Enter Sir John Falstaff. FALSTAFF Bardolph, I say! Enter Bardolph. BARDOLPH Here, sir. FALSTAFF Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in ’t. Bardolph exits. Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow
of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? 5
Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my
brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a
dog for a New Year’s gift. ’Sblood, the rogues
slighted me into the river with as little remorse as
they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, 10
fifteen i’ th’ litter! And you may know by my size
that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom
were as deep as hell, I should down. I had
been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and
shallow—a death that I abhor, for the water swells 15
a man, and what a thing should I have been when
I had been swelled! By the Lord, I should have
been a mountain of mummy. Enter Bardolph with cups of sack. BARDOLPH
Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with
you. 20 FALSTAFF
Come, let me pour in some sack to the
Thames water, for my belly’s as cold as if I had
swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. He
drinks. Call her in. BARDOLPH
Come in, woman. 25 Enter Mistress Quickly. MISTRESS QUICKLY
By your leave, I cry you mercy. Give
your Worship good morrow. FALSTAFF, to Bardolph
Take away these chalices. Go
brew me a pottle of sack finely. BARDOLPH
With eggs, sir? 30 FALSTAFF Simple of itself. I’ll no pullet sperm in my
brewage. Bardolph exits. How now? MISTRESS QUICKLY
Marry, sir, I come to your Worship
from Mistress Ford. 35 | At the garter Inn, Falstaff orders Bardolph to "fetch" him a "quart of sack" (a.k.a. a lot of sweet wine) with a piece of toast in it. Hey, wine and toast: totally a thing, especially if you call the toast a "rusk" and think of it like a biscotti. Falstaff complains to anyone who will listen about being dumped in the Thames river with a bunch of nasty, stinky laundry. Mistress Quickly shows up just as Falstaff chugs two big cups of sack and orders another round of drinks. Bardolph wants to know if Falstaff wants eggs in his wine this time and Falstaff yells that, no, he doesn't want any chicken "sperms" in his drink. (1) Gross. (2) Biology, dude. Falstaff must have slept through life sciences. |
FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford? I have had ford enough. I
was thrown into the ford, I have my belly full of
ford. MISTRESS QUICKLY
Alas the day, good heart, that was
not her fault. She does so take on with her men; 40
they mistook their erection. FALSTAFF
So did I mine, to build upon a foolish
woman’s promise. MISTRESS QUICKLY
Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it
would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes 45
this morning a-birding; she desires you once more
to come to her, between eight and nine. I must
carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I
warrant you. FALSTAFF
Well, I will visit her. Tell her so. And bid her 50
think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty,
and then judge of my merit. MISTRESS QUICKLY I will tell her. FALSTAFF Do so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir. 55 FALSTAFF
Well, be gone. I will not miss her. MISTRESS QUICKLY
Peace be with you, sir. Mistress Quickly exits. FALSTAFF
I marvel I hear not of Master Brook. He
sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. Enter Ford disguised as Brook. O, here he comes. 60 | Falstaff complains (again) about being dumped in the river by Mistress Page's servants. Mistress Quickly tries to defend Mistress Page by saying that the woman's servants mistook their "erection" from her. Oh, Mistress Quickly. She's trying to say that the servants mistook their "directions" from Mistress Page, but she ends up cracking a dirty joke. Falstaff can't resist. He says, "Yeah, so did I," meaning he regrets being sexually aroused by Mistress Page's promise to have an affair with him. (Oh, that Falstaff.) Mistress Quickly says her friend feels really bad about the mix-up and wants Falstaff to come back to her house tomorrow morning when her husband's away. As Quickly exits the stage, Master Ford shows up at the Garter Inn disguised as "Brooke." Psst! Notice how people are always coming in and out of doors in this play? Just one more reason why so many audiences and literary critics compare the play to modern day TV sitcoms. |
FORD, as Brook
God bless you, sir. FALSTAFF
Now, Master Brook, you come to know
what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife. FORD, as Brook
That indeed, Sir John, is my
business. 65 FALSTAFF
Master Brook, I will not lie to you. I was at
her house the hour she appointed me. FORD, as Brook And sped you, sir? FALSTAFF Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook. FORD, as Brook
How so, sir? Did she change her 70
determination? FALSTAFF
No, Master Brook, but the peaking cornuto
her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual
’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of
our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, 75
protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of
our comedy, and, at his heels, a rabble of his companions,
thither provoked and instigated by his
distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for
his wife’s love. 80 FORD, as Brook
What, while you were there? FALSTAFF
While I was there. FORD, as Brook
And did he search for you and could
not find you? FALSTAFF
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, 85
comes in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of
Ford’s approach, and, in her invention and Ford’s
wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a
buck-basket. FORD, as Brook
A buck-basket! 90 FALSTAFF By the Lord, a buck-basket! Rammed me
in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings,
greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there
was the rankest compound of villainous smell that
ever offended nostril. 95 FORD, as Brook
And how long lay you there? FALSTAFF Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I
have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your
good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple
of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were called forth by 100
their mistress to carry me in the name of foul
clothes to Datchet Lane. They took me on their
shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in
the door, who asked them once or twice what they
had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic 105
knave would have searched it, but fate, ordaining
he should be a cuckold, held his hand.
Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for
foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook.
I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, 110
an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous
rotten bellwether; next, to be compassed, like a
good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to
point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like
a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted 115
in their own grease. Think of that, a man of my
kidney—think of that—that am as subject to heat
as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw.
It was a miracle to ’scape suffocation. And in
the height of this bath, when I was more than half-stewed 120
in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown
into the Thames and cooled, glowing hot, in that
surge, like a horseshoe! Think of that—hissing
hot—think of that, Master Brook. FORD, as Brook
In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that 125
for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit,
then, is desperate. You’ll undertake her no more? FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna,
as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her
thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding. 130
I have received from her another embassy of meeting.
’Twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master
Brook. FORD, as Brook
’Tis past eight already, sir. FALSTAFF
Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. 135
Come to me at your convenient leisure,
and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion
shall be crowned with your enjoying her.
Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook. Master
Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. 140 Falstaff exits. | |