of it: for he swears he’ll turn me away25.

MISTRESS PAGE    Thou’rt a good boy. This secrecy of thine shall

be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and

hose. I’ll go hide me.

MISTRESS FORD    Do so.— Go tell thy master I am alone.

To Robin

[Exit Robin]

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

MISTRESS PAGE    I warrant thee: if I do not act it, hiss me.

[Exit]

MISTRESS FORD    Go to, then. We’ll use this unwholesome

humidity, this gross watery pumpion33. We’ll teach him to

know turtles from jays34.

[Enter Falstaff]

FALSTAFF Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel35? Why, now

let me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the period36 of

my ambition. O this blessèd hour!

MISTRESS FORD    O sweet Sir John!

FALSTAFF    Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate39, 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-tire47,

the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance48.

MISTRESS FORD    A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become49

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 foot52 would give

an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale53.

I see what thou wert if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy54

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-buds60 that come like women in men’s apparel and

smell like Bucklersbury in simple time61. 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 reek66 of a

lime-kiln67.

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 blowing74

and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently75.

FALSTAFF    She shall not see me: I will ensconce me76 behind the

arras77.

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 undone81 forever!

MISTRESS FORD    What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGE    O, well-a-day83, Mistress Ford, having an honest

man to84 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 clear97, why, I am

glad of it: but if you have a friend98 here, convey, convey him

out. Be not amazed99, call all your senses to you, defend your

reputation, or bid farewell to your good life100 forever.

MISTRESS FORD    What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear

friend — and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril.

I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the

house.

MISTRESS PAGE    For shame, never stand105 ‘you had rather’ and

‘you had rather’. Your husband’s here at hand! Bethink you

of some conveyance107— in the house you cannot hide him. O,

how have you deceived me? Look, here is a basket. If he be of

any reasonable stature, he may creep in here, and throw foul

linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking. Or — it is

whiting-time111— send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.

MISTRESS FORD    He’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?

FALSTAFF    Let me see’t, let me see’t, O, let me see’t!

Comes out of hiding

I’ll in, I’ll in. Follow your friend’s counsel. I’ll in.

MISTRESS PAGE    What, Sir John Falstaff? Are these

Aside to Falstaff

your letters, knight?

FALSTAFF    I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here. I’ll

never—

Gets into the basket.