The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [745]
water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd
snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
BARDOLPH.
Come in, woman.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY
QUICKLY.
By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF.
Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.
BARDOLPH.
With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH] How now!
QUICKLY.
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF.
Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was
thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
QUICKLY.
Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!
She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
FALSTAFF.
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.
QUICKLY.
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between
eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make
you amends, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF.
Well, I Will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her
think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.
QUICKLY.
I will tell her.
FALSTAFF.
Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
QUICKLY.
Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
QUICKLY.
Peace be with you, sir. Exit
FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me
word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.
Enter FORD disguised
FORD.
Bless you, sir!
FALSTAFF.
Now, Master Brook, you come to know what
hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?
FORD.
That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF.
Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.
FORD.
And sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF.
Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
FORD.
How so, sir; did she change her determination?
FALSTAFF.
No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her
husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of
jealousy, comes me in the instant of our, encounter, after
we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke
the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his
companions, thither provoked and instigated by his
distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.
FORD.
What, while you were there?
FALSTAFF.
While I was there.
FORD.
And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF.
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;
and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they
convey'd me into a buck-basket.
FORD.
A buck-basket!
FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd me in with
foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy
napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound
of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
FORD.
And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF.
Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being
thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his
hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in
the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on
their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the
door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their
basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have
search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,
held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away
went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master
Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,
an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten
bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the
circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and
then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with
stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that
-a man of my