Act 3, Scene 4

A room in PAGE'S house.

[Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.]
Fenton
1296 I see I cannot get thy father's love;
1297 Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Anne Page
1298 Alas! how then?
Fenton
1299 Why, thou must be thyself.
1300 He doth object, I am too great of birth;
1301 And that my state being gall'd with my expense,
1302 I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
1303 Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
1304 My riots past, my wild societies;
1305 And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
1306 I should love thee but as a property.
Anne Page
1307 May be he tells you true.
Fenton
1308 No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
1309 Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
1310 Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne:
1311 Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
1312 Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;
1313 And 'tis the very riches of thyself
1314 That now I aim at.
Anne Page
1315 Gentle Master Fenton,
1316 Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.
1317 If opportunity and humblest suit
1318 Cannot attain it, why then,—hark you hither.
[They converse apart.]
[Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
Justice Shallow
1319 Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself.
Slender
1320 I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't. 'Slid, 'tis but venturing.
Justice Shallow
1321 Be not dismayed.
Slender
1322 No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard.
Mistress Quickly
1323 Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.
Anne Page
1324 I come to him.
[Aside.]
Anne Page
1325 This is my father's choice.
1326 O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
1327 Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
Mistress Quickly
1328 And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a
1329 word with you.
Justice Shallow
1330 She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
Slender
1331 I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests
1332 of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father
1333 stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.
Justice Shallow
1334 Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
Slender
1335 Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.
Justice Shallow
1336 He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
Slender
1337 Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.
Justice Shallow
1338 He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
Anne Page
1339 Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
Justice Shallow
1340 Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She
1341 calls you, coz; I'll leave you.
Anne Page
1342 Now, Master Slender.
Slender
1343 Now, good Mistress Anne.—
Anne Page
1344 What is your will?
Slender
1345 My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er
1346 made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature,
1347 I give heaven praise.
Anne Page
1348 I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
Slender
1349 Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing with you. Your
1350 father and my uncle hath made motions; if it be my luck, so; if not,
1351 happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than
1352 I can. You may ask your father; here he comes.
[Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.]
Page
1353 Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne.
1354 Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here?
1355 You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
1356 I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.
Fenton
1357 Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
Mistress Page
1358 Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
Page
1359 She is no match for you.
Fenton
1360 Sir, will you hear me?
Page
1361 No, good Master Fenton.
1362 Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
1363 Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
Mistress Quickly
1364 Speak to Mistress Page.
Fenton
1365 Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
1366 In such a righteous fashion as I do,
1367 Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
1368 I must advance the colours of my love
1369 And not retire: let me have your good will.
Anne Page
1370 Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
Mistress Page
1371 I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
Mistress Quickly
1372 That's my master, Master doctor.
Anne Page
1373 Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth.
1374 And bowl'd to death with turnips.
Mistress Page
1375 Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,
1376 I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
1377 My daughter will I question how she loves you,
1378 And as I find her, so am I affected.
1379 Till then, farewell, sir: she must needs go in;
1380 Her father will be angry.
Fenton
1381 Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.
[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.}]
Mistress Quickly
1382 This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast away your child
1383 on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.' This is my doing.
Fenton
1384 I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
1385 Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.
Mistress Quickly
1386 Now Heaven send thee good fortune!
[Exit FENTON.]
Mistress Quickly
1387 A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through fire and water for
1388 such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or
1389 I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton
1390 had her; I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have
1391 promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master
1392 Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my
1393 two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it!
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 1301archaic vocab
“my state being gall'd with my expense”
'State' here means his fortune or estate — his financial standing. 'Gall'd' means chafed, worn raw, or damaged: his estate has been injured by his own extravagance. Fenton is confessing that he has spent down his inheritance.
TLN 1304historical topical
“My riots past, my wild societies”
Fenton confesses to a misspent youth — 'riots' meaning bouts of riotous, dissolute living, and 'wild societies' meaning bad company kept. Elsewhere in the play he is said to have been one of the young Prince Hal's disreputable companions, the same crowd associated with Falstaff's world of taverns and carousing.
TLN 1306archaic vocab
“I should love thee but as a property”
A 'property' here means a tool or object used for another person's purposes — something owned and exploited, not valued in itself. Page is accusing Fenton of seeing Anne not as a person to love but as an instrument for restoring his depleted finances.
TLN 1312archaic vocab
“Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags”
'Stamps in gold' means gold coins — money that has been stamped (struck with a die at the mint) to authenticate it. 'Sums in sealed bags' are counted amounts of coin kept in pouches closed with a wax seal to prevent tampering. Both images stand for Anne's dowry as a pile of cash, which Fenton now claims to value less than Anne herself.
TLN 1320archaic vocab
“I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't. 'Slid”
'I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't' is a proverbial expression meaning 'I'll make something of it one way or another' — a shaft is a long, slender arrow for a longbow; a bolt is the shorter, stubbier projectile of a crossbow. The point is that Slender will use whatever he has, however clumsy. ''Slid' is a minced oath — short for 'by God's eyelid' — a mild Elizabethan swear word.
TLN 1337archaic vocab
“come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire”
'Come cut and long-tail' is a proverbial phrase meaning 'come what may, whatever turns up' — cut and long-tail described dogs with their tails docked short versus dogs with tails left long, covering all varieties. Slender is boasting he will maintain Anne as a gentlewoman regardless of circumstances — but only 'under the degree of a squire,' meaning in the style fitting someone just below a knight, not lavishly.
TLN 1338historical topical
“a hundred and fifty pounds jointure”
A 'jointure' was a legal settlement made at marriage that guaranteed a wife an annual income from her husband's lands if he died first — her widow's provision. Shallow is offering Anne a jointure of one hundred and fifty pounds a year, which is Slender's pitch as a financially safe match: if Slender dies, Anne will not be left penniless.
TLN 1345wordplay
“'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet”
When Anne asks 'What is your will?', she means simply 'What do you want?' — but Slender hears 'will' as a last will and testament. He indignantly protests that he has never made his will because he is not sick or dying. ''Od's heartlings' is a minced oath — a polite shortening of 'by God's little heart' — that doubles as a comic signal of Slender's alarm at being thought near death.
TLN 1351archaic vocab
“happy man be his dole”
A proverbial phrase meaning 'may luck decide it' or 'let the lucky man have the prize.' 'Dole' is an old word for one's portion or lot in life — what fate allots. Slender is saying the match is entirely in fate's hands; whoever is lucky enough, let him have her.
TLN 1368rhetorical device
“I must advance the colours of my love / And not retire”
Fenton speaks his courtship as a military campaign: 'advance the colours' means to push forward with the battle-flag raised — to press his suit openly. 'Not retire' continues the metaphor: to retreat from Anne's parents would be to surrender. The contrast with Slender's passive, bumbling non-wooing is sharp.
TLN 1391cultural context
“but speciously for Master Fenton”
Mistress Quickly means 'especially' but says 'speciously' — a malapropism, the comic substitution of a wrong word that sounds vaguely similar. 'Speciously' means 'in a plausible but misleading way'; 'especially' means 'above all others.' The mistake is a running feature of Quickly's speech throughout the play and marks her as a cheerful, well-meaning character whose grasp of formal vocabulary is imperfect.