Mrs. Ford. Nay, I will confent to act any villainy against him, that may not fully the charinefs of our honesty. Oh, that my husband faw this letter! it would give him eternal food to his jealousy. Mrs. Page. Why, look, where he comes, and my good man too; he's as far from jealoufy, as I am from giving him caufe; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance. Mrs. Ford. You are the happier woman. Mrs. Page. Let's confult together against this greasy Knight. Come hither. SCENE [They retire III. Enter Ford with Piftol, Page with Nym. Ford. Well, I hope, it be not fo. * Pift. Hope is a curtail-dog in some affairs. Sir John affects thy wife. Ford. Why, Sir, my wife is not young. Pift. He wooes both high and low, both rich and ... poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford; He loves thy gally-mawfry, Ford, perpend. Ford. Love my wife? Pift. With liver burning hot: prevent, or go thou, like Sir Acteon, he, with Ring wood at thy heels—— O, odious is the name. Ford. What name, Sir? Pift. The horn, I fay: farewel. Take heed, have open eye; for thieves do foot by night. Take heedere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds affright. Away, Sir corporal Nym.-9 curtail-dog] That is, a dog that miffes his game. The tail is counted neceffary to the agility of a greyhound; and one method of qualifying a dog according to the foreft laws, is to Be Believe it, Page, he speaks fenfe. [Exit Piftol. Ford. I will be patient; I will find out this. Nym. And this is true: I like not the humour of lying, he hath wrong'd me in fome humours : I fhould have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a fword, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity'→→ He loves your wife; there's the fhort and the long.My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch; 'tis true-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your Wife. Adieu; I love not the humour of bread and cheese: adieu. [Exit Nym. Page. The humour of it, quoth a'! here's a fellow frights humour out of its wits. Ford, I will feek out Falstaff. Page. I never heard fuch a drawling, affecting rogue. Ford. If I do find it: well. 2 Page. I will not believe fuch a Cataian, tho' the prieft o' th' town commended him for a true man. Ford. 'Twas a good fenfible fellow-well. Away, Sir corporal. I bave a fword, and it shall bite upon my neceffity. He loves your wife, &c.] This abfurd paffage may be pointed into fenfe. I bave a word, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity, be loves your wife, &c.]. Having faid his fword fhould bite, he ftops fhort, as was fitting: For he meant that it should bite upon the high-way. And then turns to the fubject of his conference, and fwears, by his necefity, that Falstaff loved his wife. WARBURTON. I do not fee the difficulty of this paffage: no phrafe is more com SCENE mon than you may, upon a need, thus. Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has nobler means of living; he has a fword, and upon bis neceffity, that is, when his need drives him to unlawful expedients, his fword ball bite. 2 I will not believe fuch a Cataian.] Mr. Theobald has here a pleafant note, as ufual. This is a piece of fatire that did not want its force at the time of this play's appearing; tho' the hiftorg on which it is grounded is become obfolete. And then tells a long ftory of Martin Frobisher attempting the north-weft paffage, and bringing home a black stone, : SCENE IV. Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford come forwards. Page. How now, Meg? Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George?-hark you. Mrs. Ford. How now, fweet Frank, why art thou melancholy? Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy.-Get you home, go. Mrs. Ford. Faith, thou haft fome crotchets in thy head now-Will you go, miftrefs Page? Mrs. Page. Have with you.-You'll come to din as he thought, full of gold-ore: that it proved not fo, and that therefore Cataians and Frobishers became by-words for vain boafters. The whole is an idle dream. All the mystery of the term Cataian, for a liar, is only this. China was anciently called Cataia or Cathay, by the firft adventurers that travelled thither; fuch as M. Paulo, and our Mandeville, who told fuch incredible wonders of this new discovered empire (in which they have not been outdone even by the Jefuits themselves, who followed them) that a notorious liar was ufually called a Cataian.. WARB. Mr.Theobald and Dr. Warburzon have both told their ftories with confidence, I am afraid, very difproportionate to any evidence that can be produced. That Cataian was a word of hatred or contempt is plain, but that it fignified a boafter or a liar has not been proved. Sir Toby in Twelfth-Night fays of the Lady Olivia to her maid thy Lady's a Cataian; but there is no reafon to think he means to call her liar. Befides, Page intends to give Ford a reafon why Piftol fhould not be credited. He therefore does not fay, I would not believe fuch a liar for that he is a liar is yet to be made probable but he fays, I would not believe fuch a Cataian on any teftimony of his veracity. That is: This fellow has fuch an odd appearance; is fo unlike a man çivilized, and taught the duties of life, that I cannot credit him. To be a foreigner was always in England, and I fuppofe every where elfe, a reafon of diflike. So Piftel calls Slender in the first act, a mountain foreigner; that is, a fellow uneducated and of grofs behaviour; and again in his anger calls Bardolph, Hungarian wight. ner ner, George ?-Look, who comes yonder: she shall be our meffenger to this paultry Knight. [Afide to Mrs. Ford. Enter Mrs. Quickly. Mrs. Ford. Truft me, I thought on her, she'll fit it. Mrs. Page. You are come to fee my daughter Anne? Quic. Ay, forfooth; and, I pray, how does good mistress Anne? Mrs. Page. Go in with us, and fee; we have an hour's talk with you. [Ex, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Quickly. SCENE V. Page. How now, mafter Ford? · Ford. You heard what this knave told me, did you not? Page. Yes; and you heard what the other told me? Ford. Do you think there is truth in them? Page. Hang 'em, flaves; I do not think, the Knight would offer it; but thefe, that accuse him in his intent towards our wives, are a yoak of his difcarded men; 3 very rogues, now they be out of fer vice. Ford. Were they his men? Page. Marry, were they. Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lye at the Garter? Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend his voyage towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than fharp words, let it lye on my head. Ford. I do not mifdoubt my wife, but I would be 3 Very rogues, now they be out of fervice.] A rogue is a wanderer or vagabond, and, in its confequential fignification, a cheat. loth loth to turn them together; a man may be too confident; I would have nothing lye on my head; I cannot be thus fatisfy'd. Page. Look, where my ranting Hoft of the Garter comes; there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks fo merrily. How now, mine Hoft? Hoft. How now, bully Rock? thou'rt a gentleman; cavaliero-juftice, I fay. Shal. I follow, mine Hoft, I follow. Good even, and twenty, good mafter Page. Mafter Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand. Hoft. Tell him, cavaliero-juftice; tell him, bully Rock. Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest, and Caius the French doctor. Ford. Good mine Hoft o' th' Garter, a word with you. Hoft. What fay'st thou, bully Rock? [They go a little afide. Shal. [To Page.] Will you go with us to behold it? my merry Host hath had the measuring of their Weapons, and, I think, he hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parfon is no jefter. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. Hoft. Haft thou no fuit against my Knight, my gueft-cavalier? 4 Ford. None, I proteft; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt fack to give me recourfe to him, and tell him, my name is Brook; only for a jest. 4 And tell him, my Name is Brook;] Thus both the old VOL. II. Hoft. |