A room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL FALSTAFF I will not lend thee a penny. PISTOL Why, then the world's mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open. FALSTAFF Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were good soldiers and tall fellows; and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took't upon mine honour thou hadst it not. PISTOL Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence? FALSTAFF Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I'll endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go. A short knife and a throng! To your manor of Pickt-hatch! Go.
You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you stand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you! PISTOL I do relent: what would thou more of man?
Enter ROBIN ROBIN Sir, here's a woman would speak with you. FALSTAFF Let her approach.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY MISTRESS QUICKLY Give your worship good morrow. FALSTAFF Good morrow, good wife. MISTRESS QUICKLY Not so, an't please your worship. FALSTAFF Good maid, then. MISTRESS QUICKLY I'll be sworn, As my mother was, the first hour I was born. FALSTAFF I do believe the swearer. What with me? MISTRESS QUICKLY Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two? FALSTAFF Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing. MISTRESS QUICKLY There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master Doctor Caius,-- FALSTAFF Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY Your worship says very true: I pray your worship, come a little nearer this ways. FALSTAFF I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine own people. MISTRESS QUICKLY Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants! FALSTAFF Well, Mistress Ford; what of her? MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all of us, I pray! FALSTAFF Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the way of honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her. FALSTAFF But what says she to me? be brief, my good she-Mercury. MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, she hath received your letter, for the which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you to notify that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven. FALSTAFF Ten and eleven? MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him: he's a very jealousy man: she leads a very frampold life with him, good heart. FALSTAFF Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her;I will not fail her. MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too: and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from home; but she hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth. FALSTAFF Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my good parts aside I have no other charms. MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing on your heart for't! FALSTAFF But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me? MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 loves: 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. FALSTAFF Why, I will. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 any thing; for 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world. FALSTAFF Fare thee well: commend me to them both:
there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with this woman.
Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN
