1    Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my
2    sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love,
3    and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not
4    only, Mistress Ford, in the simple
5    office of love, but in all the accoutrement,
6    complement and ceremony of it. But are you
7    sure of your husband now?

8    He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.

Within
9     What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho!

10   Step into the chamber, Sir John.

11   How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?

12   Why, none but mine own people.

13   Indeed!

14   No, certainly.
Aside to her
15   Speak louder.

16   Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

17   Why?

18   Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again:
19   he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails
20   against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's
21   daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets
22   himself on the forehead, crying, 'Peer out, peer
23   out!' that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but
24   tameness, civility and patience, to this his
25   distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here.

26   Why, does he talk of him?

27   Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the
28   last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests
29   to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and
30   the rest of their company from their sport, to make
31   another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad
32   the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

33   How near is he, Mistress Page?

34   Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

35   I am undone! The knight is here.

36   Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead
37   man. What a woman are you!--Away with him, away
38   with him! better shame than murder.

39   Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
40   Shall I put him into the basket again?

41   No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go
42   out ere he come?

43   Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door
44   with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise
45   you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

46   What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.

47   There they always use to discharge their
48   birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

49   Where is it?

50   He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,
51   coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an
52   abstract for the remembrance of such places, and
53   goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.

54   I'll go out then.

55   If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir
56   John. Unless you go out disguised--

57   How might we disguise him?

58   Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's gown
59   big enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat,
60   a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape.

61   Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather
62   than a mischief.

63   My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a
64   gown above.

65   On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he
66   is: and there's her thrummed hat and her muffler
67   too. Run up, Sir John.

68   Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will
69   look some linen for your head.

70   Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put
71   on the gown the while.

72   I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he
73   cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears
74   she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath
75   threatened to beat her.

76   Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the
77   devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

78   But is my husband coming?

79   Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket
80   too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

81   We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the
82   basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as
83   they did last time.

84   Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him
85   like the witch of Brentford.

86   I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the
87   basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.

88   Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.
89   We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
90   Wives may be merry, and yet honest too:
91   We do not act that often jest and laugh;
92   'Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff.

93   Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders:
94   your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it
95   down, obey him: quickly, dispatch.

96   Come, come, take it up.

97   Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

98   I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

99   Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
100  way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket,
101  villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket!
102  O you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a
103  pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil
104  be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth!
105  Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!

106  Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go
107  loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

108  Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog!

109  Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

110  So say I too, sir.
Re-enter MISTRESS FORD
111  Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford the honest
112  woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that
113  hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect
114  without cause, mistress, do I?

115  Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in
116  any dishonesty.

117  Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah!

118  This passes!

119  Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.

120  I shall find you anon.

121  'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's
122  clothes? Come away.

123  Empty the basket, I say!

124  Why, man, why?

125  Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed
126  out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may
127  not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is:
128  my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.
129  Pluck me out all the linen.

130  If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.

131  Here's no man.

132  By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this
133  wrongs you.

134  Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the
135  imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies.

136  Well, he's not here I seek for.

137  No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

138  Help to search my house this one time. If I find
139  not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let
140  me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of
141  me, 'As jealous as Ford, Chat searched a hollow
142  walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more;
143  once more search with me.

144  What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman
145  down; my husband will come into the chamber.

146  Old woman! what old woman's that?

147  Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

148  A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not
149  forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does
150  she? We are simple men; we do not know what's
151  brought to pass under the profession of
152  fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells,
153  by the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond
154  our element we know nothing. Come down, you witch,
155  you hag, you; come down, I say!

156  Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him
157  not strike the old woman.

158  Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

159  I'll prat her.
Beating him
160  Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you
161  polecat, you runyon! out, out! I'll conjure you,
162  I'll fortune-tell you.

163  Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the
164  poor woman.

165  Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.

166  Hang her, witch!

167  By the yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch
168  indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard;
169  I spy a great peard under his muffler.

170  Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow;
171  see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus
172  upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

173  Let's obey his humour a little further: come,
174  gentlemen.

175  Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

176  Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most
177  unpitifully, methought.

178  I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the
179  altar; it hath done meritorious service.

180  What think you? may we, with the warrant of
181  womanhood and the witness of a good conscience,
182  pursue him with any further revenge?

183  The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of
184  him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with
185  fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the
186  way of waste, attempt us again.

187  Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

188  Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the
189  figures out of your husband's brains. If they can
190  find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight
191  shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be
192  the ministers.

193  I'll warrant they'll have him publicly shamed: and
194  methinks there would be no period to the jest,
195  should he not be publicly shamed.

196  Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would
197  not have things cool.