SCENE I. 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 physician, 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 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
world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with
age to show himself a young gallant! What an
unweighed behavior 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; 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 Hundredth Psalm to
the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' 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: 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.
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