Home
This site uses cookies
log out

The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act IV, Scene 5

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.
1 annotation

The Merry Wives of Windsor
Act IV, Scene 5

A room in the Garter Inn.

Falstaff and his page

Falstaff and his page

Adolf Schrödter, 1867

  1. Enter Host, Simple.

Host

1 - 2
  1. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin? Speak,
  2. breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

Simple

3 - 4
  1. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from
  2. Master Slender.

Host

5 - 8
  1. There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed
  2. and truckle-bed; ’tis painted about with the story of the
  3. Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and call; he’ll speak
  4. like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.

Simple

9 - 11
  1. There’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber.
  2. I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down. I come to
  3. speak with her indeed.

Host

12 - 14
  1. Ha? A fat woman? The knight may be robb’d. I’ll call.
  2. Bully-knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military.
  3. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.

Falstaff

15
  1. Above.
  2. How now, mine host?

Host

16 - 18
  1. Here’s a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat
    Apr 13, 2020 Miko
    a vagabond or thief
  2. woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers
  3. are honorable. Fie, privacy? Fie!
  1. Enter Falstaff.

Falstaff

19 - 20
  1. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me, but
  2. she’s gone.

Simple

21
  1. Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brainford?

Falstaff

22
  1. Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell, what would you with her?

Simple

23 - 25
  1. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her
  2. go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir,
  3. that beguil’d him of a chain, had the chain or no.

Falstaff

26
  1. I spake with the old woman about it.

Simple

27
  1. And what says she, I pray, sir?

Falstaff

28 - 29
  1. Marry, she says that the very same man that beguil’d Master
  2. Slender of his chain cozen’d him of it.

Simple

30 - 31
  1. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself. I had
  2. other things to have spoken with her too from him.

Falstaff

32
  1. What are they? Let us know.

Host

33
  1. Ay; come; quick.

Simple

34
  1. I may not conceal them, sir.

Host

35
  1. Conceal them, or thou diest.

Simple

36 - 37
  1. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page, to
  2. know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.

Falstaff

38
  1. ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.

Simple

39
  1. What, sir?

Falstaff

40
  1. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.

Simple

41
  1. May I be bold to say so, sir?

Falstaff

42
  1. Ay, sir; like who more bold?

Simple

43 - 44
  1. I thank your worship. I shall make my master glad with these
  2. tidings.
  1. Exit.

Host

45 - 46
  1. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a
  2. wise woman with thee?

Falstaff

47 - 49
  1. Ay, that there was, mine host, one that hath taught me more
  2. wit than ever I learn’d before in my life; and I paid
  3. nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.
  1. Enter Bardolph.

Bardolph

50
  1. Out alas, sir, cozenage! Mere cozenage.

Host

51
  1. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.

Bardolph

52 - 55
  1. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came beyond
  2. Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough
  3. of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils,
  4. three Doctor Faustuses.

Host

56 - 57
  1. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain, do not say they
  2. be fled. Germans are honest men.
  1. Enter Evans.
Bardolph

Bardolph

Unknown artist, circa 1875

Evans

58
  1. Where is mine host?

Host

59
  1. What is the matter, sir?

Evans

60 - 66
  1. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend of
  2. mine come to town, tells me there is three cozen-germans
  3. that has cozen’d all the hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of
  4. Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will,
  5. look you. You are wise and full of gibes and
  6. vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not convenient you should be
  7. cozen’d. Fare you well.
  1. Exit.
  1. Enter Caius.

Caius

67
  1. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

Host

68
  1. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

Caius

69 - 72
  1. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you make
  2. grand preparation for a duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is
  3. no duke that the court is know to come. I tell you for good
  4. will; adieu.
  1. Exit.

Host

73 - 74
  1. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight, I am undone!
  2. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone!
  1. Exeunt Host and Bardolph.

Falstaff

75 - 84
  1. I would all the world might be cozen’d, for I have been
  2. cozen’d and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the
  3. court, how I have been transform’d, and how my
  4. transformation hath been wash’d and cudgell’d, they would
  5. melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s
  6. boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine
  7. wits till I were as crestfall’n as a dried pear. I never
  8. prosper’d since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my
  9. wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.
  10. Enter Mistress Quickly.
  11. Now? Whence come you?

Mistress Quickly

85
  1. From the two parties, forsooth.

Falstaff

86 - 89
  1. The devil take one party and his dam the other! And so they
  2. shall be both bestow’d. I have suffer’d more for their
  3. sakes—more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s
  4. disposition is able to bear.

Mistress Quickly

90 - 92
  1. And have not they suffer’d? Yes, I warrant; speciously one
  2. of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and
  3. blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

Falstaff

93 - 98
  1. What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself
  2. into all the colors of the rainbow; and I was like to be
  3. apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But that my
  4. admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of
  5. an old woman, deliver’d me, the knave constable had set me
  6. i’ th’ stocks, i’ th’ common stocks, for a witch.

Mistress Quickly

99 - 103
  1. Sir—let me speak with you in your chamber. You shall hear
  2. how things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a
  3. letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to
  4. bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven
  5. well, that you are so cross’d.

Falstaff

104
  1. Come up into my chamber.
  1. Exeunt.
The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Robert Smirke, circa 1800

© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons