Act 4, Scene 5

A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter HOST and SIMPLE.]
Host of the Garter
1841 What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin? Speak, breathe,
1842 discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
Simple
1843 Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.
Host of the Garter
1844 There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and
1845 truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal,
1846 fresh and new. Go knock and call; he'll speak like an
1847 Anthropophaginian unto thee; knock, I say.
Simple
1848 There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I'll
1849 be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with
1850 her, indeed.
Host of the Garter
1851 Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robbed. I'll call. Bully knight!
1852 Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military. Art thou there? It
1853 is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.
[Above]
Sir John Falstaff
1854 How now, mine host?
Host of the Garter
1855 Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman.
1856 Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourible.
1857 Fie! privacy? fie!
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
Sir John Falstaff
1858 There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with, me; but
1859 she's gone.
Simple
1860 Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brainford?
Sir John Falstaff
1861 Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
Simple
1862 My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go
1863 thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that
1864 beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.
Sir John Falstaff
1865 I spake with the old woman about it.
Simple
1866 And what says she, I pray, sir?
Sir John Falstaff
1867 Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender
1868 of his chain cozened him of it.
Simple
1869 I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other
1870 things to have spoken with her too, from him.
Sir John Falstaff
1871 What are they? Let us know.
Host of the Garter
1872 Ay, come; quick.
Simple
1873 I may not conceal them, sir.
Sir John Falstaff
1874 Conceal them, or thou diest.
Simple
1875 Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page: to know
1876 if it were my master's fortune to have her or no.
Sir John Falstaff
1877 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
Simple
1878 What sir?
Sir John Falstaff
1879 To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.
Simple
1880 May I be bold to say so, sir?
Sir John Falstaff
1881 Ay, Sir Tike; like who more bold?
Simple
1882 I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad with these tidings.
[Exit.]
Host of the Garter
1883 Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise
1884 woman with thee?
Sir John Falstaff
1885 Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit
1886 than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it
1887 neither, but was paid for my learning.
[Enter BARDOLPH.]
Bardolph
1888 Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!
Host of the Garter
1889 Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
Bardolph
1890 Run away, with the cozeners; for so soon as I came beyond Eton,
1891 they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire;
1892 and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor
1893 Faustuses.
Host of the Garter
1894 They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not say they be
1895 fled; Germans are honest men.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS.]
Sir Hugh Evans
1896 Where is mine host?
Host of the Garter
1897 What is the matter, sir?
Sir Hugh Evans
1898 Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come
1899 to town tells me there is three cozen-germans that has cozened all
1900 the hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and
1901 money. I tell you for good will, look you; you are wise, and full
1902 of gibes and vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be
1903 cozened. Fare you well.
[Exit.]
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
Doctor Caius
1904 Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
Host of the Garter
1905 Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.
Doctor Caius
1906 I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you make grand
1907 preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is no duke that
1908 the court is know to come; I tell you for good will: Adieu.
[Exit.]
Host of the Garter
1909 Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am undone. Fly,
1910 run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone!
[Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH.]
Sir John Falstaff
1911 I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened and
1912 beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have
1913 been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and
1914 cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and
1915 liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me
1916 with their fine wits till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear.
1917 I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my
1918 wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
Sir John Falstaff
1919 Now! whence come you?
Mistress Quickly
1920 From the two parties, forsooth.
Sir John Falstaff
1921 The devil take one party and his dam the other! And so they shall
1922 be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than
1923 the villainous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear.
Mistress Quickly
1924 And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them;
1925 Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you
1926 cannot see a white spot about her.
Sir John Falstaff
1927 What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into
1928 all the colours of the rainbow; and was like to be apprehended for
1929 the witch of Brainford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit,
1930 my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the
1931 knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks,
1932 for a witch.
Mistress Quickly
1933 Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you shall hear how
1934 things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will
1935 say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together!
1936 Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.
Sir John Falstaff
1937 Come up into my chamber.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1845biblical allusion
“story of the Prodigal”
The Host says Falstaff's chamber is decorated with a painted scene of the Prodigal Son, the parable from Luke 15 about a young man who wastes his inheritance on riotous living and ends up feeding pigs before returning home in shame. Such biblical scenes were routinely painted on the walls of inns and taverns; hanging them in the common rooms was both decoration and moral instruction.
biblical The Prodigal Son
TLN 1847archaic vocab
“Anthropophaginian unto thee”
An 'Anthropophaginian' is an eater of human flesh — a cannibal. The word is a comic inflation of 'anthropophagi,' the legendary man-eating peoples described by ancient and medieval geographers. The Host warns Simple that Falstaff may roar at him as ferociously as a cannibal; the polysyllabic monstrosity of the word is itself part of the joke.
TLN 1853archaic vocab
“thine Ephesian, calls”
The Host calls himself Falstaff's 'Ephesian,' a piece of Elizabethan cant meaning a boon companion, a familiar crony, a fellow of the same drinking brotherhood. The word has nothing to do with the city of Ephesus; it was slang for a comrade in revelry.
TLN 1855archaic vocab
“Bohemian-Tartar tarries”
The Host calls Simple a 'Bohemian-Tartar,' stacking two words that carried identical connotations for Elizabethans: a wandering, untrustworthy outsider. 'Bohemian' in this period meant a Gypsy or vagrant (Gypsies were popularly thought to come from Bohemia or Egypt); 'Tartar' referred to the nomadic Tatar peoples of Central Asia, a byword for fierce, uncivilized wanderers. Together they are a comic way of calling Simple a vagrant nonentity.
TLN 1860historical topical
“wise woman of Brainford”
A 'wise woman' was an Elizabethan term for a local cunning-woman or folk healer: someone who located lost goods, read fortunes, identified thieves, made love-charms, and sometimes sold remedies. 'Brainford' is Brentford, a market town a few miles upriver from London on the Thames. Wise women were a well-known feature of popular culture, consulted by ordinary people for exactly the kinds of questions Slender sends Simple to ask — whether he will get the girl, who stole his chain.
TLN 1892historical topical
“three Doctor Faustuses”
Bardolph compares the three German horse-thieves to 'three Doctor Faustuses' — the legendary German scholar who sold his soul to the devil for magical powers, famously dramatized in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (c. 1592, performed through the 1590s). Marlowe's Faustus conjures, shape-shifts, and performs impossible tricks; the fleeing Germans seemed, to Bardolph, to vanish as supernaturally as Faustus. The comparison also jokes that a man willing to sell his soul might also steal three horses.
TLN 1902cultural context
“gibes and vlouting-stogs”
Evans's Welsh accent renders 'flouting-stocks' as 'vlouting-stogs': he means the Host is full of gibes and mockeries, treating serious things as a joke. 'Flouting' means jeering or scoffing; a 'stock' here is a laughing-stock, an object of ridicule. Evans uses the phrase to say the Host is the sort of man who makes fun of everything — and therefore may not take the warning seriously enough.
TLN 1915archaic vocab
“liquor fishermen's boots with me”
Falstaff imagines the court laughing so hard at his humiliations that they would 'melt me out of my fat' and use the rendered grease to waterproof fishermen's boots. In this period 'to liquor' a boot meant to rub it with tallow or grease to make it waterproof — the word has nothing to do with alcohol here. Falstaff sees himself reduced to a raw material, a tub of lard good only for oiling work-boots.
TLN 1917archaic vocab
“forswore myself at primero”
Primero was the fashionable card game of Tudor England, essentially a precursor to poker, played with stakes and involving bluffing and declaration of hands. 'Forswore myself' means Falstaff swore falsely — cheated, or lied about his hand. He is saying, half-seriously, that his bad luck dates from the moment he cheated at cards and broke an oath.