The Merry Wives of Windsor
Act I, Scene 1
Windsor. A street in front of Page’s house.
- Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, Sir Hugh
- Evans.
Shallow
1 - 4- Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star
- Chamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John
- Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow,
- esquire.
Slender
5 - 6- In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace
- and Coram.
Shallow
7- Ay, cousin Slender, and Custa-lorum.
Slender
8 - 11- Ay, and Rato-lorum too; and a gentleman born,
- Master Parson, who writes himself Armigero, in
- any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation,
- Armigero.
Shallow
12 - 13- Ay, that I do, and have done any time these
- three hundred years.
Slender
14 - 17- All his successors (gone before him) hath
- done’t; and all his ancestors (that come after
- him) may. They may give the dozen white luces
- in their coat.
Shallow
18- It is an old coat.
Evans
19 - 21- The dozen white louses do become an old coat
- well; it agrees well, passant. It is a familiar
- beast to man, and signifies love.
Shallow
22 - 23- The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an old
- coat.
Slender
24- I may quarter, coz.
Shallow
25- You may, by marrying.
Evans
26- It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
Shallow
27- Not a whit.
Evans
28 - 34- Yes, py’r lady. If he has a quarter of your coat,
- there is but three skirts for yourself, in my
- simple conjectures. But that is all one. If Sir
- John Falstaff have committed disparagements
- unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to
- do my benevolence to make atonements and
- compromises between you.
Shallow
35- The Council shall hear it, it is a riot.
Evans
36 - 39- It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no
- fear of Got in a riot. The Council, look you, shall
- desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a
- riot. Take your vizaments in that.
Shallow
40 - 41- Ha! O’ my life, if I were young again, the sword
- should end it.
Evans
42 - 46- It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it;
- and there is also another device in my prain,
- which peradventure prings goot discretions with
- it: there is Anne Page, which is daughter to
- Master George Page, which is pretty virginity.
Slender
47 - 48- Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and
- speaks small like a woman.
Evans
49 - 57- It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as
- you will desire, and seven hundred pounds of
- moneys, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire
- upon his death’s-bed (Got deliver to a joyful
- resurrections!) give, when she is able to
- overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot
- motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles,
- and desire a marriage between Master
- Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.
Slender
58 - 59- Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred
- pound?
Evans
60- Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
Slender
61 - 62- I know the young gentlewoman, she has good
- gifts.
Evans
63 - 64- Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is
- goot gifts.
Shallow
65 - 66- Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff
- there?
Evans
67 - 72- Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do
- despise one that is false, or as I despise one
- that is not true. The knight Sir John is there,
- and I beseech you be rul’d by your well-willers. I
- will peat the door for Master Page.
- Knocks.
- What ho! Got pless your house here!
George
73- Within.
- Who’s there?
- Enter Page.
Cover of Stokes Company's 1910 edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor
Hugh Thomson, 1910
Evans
74 - 77- Here is Got’s plessing, and your friend, and
- Justice Shallow, and here young Master
- Slender, that peradventures shall tell you
- another tale, if matters grow to your likings.
George
78 - 79- I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you
- for my venison, Master Shallow.
Shallow
80 - 84- Master Page, I am glad to see you. Much good
- do it your good heart! I wish’d your venison
- better, it was ill kill’d. How doth good Mistress
- Page?—and I thank you always with my heart,
- la! With my heart.
George
85- Sir, I thank you.
Shallow
86- Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.
George
87- I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
Slender
88 - 89- How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard
- say he was outrun on Cotsall.
George
90- It could not be judg’d, sir.
Slender
91- You’ll not confess, you’ll not confess.
Shallow
92 - 93- That he will not. ’Tis your fault, ’tis your fault; ’tis
- a good dog.
George
94- A cur, sir.
Shallow
95 - 97- Sir! He’s a good dog, and a fair dog—can there
- be more said? He is good, and fair. Is Sir John
- Falstaff here?
George
98 - 99- Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good
- office between you.
Evans
100- It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
Shallow
101- He hath wrong’d me, Master Page.
George
102- Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
Shallow
103 - 106- If it be confess’d, it is not redress’d. Is not that
- so, Master Page? He hath wrong’d me, indeed
- he hath, at a word he hath. Believe me, Robert
- Shallow, esquire, saith he is wrong’d.
