Ford. Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.
Mrs. Ford.
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.
I will never
take you for my love again; but I will always count
you my deer.
Falstaff.
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford.
Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
Falstaff. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent when ’tis upon ill employment!
Evans.
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,
and fairies
will not pinse you.
Ford.
Well said, fairy Hugh.
Evans.
And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford.
I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art
able to woo her
in good English.
Falstaff. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb of frieze? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.
Evans.
Seese is not good to give putter: your belly
is all putter.
Falstaff. ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’! Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.
Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
Ford.
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page.
A puffed man?
Page.
Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?
Ford.
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page.
And as poor as Job?
Ford.
And as wicked as his wife?
Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
Falstaff.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me; I
am dejected;
I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance
itself is
a plummet o’er me; use me as you will.