Enter Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Ford. FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up
my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your
love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth, not
only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love,
but in all the accoutrement, compliment, and ceremony 5
of it. But are you sure of your husband now? MISTRESS FORD
He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John. MISTRESS PAGE, within What ho, gossip Ford! What
ho! MISTRESS FORD
Step into th’ chamber, Sir John. 10 Falstaff exits. Enter Mistress Page. MISTRESS PAGE
How now, sweetheart, who’s at home
besides yourself? MISTRESS FORD
Why, none but mine own people. MISTRESS PAGE
Indeed? MISTRESS FORD
No, certainly. Aside to her. Speak 15
louder. MISTRESS PAGE
Truly, I am so glad you have nobody
here. MISTRESS FORD
Why? MISTRESS PAGE
Why, woman, your husband is in his 20
old lunes again. He so takes on yonder with my
husband, so rails against all married mankind, so
curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion soever,
and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying
“Peer out, peer out!” that any madness I ever yet 25
beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience
to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat
knight is not here. MISTRESS FORD
Why, does he talk of him? MISTRESS PAGE
Of none but him, and swears he was 30
carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a
basket; protests to my husband he is now here;
and hath drawn him and the rest of their company
from their sport to make another experiment of
his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here. 35
Now he shall see his own foolery. MISTRESS FORD
How near is he, Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE
Hard by, at street end. He will be here
anon. MISTRESS FORD
I am undone! The knight is here. 40 MISTRESS PAGE Why then, you are utterly shamed, and
he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away
with him, away with him! Better shame than
murder. MISTRESS FORD Which way should he go? How should 45
I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket
again? Enter Sir John Falstaff. FALSTAFF
No, I’ll come no more i’ th’ basket. May I not
go out ere he come? MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers 50
watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue
out. Otherwise you might slip away ere he came.
But what make you here? FALSTAFF What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the
chimney. | Falstaff show up at the Ford house and starts to sweet talk Mistress Ford. He's worried that her husband will show up, so Mistress Ford promises him that her husband's out bird hunting with his pals. Then Mistress Page shows up (as planned) and Falstaff hides in the next room. Mistress Page acts like she doesn't know Falstaff is hiding and pretend-warns her friend that Master Ford is on his way home to catch his wife cheating. Mistress Ford is all "Oh, no! Falstaff is here. What are we going to do?!" Falstaff wants to run away, but Mistress Page says that Ford's brothers are guarding the doors with pistols—there's no escape. Falstaff refuses to climb back inside the stinky "buck-basket" and offers to hide in the chimney. |
MISTRESS FORD
There they always use to discharge
their birding pieces. MISTRESS PAGE
Creep into the kiln-hole. FALSTAFF
Where is it? MISTRESS FORD
He will seek there, on my word. Neither 60
press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he
hath an abstract for the remembrance of such
places, and goes to them by his note. There is no
hiding you in the house. FALSTAFF I’ll go out, then. 65 MISTRESS PAGE
If you go out in your own semblance,
you die, Sir John—unless you go out disguised. MISTRESS FORD
How might we disguise him? MISTRESS PAGE
Alas the day, I know not. There is no
woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he 70
might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and
so escape. FALSTAFF
Good hearts, devise something. Any extremity
rather than a mischief. MISTRESS FORD My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of 75
Brentford, has a gown above. MISTRESS PAGE
On my word, it will serve him. She’s as
big as he is. And there’s her thrummed hat and her
muffler too.—Run up, Sir John. MISTRESS FORD
Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page 80
and I will look some linen for your head. MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you
straight. Put on the gown the while. Falstaff exits. MISTRESS FORD
I would my husband would meet him
in this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of 85
Brentford. He swears she’s a witch, forbade her my
house, and hath threatened to beat her. MISTRESS PAGE
Heaven guide him to thy husband’s
cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! MISTRESS FORD
But is my husband coming? 90 MISTRESS PAGE
Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of
the basket too, howsoever he hath had
intelligence. MISTRESS FORD
We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men
to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door 95
with it as they did last time. MISTRESS PAGE
Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go
dress him like the witch of Brentford. MISTRESS FORD
I’ll first direct my men what they shall
do with the basket. Go up. I’ll bring linen for him 100
straight. She exits. MISTRESS PAGE
Hang him, dishonest varlet! We cannot
misuse him enough.