George
107- Here comes Sir John.
- Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol.
Falstaff
108 - 109- Now, Master Shallow, you’ll complain of me to
- the King?
Shallow
110 - 111- Knight, you have beaten my men, kill’d
- my deer, and broke open my lodge.
Falstaff
112- But not kiss’d your keeper’s daughter?
Shallow
113- Tut, a pin! This shall be answer’d.
Falstaff
114 - 115- I will answer it straight: I have done all this. That
- is now answer’d.
Shallow
116- The Council shall know this.
Falstaff
117 - 118- ’Twere better for you if it were known in
- counsel. You’ll be laugh’d at.
Evans
119- Pauca verba; Sir John, good worts.
Falstaff
120 - 121- Good worts? Good cabbage. Slender, I broke
- your head; what matter have you against me?
Slender
122 - 126- Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against
- you, and against your cony-catching rascals,
- Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. They carried me to
- the tavern and made me drunk, and afterward
- pick’d my pocket.
Bardolph
127- You Banbury cheese!
Slender
128- Ay, it is no matter.
Pistol
129- How now, Mephostophilus?
Slender
130- Ay, it is no matter.
Nym
131 - 132- Slice, I say! Pauca, pauca. Slice, that’s my
- humor.
Slender
133- Where’s Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?
Evans
134 - 139- Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand.
- There is three umpires in this matter, as I
- understand: that is, Master Page (fidelicet
- Master Page) and there is myself (fidelicet
- myself) and the three party is (lastly and finally)
- mine host of the Garter.
George
140- We three to hear it and end it between them.
Mistress Page (Julie Hughett) and Falstaff (John Rousseau) in "The Merry Wives of Windsor", staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre
Smatprt, 1999
Evans
141 - 143- Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my
- note-book, and we will afterwards ork upon
- the cause with as great discreetly as we can.
Falstaff
144- Pistol!
Pistol
145- He hears with ears.
Evans
146 - 147- The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this? “He
- hears with ear”? Why, it is affectations.
Falstaff
148- Pistol, did you pick Master Slender’s purse?
Slender
149 - 154- Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might
- never come in mine own great chamber again
- else, of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two
- Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling
- and two pence a-piece of Yead Miller—by these
- gloves.
Falstaff
155- Is this true, Pistol?
Evans
156- No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pistol
157 - 160- Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John, and master mine,
- I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
- Word of denial in thy labras here!
- Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest!
Slender
161- By these gloves, then ’twas he.
Nym
162 - 164- Be avis’d, sir, and pass good humors. I will say
- “marry trap” with you, if you run the nuthook’s
- humor on me—that is the very note of it.
Slender
165 - 167- By this hat, then he in the red face had it; for
- though I cannot remember what I did when you
- made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.
Falstaff
168- What say you, Scarlet and John?
Bardolph
169 - 170- Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had
- drunk himself out of his five sentences.
Evans
171- It is his five senses. Fie, what the ignorance is!
Bardolph
172 - 173- And being fap, sir, was (as they say) cashier’d;
- and so conclusions pass’d the careers.
Slender
174 - 178- Ay, you spake in Latin then too: but ’tis no
- matter; I’ll ne’er be drunk whilst I live again, but
- in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick. If I
- be drunk, I’ll be drunk with those that have the
- fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.
Evans
179- So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
Falstaff
180 - 181- You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen;
- you hear it.
- Enter Anne Page with wine, Mistress Ford,
- Mistress Page.
George
182 - 183- Nay, daughter, carry the wine in, we’ll drink
- within.
- Exit Anne Page.
Slender
184- O heaven! This is Mistress Anne Page.
George
185- How now, Mistress Ford?
Falstaff
186 - 187- Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well
- met. By your leave, good mistress.
- Kisses her.
George
188 - 191- Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we
- have a hot venison pasty to dinner. Come,
- gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all
- unkindness.
- Exeunt all except Shallow, Slender, and Evans.
Slender
192 - 196- I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
- Songs and Sonnets here.
- Enter Simple.
- How now, Simple, where have you been? I
- must wait on myself, must I? You have not the
- Book of Riddles about you, have you?
Simple
197 - 199- Book of Riddles? Why, did you not lend it
- to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a
- fortnight afore Michaelmas?
