Act 4, Scene 2

A room in FORD'S house.

[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD.]
Sir John Falstaff
1571 Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you
1572 are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's
1573 breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love,
1574 but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But
1575 are you sure of your husband now?
Mistress Ford
1576 He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.
[Within.]
Mistress Page
1577 What ho! gossip Ford, what ho!
Mistress Ford
1578 Step into the chamber, Sir John.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE.]
Mistress Page
1579 How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?
Mistress Ford
1580 Why, none but mine own people.
Mistress Page
1581 Indeed!
Mistress Ford
1582 No, certainly.—
[Aside to her.]
Mistress Ford
1583 Speak louder.
Mistress Page
1584 Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
Mistress Ford
1585 Why?
Mistress Page
1586 Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again. He so takes
1587 on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind;
1588 so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so
1589 buffets himself on the forehead, crying 'Peer out, peer out!'
1590 that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility,
1591 and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the
1592 fat knight is not here.
Mistress Ford
1593 Why, does he talk of him?
Mistress Page
1594 Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he
1595 searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now
1596 here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their
1597 sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad
1598 the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.
Mistress Ford
1599 How near is he, Mistress Page?
Mistress Page
1600 Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.
Mistress Ford
1601 I am undone! the knight is here.
Mistress Page
1602 Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What
1603 a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! better shame than
1604 murder.
Mistress Ford
1605 Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him
1606 into the basket again?
[Re-enter FALSTAFF.}]
Sir John Falstaff
1607 No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go out ere he come?
Mistress Page
1608 Alas! three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols,
1609 that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he
1610 came. But what make you here?
Sir John Falstaff
1611 What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.
Mistress Ford
1612 There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.
Mistress Page
1613 Creep into the kiln-hole.
Sir John Falstaff
1614 Where is it?
Mistress Ford
1615 He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk,
1616 well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such
1617 places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in
1618 the house.
Sir John Falstaff
1619 I'll go out then.
Mistress Page
1620 If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless
1621 you go out disguised,—
Mistress Ford
1622 How might we disguise him?
Mistress Page
1623 Alas the day! I know not! There is no woman's gown big enough for
1624 him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief,
1625 and so escape.
Sir John Falstaff
1626 Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief.
Mistress Ford
1627 My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has a gown above.
Mistress Page
1628 On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is; and there's
1629 her thrummed hat, and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.
Mistress Ford
1630 Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look some linen
1631 for your head.
Mistress Page
1632 Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight; put on the gown the while.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
Mistress Ford
1633 I would my husband would meet him in this shape; he cannot abide
1634 the old woman of Brainford; he swears she's a witch, forbade her
1635 my house, and hath threatened to beat her.
Mistress Page
1636 Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his
1637 cudgel afterwards!
Mistress Ford
1638 But is my husband coming?
Mistress Page
1639 Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever
1640 he hath had intelligence.
Mistress Ford
1641 We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again,
1642 to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.
Mistress Page
1643 Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress him like the
1644 witch of Brainford.
Mistress Ford
1645 I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up;
1646 I'll bring linen for him straight.
[Exit.]
Mistress Page
1647 Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.
1648 We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
1649 Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
1650 We do not act that often jest and laugh;
1651 'Tis old but true: 'Still swine eats all the draff.'
[Exit.]
[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS.]
Mistress Ford
1652 Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders; your master is
1653 hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch.
[Exit.]
First Servant
1654 Come, come, take it up.
Second Servant
1655 Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again.
First Servant
1656 I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.
[Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]
Ford
1657 Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to
1658 unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my
1659 wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! there's a knot,
1660 a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be
1661 shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! behold what honest
1662 clothes you send forth to bleaching!
Page
1663 Why, this passes, Master Ford! you are not to go loose any longer;
1664 you must be pinioned.
Sir Hugh Evans
1665 Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog.
Justice Shallow
1666 Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
Ford
1667 So say I too, sir.—
[Re-enter MISTRESS FORD.]
Ford
1668 Come hither, Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife,
1669 the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!
1670 I suspect without cause, Mistress, do I?
Mistress Ford
1671 Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.
Ford
1672 Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah.
[Pulling clothes out of the basket.]
Page
1673 This passes!
Mistress Ford
1674 Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.
Ford
1675 I shall find you anon.
Sir Hugh Evans
1676 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away.
Ford
1677 Empty the basket, I say!
Mistress Ford
1678 Why, man, why?
Ford
1679 Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house
1680 yesterday in this basket: why may not he be there again? In my
1681 house I am sure he is; my intelligence is true; my jealousy is
1682 reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.
Mistress Ford
1683 If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.
Page
1684 Here's no man.
Justice Shallow
1685 By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you.
Sir Hugh Evans
1686 Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of
1687 your own heart; this is jealousies.
Ford
1688 Well, he's not here I seek for.
Page
1689 No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
[Servants carry away the basket.]
Ford
1690 Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I
1691 seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your
1692 table-sport; let them say of me 'As jealous as Ford, that searched
1693 a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more; once
1694 more search with me.
Mistress Ford
1695 What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my
1696 husband will come into the chamber.
Ford
1697 Old woman? what old woman's that?
Mistress Ford
1698 Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.
Ford
1699 A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her
1700 my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men;
1701 we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of
1702 fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure,
1703 and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.
1704 Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say!
Mistress Ford
1705 Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the
1706 old woman.
[Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, led by MISTRESS PAGE.]
Mistress Page
1707 Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
Ford
1708 I'll prat her.—
[Beats him.]