We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
Wives may be merry and yet honest too. 105
We do not act that often jest and laugh;
’Tis old but true: “Still swine eats all the draff.” She exits. | Mistress Ford says the chimney won't do since that's where the men discharge their guns. (What?) In fact, there's not a decent hiding place in the house. So...the housewives convince Falstaff that he should put on a bunch of women's clothes and pretend to be Mistress Page's aunt, the "fat woman of Brentford." Brain Snack: Gillian of Brentford (aka "the old woman of Brentford") is a popular English folk figure who appears in a lot of comedies. She's most famous for leaving her friends "a score of farts" in her will (source). Mistress Page declares that they'll teach Falstaff and Ford a lesson he won't soon forget. Then she utters the lines that give the play its title along with a proverb about pigs. Translation: Housewives can be fun-loving, practical jokers—and maybe even flirt a little—but that doesn't mean they're not faithful to their husbands. In fact, it's the quiet, unassuming ones (the "still swine") you have to worry about.They're the ones that are likely up to something. |
Enter Mistress Ford with Robert and John,
who bring the buck-basket. MISTRESS FORD
Go, sirs, take the basket again on your
shoulders. Your master is hard at door. If he bid
you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch. 110 She exits. ROBERT Come, come, take it up. JOHN
Pray heaven it be not full of knight again. ROBERT I hope not. I had lief as bear so much lead. They pick up the basket. Enter Ford, Page, Doctor Caius, Sir Hugh
Evans, and Shallow. FORD
Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you
any way then to unfool me again?—Set down the 115
basket, villain. They put the basket down. Somebody
call my wife. Youth in a basket! O, you panderly
rascals! There’s a knot, a gang, a pack, a
conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be
shamed.—What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! 120
Behold what honest clothes you send forth to
bleaching! PAGE
Why, this passes, Master Ford! You are not to go
loose any longer; you must be pinioned. SIR HUGH Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad 125
dog. SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed. FORD
So say I too, sir. Enter Mistress Ford. Come hither, Mistress Ford.—Mistress Ford, the
honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, 130
that hath the jealous fool to her husband!—I
suspect without cause, mistress, do I? MISTRESS FORD
Heaven be my witness you do, if you
suspect me in any dishonesty. FORD
Well said, brazen-face. Hold it out.—Come 135
forth, sirrah. He pulls clothes out of the basket. PAGE
This passes. MISTRESS FORD
Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes
alone. FORD
I shall find you anon. 140 SIR HUGH ’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your
wife’s clothes? Come, away. FORD, to the Servants
Empty the basket, I say. MISTRESS FORD
Why, man, why? FORD
Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed 145
out of my house yesterday in this basket.
Why may not he be there again? In my house I am
sure he is. My intelligence is true, my jealousy is
reasonable.—Pluck me out all the linen. MISTRESS FORD
If you find a man there, he shall die a 150
flea’s death. Robert and John empty the basket. PAGE Here’s no man. SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford.
This wrongs you. SIR HUGH Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow 155
the imaginations of your own heart. This is
jealousies. FORD
Well, he’s not here I seek for. PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain. FORD
Help to search my house this one time. If I find 160
not what I seek, show no color for my extremity.
Let me forever be your table-sport. Let them say of
me “As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow
walnut for his wife’s leman.” Satisfy me once
more. Once more search with me. 165 Robert and John refill the basket and carry it off. MISTRESS FORD, calling offstage
What ho, Mistress
Page! Come you and the old woman down. My
husband will come into the chamber. FORD “Old woman”? What old woman’s that? MISTRESS FORD
Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford. 170 FORD
A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have
I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands,
does she? We are simple men; we do not know
what’s brought to pass under the profession of
fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by 175
th’ figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our
element. We know nothing.— Come down, you
witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say! Ford seizes a cudgel. MISTRESS FORD
Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen,
let him not strike the old woman. 180 | Ford bursts into the room like a maniac and screams at the servants to drop the "buck-basket." While he riffles through the dirty laundry, his friends urge him to stop acting like a total psycho. Mistress Ford sweetly tells her husband that her maid's aunt (the "old woman of Brentford") is visiting. Ford flips out and screams that he's forbidden that old "witch" from entering his home. He even grabs a cudgel so he can hit her. (Hmm. Starting to wonder why Ford hates women so much? Go to "Themes: Gender" for more on this.) |
Enter Mistress Page and Sir John Falstaff disguised
as an old woman. MISTRESS PAGE Come, Mother Pratt; come, give me
your hand. FORD
I’ll pratt her. He beats Falstaff. Out of my
door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat,
you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll 185
fortune-tell you! Falstaff exits. MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have
killed the poor woman. MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it.—’Tis a goodly credit
for you. 190 FORD
Hang her, witch! SIR HUGH By yea and no, I think the ’oman is a witch
indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard.
I spy a great peard under her muffler. FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. 195
See but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out
thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open
again. PAGE
Let’s obey his humor a little further. Come,
gentlemen. 200 Ford, Page, Caius, Sir Hugh, and Shallow exit. MISTRESS PAGE
Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. MISTRESS FORD
Nay, by th’ Mass, that he did not; he
beat him most unpitifully, methought. MISTRESS PAGE
I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung
o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious service. 205 MISTRESS FORD
What think you? May we, with the
warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good
conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? MISTRESS PAGE
The spirit of wantonness is, sure,
scared out of him. If the devil have him not in fee 210
simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I
think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. MISTRESS FORD
Shall we tell our husbands how we
have served him? MISTRESS PAGE
Yes, by all means—if it be but to scrape 215
the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they
can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat
knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will
still be the ministers. MISTRESS FORD
I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly 220
shamed, and methinks there would be no period to
the jest should he not be publicly shamed. MISTRESS PAGE
Come, to the forge with it, then shape
it. I would not have things cool. They exit. | Falstaff comes down the stairs in his old woman disguise. (Think Tyler Perry as "Madea.") Ford goes nuts, beats the "old woman," calls "her" a bunch of names, and chases "her" out the door. Ford's friends don't know the "old woman" is actually Falstaff but they stand around and watch anyway. (This usually gets a big laugh from audiences but we have to confess that's we're a little freaked out when Ford beats up someone he thinks is an old lady.) Mistress Page and Mistress Ford think it's hilarious that Falstaff was beaten "most pitifully," and they decide to 'fess us to their husbands. They're pretty sure their husbands will have Falstaff publicly shamed when they realize what he's been up to. Bonus! |