SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!
  BARDOLPH. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.
                                                   Exit BARDOLPH
    Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of
    butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if
    I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out
    and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift.
    The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse
    as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, 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 drown'd but that the shore
    was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water
    swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when
    had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of
    mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack

  BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you
  FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
    water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd
    snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
  BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your
    worship good morrow.
  FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle
    of sack finely.
  BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
    brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH] How now!
  QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress
    Ford.
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was
    thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
  QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!
    She does so take on with her men; they mistook their
    erection.
  FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's
    promise.
  QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
    your heart to see it. Her husband goes 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
    think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then
    judge of my merit.
  QUICKLY. I will tell her.
  FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
  QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
  QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir. Exit
  FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me
    word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he
    comes.

Enter FORD disguised

  FORD. Bless you, sir!
  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what
    hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?
  FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her
    house the hour she appointed me.
  FORD. And sped you, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
  FORD. How so, sir; did she change her 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 embrac'd, kiss'd, 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.
  FORD. What, while you were there?
  FALSTAFF. While I was there.
  FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
  FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
    in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;
    and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they
    convey'd me into a buck-basket.
  FORD. A buck-basket!
  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd 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.
  FORD. And how long lay you there?
  FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
    suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being
    thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his
    hinds, were call'd forth by 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 ask'd them once or twice what they had in their
    basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have
    search'd 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,
    an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten
    bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the
    circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and
    then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with
    stinking clothes that fretted 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-stew'd in grease, like
    a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,
    glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that
    -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.
  FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you
    have suffer'd 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; I have received from
    her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is
    the hour, Master Brook.
  FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Is it? I Will then address me to my appointment.
    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. Exit
  FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?
    Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole
    made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be
    married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will
    proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he
    is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he
    should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse nor into
    a pepper box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid
    him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I
    cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make
    me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb
    go with me-I'll be horn mad. Exit