QUICK. That were a jest, indeed!—they have not so little grace, I hope :—that were a trick, indeed! But mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all lovesa: her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page: and, truly, master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and, truly, she deserves it: for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy. FAL. Why, I will.

QUICK. Nay, but do so then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and, in any case, have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to understand anything; for 't is not good that children should know any wickedness; old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.

FAL. Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor.-Boy, go along with this woman.-This news distracts me! [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN.

PIST. This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:

Clap on more sails; pursue, up with your fights; Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all! [Exit PISTOL. FAL. Say'st thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee: Let them say, 't is grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.

Enter BARDOLPH.

BARD. Sir John, there's one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack 15.

FAL. Brook is his name?

BARD. Ay, sir.

FAL. Call him in; [Exit BARDOLPH.] Such Brooks are welcome to me that o'erflow such liquor. Ah! ha! mistress Ford and mistress Page, have I encompassed you? go to; via!

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised.

FORD. Bless you, sir.

FAL. And you, sir: Would you speak with me?

a Of all loves. This pretty antique phrase is now obsolete. We have it in 'Othello:'-" The general so likes your music, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it." Fights. Dryden, in his tragedy of Amboyna,' has—

b

It appears that fights were short sails-fighting sails-not weapons, as Warburton explains the word.

FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you.

FAL. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.

[Exit BARDOLPH.

FORD. Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook.
FAL. Good master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you.

FORD. Good sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you; for I must let you understand I think myself in better plight for a lender than you are: the which hath something emboldened me to this unseasoned intrusion: for they say, if money go before all ways do lie open.

FAL. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.

FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me: if you will help to bear it, sir John, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage.

FAL. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.
FORD. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.

FAL. Speak, good master Brook; I shall be glad to be your servant.
FORD. Sir, I hear you are a scholar,—I will be brief with you, and you have
been a man long known to me, though I had never so good means, as desire,
to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you,
wherein I must very much lay open mine own imperfection: but, good sir
John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn
another into the register of your own; that I may pass with a reproof the
easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.

FAL. Very well, sir; proceed.

FORD. There is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband's name is Ford.
FAL. Well, sir.

FORD. I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many, to know what she would have given: briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me, which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind, or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none; unless experience be a jewel; that I have purchased at an infinite rate; and that hath taught me to say this:

"Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues."

FAL. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?

FORD. Never.

FAL. Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

FORD. Never.

FAL. Of what quality was your love then?

FORD. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice, by mistaking the place where I erected it.

FAL. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me

?

FORD. When I have told you that I have told you all. Some say, that, though

she appear honest to me, yet, in other places, she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person, generally allowed for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations. FAL. O, sir!

FORD. Believe it, for you know it:-There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife: use your art of wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may you may as soon

as any.

FAL. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks, you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.

FORD. O, understand my drift! she dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul dares not present itself; she is too bright to be looked against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves: I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too too strongly embattled against me: What say you to 't, sir John?

FAL. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.

FORD. O good sir!

FAL. I say you shall.

FORD. Want no money, sir John, you shall want none. FAL. Want no mistress Ford, master Brook, you shall want none. I shall be with her, (I may tell you,) by her own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me: I say, I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed.

FORD. I am blessed in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir? FAL. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:-yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there 's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford, sir; that you might avoid him if you saw him. FAL. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns: master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife.-Come to me soon at night:-Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou, master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold:-come to me soon at night.

[Exit.

FORD. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this!-My heart is ready to crack with impatience.—Who says, this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!-Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends! but cuckold! wittol-cuckold! the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass! he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they may effect they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealousy!-Eleven o'clock the hour.—I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it better three hours too soon than a minute too late. fie cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!

Fie, fie,

[Exit.

SCENE III.-Field near Windsor.

Enter CAIUS and RUGBY.

CAIUS. Jack Rugby!

RUG. Sir.

CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?

RUG. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that sir Hugh promised to meet.

CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already if he be

come.

RUG. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill him if he came.

CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.

CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?

HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse, to see thee here,

to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my Esculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully Stale? is he dead?

CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he is not show his face.

HOST. Thou art a Castiliana, king Urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy!

CAIUS. I pray you, bear vitness dat me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

SHAL. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions; is it not true, master Page?

PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace.

SHAL. Bodykins, master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out my finger itches to make one: though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, master Page.

PAGE. T is true, master Shallow.

SHAL. It will be found so, master Page. Master doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace; you have showed yourself a wise physician, and sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman: you must go with me, master doctor.

HOST. Pardon, guest justice :-ah, monsieur Mock-water".
CAIUS. Mock-vater! vat is dat?

HOST. Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mock-vater as de Englishman :-Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me vill cut his ears.

HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?

HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.

CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for, by gar, me vill have it.

HOST. And I will provoke him to 't, or let him wag.

CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.

[Aside to them.

HOST. And moreover, bully,-But first, master guest, and master Page, and eke cavalero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore. PAGE. Sir Hugh is there, is he?

■ Castilian. The Host ridicules the Doctor through his ignorance of English. He is a "heart of elder," the elder being filled with soft pith;-he is a Castilian, that name being an opprobrious designation for the Spaniards, whom the English of Elizabeth's time hated as much as their descendants were accustomed to hate the French.

Mock-water. So the original; it was changed by Farmer to muck-water. Lord Chedworth suggests that, as the lustre of a diamond is called its water, mock-water may mean a counterfeit valour. Surely this is very daring. Mock-water, or muck-water, was some allusion to the profession of Caius.