Excerpt from The Merry Wives of Windsor - anthology.

« MISTRESS FORD.

O sweet Sir John! FALSTAFF.

Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, Mistress Ford.

Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead.

I'll speak it before the best lord, Iwould make thee my lady. MISTRESS FORD.

I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful lady. FALSTAFF.

Let the court of France show me such another.

I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond.

Thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow thatbecomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance. MISTRESS FORD.

A plain kerchief, Sir John.

My brows become nothing else, nor that well neither. FALSTAFF.

Thou art a tyrant to say so.

Thou wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in asemi-circled farthingale.

I see what thou wert if Fortune, thy foe, were—not Nature—thy friend.

Come, thou canst not hide it. MISTRESS FORD.

Believe me, there's no such thing in me. FALSTAFF.

What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there's something extraordinary in thee.

Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a manyof these lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's apparel and smell like Bucklersbury in simple-time.

I cannot.

But I love thee, none but thee; and thoudeservest it. MISTRESS FORD.

Do not betray me, sir.

I fear you love Mistress Page. FALSTAFF.

Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln. MISTRESS FORD.

Well, heaven knows how I love you, and you shall one day find it. FALSTAFF.

Keep in that mind—I'll deserve it. MISTRESS FORD.

Nay, I must tell you, so you do, or else I could not be in that mind. Enter Robin ROBIN.

Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! Here's Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently. FALSTAFF.

She shall not see me.

I will ensconce me behind the arras. MISTRESS FORD.

Pray you, do so.

She's a very tattling woman. Falstaff hides himself Enter Mistress Page What's the matter? How now? MISTRESS PAGE.

O Mistress Ford, what have you done?You're shamed, you're overthrown, you're undone for ever. MISTRESS FORD.

What's the matter, good Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE.

O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion! MISTRESS FORD.

What cause of suspicion? MISTRESS PAGE.

What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! How am I mistook in you! MISTRESS FORD.

Why, alas, what's the matter? MISTRESS PAGE.

Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house, by yourconsent, to take an ill advantage of his absence.

You are undone. MISTRESS FORD 'Tis not so, I hope. MISTRESS PAGE.

Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a man here! But 'tis most certain your husband's coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search forsuch a one.

I come before to tell you.

If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it.

But if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out.

Be not amazed, call allyour senses to you, defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever. MISTRESS FORD.

What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril.

I had rather than a thousand poundhe were out of the house. MISTRESS PAGE.

For shame, never stand “you had rather” and “you had rather”! Your husband's here at hand.

Bethink you of some conveyance.

In the house youcannot hide him.—O, how have you deceived me!—Look, here is a basket.

If he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him,as if it were going to bucking.

Or—it is whiting-time—send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.. »