Mrs. Page. Why, look where he comes; and my goodman too: he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance. Mrs. Ford. You are the happier woman.

Mrs. Page. Let's consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither.

[They retire.

Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE, and NYм.

Ford. Well, I hope it be not so.

7

Pist. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:

Sir John affects thy wife.

Ford. Why, sir, my wife is not young.

Pist. He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,

Both young and old, one with another, Ford;

He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend.8

Ford. Love my wife!

Pist. With liver burning hot.

Prevent, or go thou,

Like Sir Acteon he, with Ringwood at thy heels:

Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night : Take heed, ere Summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do sing.— Away, Sir Corporal Nym!

much used for husSo St. Matthew, xx.

6 Goodman, here commonly printed good man, was band, or for master, or, as we now sound it, mister. II: "And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house." And St. Luke, xii. 39: "And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known at what hour the thief would come," &c. Shakespeare has it repeatedly in the same way.- Perpend is consider.

7 A dog's tail was thought highly instrumental to speed: hence a dog that missed his game was called a curtal.

8 Gallimaufry, which means medley or hotchpotch, does not here refer specially to Mrs. Ford, but to what Pistol has just said: "He loves all sorts indiscriminately."

Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.9

[Exit.

Ford. [Aside.] I will be patient; I will find out this. Nym. [To PAGE.] And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: 10 I should have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there's the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch 'tis true: my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it. Adieu.

[Exit. Page. [Aside.] The humour of it, quoth 'a! here's a fellow frights humour out of his 11 wits.

Ford. [Aside.] I will seek out Falstaff.

Page. [Aside.] I never heard such a drawling, affecting 12 rogue.

9 Here it is to be observed that Pistol knew beforehand what Nym was to tell Page; and now, as he infers from their talking so long that Page is incredulous, he speaks this to confirm Nym's tale, and thereby cut short the interview. The resemblance of sound in cuckoo and cuckold caused frequent allusions to the cuckoo's note in connection with the matter here in hand. See vol. iii., page 44, note 10. — Pistol is an adept in bawdy-house slang; has it all at his tongue's end. His dialect is an odd medley of real filth and affected scholarism, which he has gathered at the play-house among "the groundlings." In his preceding speech, he refers to the classical fable of Acteon, who was a famous hunter, and who, one day when he was hunting, saw Artemis with her nymphs bathing; whereupon the goddess changed him into a stag, in which form he was torn to pieces by his own dogs." Ringwood is used as the name of a dog.

10 Nym's character and dialect seem partly intended as a satire on the contemporary use of the word humour. Ben Jonson keenly ridicules this coxcombical fashion of the time in the Induction to his Every Man out of his Humour: Now, if an idiot have but an apish or fantastic strain, it is

his humour."

64

11 His for its, referring to humour. As its was not then an accepted word, the Poet and all other writers of the time commonly use his or her instead. See vol. i., page 90, note I.

12 Affecting for affected; the active and passive forms being then, to a great extent, used indiscriminately. See vol. v., page 96, note 4.

Ford. [Aside.] If I do find it, well.

Page. [Aside.] I will not believe such a Cataian,13 though the priest o' the town commended him for a true man. Ford. [Aside.] 'Twas a good sensible fellow; -well.

[Mrs. PAGE and Mrs. FORD come forward.

Page. How now, Meg!

Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George?

Mrs. Ford. How now, sweet Frank! ancholy?

Hark you.

Why art thou mel

Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

Mrs. Ford. Faith, thou hast some crotchet in thy head Will you go, Mistress Page?

now.

Mrs. Page. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George? [Aside to Mrs. FORD.] Look who comes yonder : she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight.

Mrs. Ford. [Aside to Mrs. PAGE.] Trust me, I thought on her she'll fit it.

Enter Mistress QUICKLY.

Mrs. Page. You are come to see my daughter Anne? Quick. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?

Mrs. Page. Go in with us and see: we would have an hour's talk with you.

[Exeunt Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Mrs. QUICKLY. Page. How now, Master Ford!

Ford. You heard what this knave told me, did you not? Page. Yes and you heard what the other told me? Ford. Do you think there is truth in them?

Page. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would.

13 A Cataian is a Chinese, Cataia or Cathay being the old name of China. From the alleged adroitness of the Chinese in thieving, Cataian became a cant term for a sharper.

offer it but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service.

Ford. Were they his men?

Page. Marry, were they.

Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?

Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.

Ford. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loth to turn them together. A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus satisfied.

Page. Look where my ranting Host of the Garter comes : there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks so merrily. –

How now, mine Host!

Enter the Host.

Host. How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman.-Cavalero-justice, I say!

Enter SHALLOW.

Shal. I follow, mine Host, I follow. -Good even and twenty,14 good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand.

Host. Tell him, cavalero-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

Ford. Good mine Host o' the Garter, a word with you. Host. What sayest thou, my bully-rook? [They go aside.

14" An old popular salutation," says Staunton, "meaning twenty good evenings." Halliwell quotes a like instance from Eliot's Fruits of the French, 1593: "God night and a thousand to everybody."

My

Shal. [To PAGE.] Will you go with us to behold it? merry Host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. [They go aside. Host. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guestcavalier?

Ford. None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brook; only for a jest.

Host. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well?—and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. - Will you go, mynheers?

Shal. Have with you, mine Host.

Page. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.

Shal. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword I would have made you 15 four tall fellows skip like rats. Host. Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag? Page. Have with you.

see them fight.

I had rather hear them scold than [Exeunt HOST, SHAL., and PAGE. Ford. Though Page be a secure 16 fool, and stands so

15 Dyce thinks, and rightly, no doubt, that you is here used redundantly, and not as limiting fellows. Shallow has it just so in 2 Henry IV., iii. 2 : "There was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would about and about, and come you in and come you in," &c. Here, as in several other places, tall is brave or stout. So in the third speech of the next scene. - Before the introduction of rapiers, the swords in use were of great length. Shallow censures the innovation, and ridicules the terms and the use of the rapier. The practice of the long sword was to hack and slash; of the rapier to parry and thrust, or pass. Stoccado is Italian for thrust.

16 Secure in the Latin sense of over-confident, and so negligent or care