A Room in Ford's House.
 Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.

Mistress Ford	What, John! What, Robert!

Mistress Page	Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-

Mistress Ford	I warrant. What, Robin! I say!

                   Enter JOHN and ROBERT with a basket.

Mistress Page	Come, come, come.

Mistress Ford	Here, set it down.

Mistress Page	Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mistress Ford	Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready 
	here hard by in the brew-house, and when I suddenly call 
	you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take 
	this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it 
	in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet 
	Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the 
	Thames side.

Mistress Page	You will do it?

Mistress Ford	I ha' told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be 
	gone, and come when you are called.
												[Exeunt JOHN and ROBERT.

                               Enter ROBIN.

Mistress Page	Here comes little Robin.

Mistress Ford	How now, my eyas-musket, 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-Lent, 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 away.

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.
												[Exit ROBIN.
	Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

Mistress Page	I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.

Mistress Ford	Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this 
	gross watery pumpion. We'll teach him to know turtles from 
	jays.
												[Exit MISTRESS PAGE.

                             Enter FALSTAFF.

Falstaff	Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me 
	die, for I have lived long enough: - this is the period of 
	my ambition. O this blessed hour!

Mistress Ford	O sweet Sir John!

Falstaff	Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, 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, the 
	tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.

Mistress Ford	A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become 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 would give an 
	excellent motion to thy gait in a semicircled farthingale. 
	I see what thou wert, if, fortune thy foe, were (not 
	Nature) thy 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 that come like women in men's apparel and 
	smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; 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 of a lime-
	kiln.

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.

                               Enter ROBIN.

Robin	Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! Here's Mistress Page at the 
	door, sweating and blowing and looking wildly, and would 
	needs speak with you presently.

Falstaff	She shall not see me. I will ensconce me behind the arras.

Mistress Ford	Pray you do so: she's a very tattling woman.
								  [FALSTAFF hides behind the arras.

                           Enter MISTRESS PAGE.

	What's the matter? How now!

Mistress Page	O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, you're 
	overthrown, you're undone for ever!

Mistress Ford	What's the matter, good Mistress Page?

Mistress Page	O welladay, Mistress Ford, having an honest man to your 
	husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

Mistress Ford	What cause of suspicion?

Mistress Page	What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! 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, why, I am 
	glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey 
	him out. Be not amazed, call all your senses to you. 
	Defend your reputation or bid farewell to your good life 
	for ever.

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 stand 'you had rather' and 'you had 
	rather': your husband's here at hand! Bethink you of some 
	conveyance. 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-time - send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.

Mistress Ford	He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?

Falstaff	[Advancing.] Let me see't, let me see't, O let me see't! 
	I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's counsel. I'll in.

Mistress Page	What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight?

Falstaff	I love thee - help me away. Let me creep in here. I'll 
	never-
												[He gets into the basket;
									 they cover him with foul linen.

Mistress Page	Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress 
	Ford. [To FALSTAFF.] You dissembling knight!

Mistress Ford	What, John! Robert! John!
												[Exit ROBIN.

                          Enter JOHN and ROBERT.

	Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the cowl-
	staff? Look, how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress 
	in Datchet Mead. Quickly, come.

            Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS and SIR HUGH EVANS.

Ford	Pray you come near: if I suspect without cause, why then 
	make sport at me; then let me be your jest, I deserve it. 
	How now! Whither bear you this?

John	To the laundress, forsooth.

Mistress Ford	Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were 
	best meddle with buck-washing!

Ford	Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, 
	buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season 
	too, it shall appear.
						 [Exeunt JOHN and ROBERT with the basket.
	Gentlemen, I have dreamed tonight. I'll tell you my dream. 
	Here, here, here be my keys. Ascend my chambers; search, 
	seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox. Let 
	me stop this way first.
												[Locking the door.
	So, now uncape.

Page	Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself too 
	much.

Ford	True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport 
	anon. Follow me, gentlemen.
												[Exit.

Evans	This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

Caius	By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous 
	in France.

Page	Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.
												[Exeunt PAGE, CAIUS and 
	EVANS.

Mistress Page	Is there not a double excellency in this?

Mistress Ford	I know not which pleases me better: that my husband is 
	deceived, or Sir John.

Mistress Page	What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in 
	the basket!

Mistress Ford	I am half afraid he will have need of washing - so 
	throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

Mistress Page	Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain 
	were in the same distress.

Mistress Ford	I think my husband hath some special suspicion of 
	Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his 
	jealousy till now.

Mistress Page	I will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have more 
	tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce 
	obey this medicine.

Mistress Ford	Shall we send that foolish carrion Mistress Quickly to 
	him, and excuse his throwing into the water, and give him 
	another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

Mistress Page	We will do it. Let him be sent for tomorrow, eight 
	o'clock, to have amends.

          Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS and SIR HUGH EVANS.

Ford	I cannot find him: maybe the knave bragged of that he 
	could not compass.

Mistress Page	[Aside to MISTRESS FORD.] Heard you that?

Mistress Ford	You use me well, Master Ford, do you?

Ford	Ay, I do so.

Mistress Ford	Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Ford	Amen!

Mistress Page	You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

Ford	Ay, ay; I must bear it.

Evans	If there be anypody in the house, and in the chambers, and 
	in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins 
	at the day of judgement!

Caius	By gar, nor I too: there is nobodies.

Page	Fie, fie, Master Ford! Are you not ashamed? What spirit, 
	what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha' your 
	distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

Ford	'Tis my fault, Master Page, I suffer for it.

Evans	You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as honest a 
	omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five 
	hundred too.

Caius	By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.

Ford	Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the 
	Park. I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known 
	to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come, Mistress 
	Page, I pray you pardon me; pray, heartily pardon me.

Page	Let's go in, gentlemen.
	[To CAIUS and EVANS.] But, trust me, we'll mock him.
	[To FORD, CAIUS, and EVANS.] I do invite you tomorrow 
	morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding 
	together: I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

Ford	Anything.

Evans	If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

Caius	If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

Ford	Pray you go, Master Page.
												[Exit FORD and PAGE.

Evans	I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, 
	mine host.

Caius	Dat is good, by gar; with all my heart!

Evans	A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
												[Exeunt.
