Act 3, Scene 1

A field near Frogmore.

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.]
Sir Hugh Evans
947 I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man, and friend
948 Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius,
949 that calls himself doctor of physic?
Simple
950 Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every way; old Windsor
951 way, and every way but the town way.
Sir Hugh Evans
952 I most fehemently desire you you will also look that
953 way.
Simple
954 I will, Sir.
[Exit.]
Sir Hugh Evans
955 Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling of mind!
956 I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How melancholies I am!
957 I will knog his urinals about his knave's costard when I have goot
958 opportunities for the 'ork: pless my soul!
[Sings]
Sir Hugh Evans
959 To shallow rivers, to whose falls
960 Melodious birds sings madrigals;
961 There will we make our peds of roses,
962 And a thousand fragrant posies.
963 To shallow—
Sir Hugh Evans
964 Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.
[Sings.]
Sir Hugh Evans
965 Melodious birds sing madrigals,—
966 Whenas I sat in Pabylon,—
967 And a thousand vagram posies.
968 To shallow,—
[Re-enter SIMPLE.]
Simple
969 Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.
Sir Hugh Evans
970 He's welcome.
[Sings]
Sir Hugh Evans
971 To shallow rivers, to whose falls—
Sir Hugh Evans
972 Heaven prosper the right!—What weapons is he?
Simple
973 No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master Shallow, and another
974 gentleman, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way.
Sir Hugh Evans
975 Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms.
[Reads in a book.]
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
Justice Shallow
976 How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester
977 from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful.
[Aside]
Slender
978 Ah, sweet Anne Page!
Page
979 'Save you, good Sir Hugh!
Sir Hugh Evans
980 Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
Justice Shallow
981 What, the sword and the word! Do you study them both, Master Parson?
Page
982 And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatic day!
Sir Hugh Evans
983 There is reasons and causes for it.
Page
984 We are come to you to do a good office, Master Parson.
Sir Hugh Evans
985 Fery well; what is it?
Page
986 Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having received
987 wrong by some person, is at most odds with his own gravity and
988 patience that ever you saw.
Justice Shallow
989 I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never heard a man of
990 his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of his own respect.
Sir Hugh Evans
991 What is he?
Page
992 I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French
993 physician.
Sir Hugh Evans
994 Got's will and His passion of my heart! I had as lief you would
995 tell me of a mess of porridge.
Page
996 Why?
Sir Hugh Evans
997 He has no more knowledge in Hibbocrates and Galen,—and he is a
998 knave besides; a cowardly knave as you would desires to be
999 acquainted withal.
Page
1000 I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.
[Aside]
Slender
1001 O, sweet Anne Page!
Justice Shallow
1002 It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder; here comes
1003 Doctor Caius.
[Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY.]
Page
1004 Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.
Justice Shallow
1005 So do you, good Master Doctor.
Host of the Garter
1006 Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep their limbs whole
1007 and hack our English.
Doctor Caius
1008 I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear: verefore will you
1009 not meet-a me?
[Aside to CAIUS.]
Sir Hugh Evans
1010 Pray you use your patience; in good time.
Doctor Caius
1011 By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.
[Aside to CAIUS.]
Sir Hugh Evans
1012 Pray you, let us not be laughing-stogs to other
1013 men's humours; I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or
1014 other make you amends.
[Aloud.]
Sir Hugh Evans
1015 I will knog your urinals about your knave's cogscomb
1016 for missing your meetings and appointments.
Doctor Caius
1017 Diable!—Jack Rugby,—mine Host de Jarretiere,—have I not stay for
1018 him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did appoint?
Sir Hugh Evans
1019 As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the place
1020 appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the Garter.
Host of the Garter
1021 Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaullia; French and Welsh, soul-curer
1022 and body-curer!
Doctor Caius
1023 Ay, dat is very good; excellent!
Host of the Garter
1024 Peace, I say! Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I politic? am I
1025 subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor? No; he gives me
1026 the potions and the motions. Shall I lose my parson, my priest,
1027 my Sir Hugh? No; he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs.
1028 Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so;—give me thy hand, celestial;
1029 so. Boys of art, I have deceived you both; I have directed you
1030 to wrong places; your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole,
1031 and let burnt sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn.
