The Merry Wives of Windsor
Act V, Scene 1
A room in the Garter Inn.
- Enter Falstaff, Mistress Quickly.
Falstaff
1 - 4- Prithee no more prattling. Go, I’ll hold. This is the third
- time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go. They
- say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity,
- chance, or death. Away!
Mistress Quickly
5 - 6- I’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you
- a pair of horns.
Falstaff
7 - 10- Away, I say, time wears, hold up your head and mince.
- Exit Mrs. Quickly.
- Enter Ford disguised.
- How now, Master Brook? Master Brook, the matter will be
- known tonight, or never. Be you in the park about midnight,
- at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.
Ford
11 - 12- Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had
- appointed?
Falstaff
13 - 26- I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old
- man, but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old
- woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest
- mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever
- govern’d frenzy. I will tell you—he beat me grievously, in
- the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook,
- I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also
- life is a shuttle. I am in haste, go along with me, I’ll
- tell you all, Master Brook. Since I pluck’d geese, play’d
- truant, and whipt top, I knew not what ’twas to be beaten
- till lately. Follow me, I’ll tell you strange things of this
- knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be reveng’d, and I will
- deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in
- hand, Master Brook! Follow.
Mistress Ford
Henry Cook, printmaker; Charles Tilt; Joseph Kenny Meadows; 19th cent.
- Exeunt.
Act header for the James Ballantyne and Co. edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor
Hugh Thomson, 1910