Shallow
200 - 203- Come, coz, come, coz, we stay for you. A word
- with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is as ’twere
- a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir
- Hugh here. Do you understand me?
Slender
204 - 205- Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable. If it be so,
- I shall do that that is reason.
Shallow
206- Nay, but understand me.
Slender
207- So I do, sir.
Evans
208 - 210- Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will
- description the matter to you, if you be capacity
- of it.
If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.
Hugh Thomson, 1910
Slender
211 - 213- Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says. I pray
- you pardon me; he’s a Justice of Peace in his
- country, simple though I stand here.
Evans
214 - 215- But that is not the question: the question is
- concerning your marriage.
Shallow
216- Ay, there’s the point, sir.
Evans
217 - 218- Marry, is it; the very point of it—to Mistress
- Anne Page.
Slender
219 - 220- Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any
- reasonable demands.
Evans
221 - 226- But can you affection the oman? Let us
- command to know that of your
- mouth, or of your lips; for divers philosophers
- hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth.
- Therefore precisely, can you carry your good
- will to the maid?
Shallow
227- Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
Slender
228 - 229- I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
- would do reason.
Evans
230 - 232- Nay, Got’s lords and his ladies, you must speak
- possitable, if you can carry her your desires
- towards her.
Shallow
233 - 234- That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,
- marry her?
Slender
235 - 236- I will do a greater thing than that, upon your
- request, cousin, in any reason.
Shallow
237 - 239- Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz;
- what I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love
- the maid?
Slender
240 - 247- I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
- be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven
- may decrease it upon better acquaintance,
- when we are married and have more occasion
- to know one another. I hope, upon familiarity
- will grow more content. But if you say, “Marry
- her,” I will marry her; that I am freely dissolv’d,
- and dissolutely.
Evans
248 - 250- It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is
- in the ord “dissolutely.” The ort is (according to
- our meaning) “resolutely.” His meaning is good.
Shallow
251- Ay—I think my cousin meant well.
Slender
252- Ay, or else I would I might be hang’d, la!
Shallow
253 - 255- Here comes fair Mistress Anne.
- Enter Anne Page.
- Would I were young for your sake, Mistress
- Anne!
Anne
256 - 257- The dinner is on the table. My father desires
- your worships’ company.
Shallow
258- I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.
Evans
259 - 260- ’Od’s plessed will! I will not be absence at the
- grace.
- Exeunt Shallow and Evans.
Anne
261- Will’t please your worship to come in, sir?
Slender
262 - 263- No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very
- well.
Anne
264- The dinner attends you, sir.
Slender
265 - 271- I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
- sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my
- cousin Shallow.
- Exit Simple.
- A Justice of Peace sometime may be beholding
- to his friend for a man. I keep but three men
- and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what
- though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.
Anne
272 - 273- I may not go in without your worship; they will
- not sit till you come.
Slender
274 - 275- I’ faith, I’ll eat nothing. I thank you as much as
- though I did.
Anne
276- I pray you, sir, walk in.
Slender
277 - 283- I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis’d my
- shin th’ other day with playing at sword and
- dagger with a master of fence (three veneys for
- a dish of stew’d prunes) and by my troth, I
- cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why
- do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’ th’
- town?
Anne
284- I think there are, sir, I heard them talk’d of.
Slender
285 - 287- I love the sport well, but I shall as soon quarrel
- at it as any man in England. You are afraid if
- you see the bear loose, are you not?
Anne
288- Ay indeed, sir.
Slender
289 - 294- That’s meat and drink to me, now. I have seen
- Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken
- him by the chain; but (I warrant you) the women
- have so cried and shriek’d at it, that it pass’d.
- But women, indeed, cannot abide ’em, they are
- very ill-favor’d rough things.
- Enter Page.
George
295 - 296- Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay
- for you.
Slender
297- I’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
George
298 - 299- By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir!
- Come, come.
Slender
300- Nay, pray you lead the way.
George
301- Come on, sir.
Slender
302- Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
Anne
303- Not I, sir, pray you keep on.
Slender
304 - 305- Truly I will not go first; truly la! I will not do you
- that wrong.
Anne
306- I pray you, sir.
Slender
307 - 308- I’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You
- do yourself wrong indeed la!
- Exeunt.
Byam Shaw, 1901