Ford
1709 Out of my door, you witch, you rag,
1710 you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! Out, out! I'll conjure you,
1711 I'll fortune-tell you.
[Exit FALSTAFF.]
Mistress Page
1712 Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.
Mistress Ford
1713 Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.
Ford
1714 Hang her, witch!
Sir Hugh Evans
1715 By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed; I like not when
1716 a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler.
Ford
1717 Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow; see but the issue
1718 of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me
1719 when I open again.
Page
1720 Let's obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen.
[Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and EVANS.]
Mistress Page
1721 Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
Mistress Ford
1722 Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully
1723 methought.
Mistress Page
1724 I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the altar; it hath
1725 done meritorious service.
Mistress Ford
1726 What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the
1727 witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?
Mistress Page
1728 The spirit of wantonness is sure scared out of him; if the devil
1729 have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never,
1730 I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
Mistress Ford
1731 Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?
Mistress Page
1732 Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of
1733 your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor
1734 unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will
1735 still be the ministers.
Mistress Ford
1736 I'll warrant they'll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there
1737 would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.
Mistress Page
1738 Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I would not have things
1739 cool.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1572archaic vocab
“obsequious in your love, and I profess requital”
'Obsequious' here means devoted or compliant, not the modern sense of groveling sycophancy. 'Requital' means repayment in kind — Falstaff promises to match Mistress Ford's supposed love with equal devotion, down to the last detail ('to a hair's breadth').
TLN 1576archaic vocab
“He's a-birding, sweet Sir John”
'A-birding' means out hunting birds, typically with a hawk or with a fowling-piece (a light shotgun). Mistress Ford reassures Falstaff her husband is safely occupied away from home — which will shortly prove cruelly ironic when Ford returns moments later.
TLN 1586archaic vocab
“your husband is in his old lunes again”
'Lunes' means fits of lunacy or wild raving moods. Mistress Page is telling Mistress Ford that her jealous husband has worked himself into another frenzy. The word comes from 'luna' (moon), reflecting the old belief that the moon caused madness.
TLN 1588biblical allusion
“curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever”
'Eve's daughters' means all women, tracing every woman's ancestry back to Eve, the first woman of Genesis. Ford's jealousy has generalized into a rage against womankind as a whole. The phrase implies women inherit Eve's supposed capacity for deception.
TLN 1589historical topical
“buffets himself on the forehead, crying 'Peer out, peer out!'”
Ford is hitting his own forehead and shouting 'Peer out!' — commanding the invisible cuckold's horns he imagines growing there to show themselves. The action makes his jealousy both comic and pathetic: he believes he is a cuckold and beats his own head as if trying to find the horns.
historical The cuckold's horns
TLN 1616archaic vocab
“he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note”
An 'abstract' is a list or summary — Mistress Ford says her husband keeps a written inventory of every possible hiding place in the house and checks it systematically. 'By his note' means by his written list. Ford's jealousy has become organized and methodical, which makes the comedy darker and funnier.
TLN 1629archaic vocab
“her thrummed hat, and her muffler too”
A 'thrummed hat' is one made of or fringed with thrums — short threads or tassels of yarn left over from weaving, stitched onto a fabric to create a shaggy, tufted surface. Combined with a 'muffler' (a cloth wrapped around the lower face and neck), the disguise is meant to hide Falstaff's face entirely — the hat above, the muffler below, leaving little visible.
TLN 1651archaic vocab
“'Still swine eats all the draff.'”
Mistress Page quotes an Elizabethan proverb: 'draff' is swill or hogwash — the liquid refuse from brewing, fed to pigs. The proverb means the quiet pig gets all the food: those who make no noise get the most benefit. Mistress Page applies it to herself and Mistress Ford — apparently merry and harmless, they are in fact the ones who have eaten up the advantage over Falstaff.
TLN 1659archaic vocab
“panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy”
'Panderly' means pimping, acting as a go-between for an adulterous affair (from 'pander,' a procurer). 'Ging' (or 'gang') means a crew or company. Ford accuses his own servants of being part of a conspiracy to help Falstaff reach his wife, piling up near-synonyms — knot, ging, pack, conspiracy — as his rage escalates.
TLN 1692archaic vocab
“'As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.'”
A 'leman' is an archaic word for a sweetheart or lover (usually illicit). Ford is inviting the company to mock him as proverbially foolish if they find nothing again — a man who searched a hollow walnut for his wife's secret lover. The image captures how absurdly small a space Ford imagines his rival might occupy.
TLN 1699archaic vocab
“A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house?”
A 'quean' (not 'queen') meant a bold, disreputable woman or hussy; 'cozening' means cheating or swindling by deceit. Ford believes the woman of Brentford is a fraudster who works by 'charms, by spells, by the figure' (TLN 1702) — meaning by magic rituals and astrology — to swindle gullible people.
TLN 1715cultural context
“I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler”
Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, pronounces 'woman' as ''oman' and 'beard' as 'peard' — his Welsh accent substituting 'p' for 'b' (Welsh has no /b/ in the same position). He spots the flaw in Falstaff's disguise: a large beard showing under the muffler. Evans's dialect is part of the play's comedy of regional English, but his observation here is also the key plot point that unmasks the disguise.
TLN 1718archaic vocab
“if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again”
Ford is using hunting language: a hound 'opens' (gives cry) when it picks up a scent, and follows a 'trail' (the scent track of the quarry). Ford is saying: if this hunt turns up nothing, never believe me when I give the alarm again. The irony is that he is right — Falstaff is in the house — but is about to be beaten out the door before Ford can catch him.