Before Page's House.
 Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter.

Mistress Page	What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my 
	beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see.

	[Reads.]	"Ask me no reason why I love you, for though Love 
	use Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his 
	counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, 
	there's sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha, ha, then, 
	there's more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would 
	you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress 
	Page, at the least, if the love of a soldier can suffice, 
	that I love thee. I will not say pity me - 'tis not a 
	soldier-like phrase - but I say, love me. By me,
						Thine own true knight,
						By day or night,
						Or any kind of light,
						With all his might
						For thee to fight,
										JOHN FALSTAFF."

	What a Herod of Jewry is this? O wicked, wicked world! One 
	that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself 
	a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour hath this 
	Flemish drunkard picked, with the devil's name, out of my 
	conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, 
	he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say 
	to him? I was then frugal of my mirth - heaven forgive me! 
	Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting 
	down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? - For 
	revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of 
	puddings.

                           Enter MISTRESS FORD.

Mistress Ford	Mistress Page! Trust me, I was going to your house.

Mistress Page	And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.

Mistress Ford	Nay, I'll ne'er believe that: I have to show to the 
	contrary.

Mistress Page	Faith, but you do, in my mind.

Mistress Ford	Well, I do, then; yet, I say I could show you to the 
	contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

Mistress Page	What's the matter, woman?

Mistress Ford	O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could 
	come to such honour!

Mistress Page	Hang the trifle, woman, take the honour. What is it? 
	Dispense with trifles. What is it?

Mistress Ford	If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I 
	could be knighted.

Mistress Page	What? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; 
	and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

Mistress Ford	We burn daylight. Here, read, read.
										[Gives MISTRESS PAGE a letter.

	Perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse 
	of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of 
	men's liking. And yet he would not swear, praised women's 
	modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to 
	all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition 
	would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no 
	more adhere and keep place together than the hundred 
	Psalms to the tune of 'Greensleeves'. What tempest, I 
	trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his 
	belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? 
	I think the best way were to entertain him with hope till 
	the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. 
	Did you ever hear the like?

Mistress Page	Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford 
	differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill 
	opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter.
									[Gives MISTRESS FORD her letter.

	But let thine inherit first, for, I protest, mine never 
	shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ 
	with blank space for different names - sure, more, and 
	these are of the second edition. He will print them, out 
	of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press, 
	when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and 
	lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty 
	lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.

Mistress Ford	Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very words. 
	What doth he think of us?

Mistress Page	Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to wrangle with 
	mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like one that I am 
	not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some 
	strain in me that I know not myself, he would never have 
	boarded me in this fury.

Mistress Ford	'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above 
	deck.

Mistress Page	So will I. If he come under my hatches, I'll never to sea 
	again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a 
	meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead 
	him on with a fine-baited delay till he hath pawned his 
	horses to mine host of the Garter.

Mistress Ford	Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that 
	may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O that my 
	husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food to his 
	jealousy.

                    Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE and NYM.

Mistress Page	Why, look where he comes; and my good man too. He's as far 
	from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I 
	hope, is an unmeasurable distance.

Mistress Ford	You are the happier woman.

Mistress Page	Let's consult together against this greasy knight. Come 
	hither.
												[They stand apart.
Ford	Well, I hope it be not so.

Pistol	Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:
	Sir John affects thy wife.

Ford	Why, sir, my wife is not young.

Pistol	He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
	Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
	He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.

Ford	Love my wife?

Pistol	With liver burning hot. Prevent,
	Or go thou, like Sir Actaeon, he,
	With Ringwood at thy heels.
	O, odious is the name!

Ford	What name, sir?

Pistol	The horn, I say. Farewell.
	Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night.
	Take heed ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do sing.
	Away, Sir Corporal Nym! Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
												[Exit.
Ford	[Aside.] I will be patient; I will find out this.

Nym	[To PAGE.] And this is true; I like not the humour of 
	lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should have 
	borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and 
	it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; 
	there's the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I 
	speak, and I avouch 'tis true: my name is Nym, and 
	Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of 
	bread and cheese. Adieu.
												[Exit.

Page	The 'humour' of it, quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights 
	English out of his wits.

Ford	I will seek out Falstaff.

Page	I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.

Ford	If I do find it - well.

Page	I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest 
	o'th'town commended him for a true man.

Ford	'Twas a good sensible fellow - well.

              MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward.

Page	How now, Meg!

Mistress Page	Whither go you, George? - Hark you.

Mistress Ford	How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?

Ford	I melancholy? I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

Mistress Ford	Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now. Will you 
	go, Mistress Page?

Mistress Page	Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?
	[Aside to MISTRESS FORD.] Look who comes yonder: she shall 
	be our messenger to this paltry knight.

Mistress Ford	[Aside to MISTRESS PAGE.] Trust me, I thought on her: 
	she'll fit it.

                         Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.

Mistress Page	You are come to see my daughter Anne?

Quickly	Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

Mistress Page	Go in with us and see. We have an hour's talk with you.
							 [Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD,
												and MISTRESS QUICKLY.
Page	How now, Master Ford!

Ford	You heard what this knave told me, did you not?

Page	Yes; and you heard what the other told me?

Ford	Do you think there is truth in them?

Page	Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer 
	it: but these that accuse him in his intent towards our 
	wives are a yoke of his discarded men: - very rogues, now 
	they be out of service.

Ford	Were they his men?

Page	Marry, were they.

Ford	I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the 
	Garter?

Page	Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward 
	my wife, I would turn her loose to him, and what he gets 
	more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.

Ford	I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath to turn 
	them together. A man may be too confident. I would have 
	nothing lie on my head - I cannot be thus satisfied.

                    Enter HOST, and SHALLOW following.

Page	Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes. There is 
	either liquor in his pate or money in his purse when he 
	looks so merrily. - How now, mine host?

Host	How now, bully-rook! Thou'rt a gentleman. Cavaliero 
	Justice, I say!

Shallow	I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good 
	Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? We have 
	sport in hand.

Host	Tell him, Cavaliero Justice; tell him, bully-rook.

Shallow	Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the 
	Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

Ford	Good mine host o'th'Garter, a word with you.

Host	What sayst thou, my bully-rook?
												[They talk apart.

Shallow	[To PAGE.] Will you go with us to behold it? My merry host 
	hath had the measuring of their weapons, and, I think, 
	hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I 
	hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what 
	our sport shall be.
												[They talk apart.

Host	[To FORD.] Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest 
	cavalier?

Ford	[To HOST.] None, I protest; but I'll give you a pottle of 
	burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him my name 
	is Brook - only for a jest.

Host	[To FORD.] My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and 
	regress - said I well? - and thy name shall be Brook. It 
	is a merry knight. Will you go, Mynheers?

Shallow	Have with you, mine host.

Page	I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.

Shallow	Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you 
	stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not 
	what. 'Tis the heart, Master Page, 'tis here, 'tis here. I 
	have seen the time with my long sword I would have made 
	you four tall fellows skip like rats.

Host	Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?

Page	Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than fight.
									[Exeunt HOST, SHALLOW, and PAGE.

Ford	Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his 
	wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily. 
	She was in his company at Page's house, and what they made 
	there, I know not. Well, I will look further into't; and I 
	have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I 
	lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well 
	bestowed.
												[Exit.