1032 Follow me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.
Justice Shallow
1033 Trust me, a mad host!—Follow, gentlemen, follow.
[Aside]
Slender
1034 O, sweet Anne Page!
[Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and HOST.]
Doctor Caius
1035 Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us, ha, ha?
Sir Hugh Evans
1036 This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I desire you that
1037 we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together to be
1038 revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host
1039 of the Garter.
Doctor Caius
1040 By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me where is Anne
1041 Page; by gar, he deceive me too.
Sir Hugh Evans
1042 Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you follow.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 955cultural context
“full of chollors I am, and trempling”
Evans's Welsh accent twists 'choler' (anger) into 'chollors' and 'trembling' into 'trempling.' 'Choler' was one of the four bodily humours — the bile believed to cause hot, angry temperament — so Evans is saying he is overwrought with angry feeling while physically shaking with nerves.
TLN 957archaic vocab
“knog his urinals about his knave's costard”
Evans threatens to knock ('knog') Caius's urine-flasks ('urinals') around his head — a deliberate insult, since urinals were the diagnostic tools of a physician, who read the colour and clarity of urine to diagnose illness. 'Costard' is slang for head (literally a large variety of apple).
TLN 959parallel passage
“To shallow rivers, to whose falls”
Evans sings a garbled version of Christopher Marlowe's pastoral lyric 'Come live with me and be my love' (c. 1590s, published 1599), a famous Elizabethan love song. His nervous anxiety scrambles it: he muddles the words ('vagram' for 'fragrant'; 'peds' for 'beds') and breaks off mid-line when emotion overcomes him.
TLN 966biblical allusion
“Whenas I sat in Pabylon”
Evans's memory slips and he sings a line from the metrical version of Psalm 137 — the lament of the Israelites exiled in Babylon, 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept' (Psalm 137:1). The lament of a captive people breaks into what should be Marlowe's pastoral love-song, hinting at Evans's own wretched, trapped feeling.
TLN 981wordplay
“the sword and the word”
Shallow's joke is that Evans is practising two incompatible vocations at once: 'the sword' (the duel he has come to fight) and 'the word' (the Word of God — scripture — appropriate to a parson). A clergyman preparing for a sword-fight while reading a book is the scene's central comedy.
TLN 997historical topical
“knowledge in Hibbocrates and Galen”
Evans dismisses Caius by saying he knows nothing of Hippocrates and Galen — the two supreme authorities of ancient medicine. Hippocrates (5th century BCE, Greek) laid the foundations of clinical medicine; Galen (2nd century CE, Roman) built the system of humours and bodily temperatures that still governed medical training in Shakespeare's day. To lack their knowledge was to lack any medical credential at all.
TLN 1017historical topical
“mine Host de Jarretiere”
Caius addresses the innkeeper as 'Host de Jarretiere' — French for 'Host of the Garter.' The Garter Inn of Windsor takes its name from the Order of the Garter, England's highest order of chivalry, whose ceremonies were held at Windsor Castle. That the local tavern-keeper trades on the Order's prestige is part of the play's comedy of middle-class Windsor life.
historical The Order of the Garter
TLN 1025historical topical
“am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor”
The Host boasts of his cleverness by asking 'am I a Machiavel?' — meaning a cold, scheming, amoral strategist. In Elizabethan England 'Machiavel' was a byword for a cynical political manipulator, drawn from Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince (1513, circulating in English manuscripts). The Host then shows exactly that calculus: he keeps both his doctor and his parson by deceiving both.
TLN 1031archaic vocab
“let burnt sack be the issue”
The Host proposes that instead of a duel, the two men should settle their quarrel over heated ('burnt') sack — sherry wine warmed and sweetened with sugar, a fashionable Elizabethan drink. 'Be the issue' means 'be the outcome' or 'settle the matter.'
TLN 1036archaic vocab
“vlouting-stog. I desire you that we may be friends”
Evans's 'vlouting-stog' is his Welsh-accented version of 'flouting-stock' — a person made into a public laughingstock, an object of mockery and ridicule. His v/f consonant shift is the same one that gives him 'fery' for 'very' and 'fehemently' for 'vehemently.' The word immediately precedes his appeal for friendship: being gulled is so humiliating that it paradoxically unites the two rivals.