Chapter: ACT I. SCENE 1.

Windsor. Before PAGE'S house.

[Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

SHALLOW.
Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star Chamber matter
of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not
abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.

SLENDER.
In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and 'coram.'

SHALLOW.
Ay, cousin Slender, and 'cust-alorum.'

SLENDER.
Ay, and 'rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born, Master Parson,
who writes himself 'armigero' in any bill, warrant, quittance,
or obligation--'armigero.'

SHALLOW.
Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

SLENDER.
All his successors, gone before him, hath done't; and all his
ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen
white luces in their coat.

SHALLOW.
It is an old coat.

EVANS.
The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well,
passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

SHALLOW.
The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old
coat.

SLENDER.
I may quarter, coz?

SHALLOW.
You may, by marrying.

EVANS.
It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

SHALLOW.
Not a whit.

EVANS.
Yes, py'r lady! If he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three
skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures; but that is all one.
If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of
the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence to make atonements
and compremises between you.

SHALLOW.
The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.

EVANS.
It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in
a riot; the Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got,
and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.

SHALLOW.
Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it.

EVANS.
It is petter that friends is the sword and end it; and there is
also another device in my prain, which peradventure prings goot
discretions with it. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to
Master George Page, which is pretty virginity.

SLENDER.
Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.

EVANS.
It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you will desire;
and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold, and silver, is
her grandsire upon his death's-bed--Got deliver to a joyful
resurrections!--give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years
old. It were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles,
and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.

SHALLOW.
Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

EVANS.
Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.

SHALLOW.
I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts.

EVANS.
Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.

SHALLOW.
Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there?

EVANS.
Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that
is false; or as I despise one that is not true. The knight Sir John
is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will
peat the door for Master Page.
[Knocks.] What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

PAGE.
[Within.] Who's there?

EVANS.
Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice Shallow; and
here young Master Slender, that peradventures shall tell you another
tale, if matters grow to your likings.

[Enter PAGE.]

PAGE.
I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison,
Master Shallow.

SHALLOW.
Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do it your good heart!
I wished your venison better; it was ill killed. How doth good
Mistress Page?--and I thank you always with my heart, la! with my
heart.

PAGE.
Sir, I thank you.

SHALLOW.
Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.

PAGE.
I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

SLENDER.
How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on
Cotsall.

PAGE.
It could not be judged, sir.

SLENDER.
You'll not confess, you'll not confess.

SHALLOW.
That he will not: 'tis your fault; 'tis your fault. 'Tis a good dog.

PAGE.
A cur, sir.

SHALLOW.
Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog; can there be more said? he is
good, and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?

PAGE.
Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office
between you.

EVANS.
It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

SHALLOW.
He hath wronged me, Master Page.

PAGE.
Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.

SHALLOW.
If it be confessed, it is not redressed: is not that so, Master
Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he hath;--at a word, he hath,
--believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wronged.

PAGE.
Here comes Sir John.

[Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL.]

FALSTAFF.
Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the King?

SHALLOW.
Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my
lodge.

FALSTAFF.
But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter?

SHALLOW.
Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

FALSTAFF.
I will answer it straight: I have done all this. That is now answered.

SHALLOW.
The Council shall know this.

FALSTAFF.
'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel: you'll be laughed
at.

EVANS.
Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.

FALSTAFF.
Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your head; what matter
have you against me?

SLENDER.
Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your
cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. They carried me
to the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards picked my pocket.

BARDOLPH.
You Banbury cheese!

SLENDER.
Ay, it is no matter.

PISTOL.
How now, Mephostophilus!

SLENDER.
Ay, it is no matter.

NYM.
Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.

SLENDER.
Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?

EVANS.
Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is three umpires in
this matter, as I understand: that is--Master Page, fidelicet Master
Page; and there is myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is,
lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.

PAGE.
We three to hear it and end it between them.

EVANS.
Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will
afterwards ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can.

FALSTAFF.
Pistol!

PISTOL.
He hears with ears.

EVANS.
The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He hears with ear'?
Why, it is affectations.

FALSTAFF.
Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?

SLENDER.
Ay, by these gloves, did he--or I would I might never come in mine
own great chamber again else!--of seven groats in mill-sixpences,
and two Edward shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and two pence
a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

FALSTAFF.
Is this true, Pistol?

EVANS.
No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.

PISTOL.
Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!--Sir John and master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
Word of denial in thy labras here!
Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.

SLENDER.
By these gloves, then, 'twas he.

NYM.
Be avised, sir, and pass good humours; I will say 'marry trap' with
you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me; that is the very note
of it.

SLENDER.
By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for though I cannot
remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether
an ass.

FALSTAFF.
What say you, Scarlet and John?

BARDOLPH.
Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of
his five sentences.

EVANS.
It is his 'five senses'; fie, what the ignorance is!

BARDOLPH.
And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd; and so conclusions
passed the careires.

SLENDER.
Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter; I'll ne'er be
drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for
this trick; if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the
fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

EVANS.
So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

FALSTAFF.
You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

[Enter ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]

PAGE.
Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.

[Exit ANNE PAGE.]

SLENDER.
O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.

PAGE.
How now, Mistress Ford!

FALSTAFF.
Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met; by your leave,
good mistress. [Kissing her.]

PAGE.
Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty
to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS.]

SLENDER.
I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets
here.

[Enter SIMPLE.]

How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You
have not the Book of Riddles about you, have you?

SIMPLE.
Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon
Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

SHALLOW.
Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz; marry,
this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made
afar off by Sir Hugh here: do you understand me?

SLENDER.
Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that
that is reason.

SHALLOW.
Nay, but understand me.

SLENDER.
So I do, sir.

EVANS.
Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will description the
matter to you, if you pe capacity of it.

SLENDER.
Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray you pardon me; he's
a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

EVANS.
But that is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage.

SHALLOW.
Ay, there's the point, sir.

EVANS.
Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.

SLENDER.
Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

EVANS.
But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your
mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is
parcel of the mouth: therefore, precisely, can you carry your good
will to the maid?

SHALLOW.
Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDER.
I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVANS.
Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable, if you can
carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOW.
That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

SLENDER.
I will do a greater thing than that upon your request, cousin, in any
reason.

SHALLOW.
Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do is to pleasure
you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDER.
I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love
in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance,
when we are married and have more occasion to know one another; I hope
upon familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say 'Marry her,'
I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

EVANS.
It is a fery discretion answer; save, the fall is in the ort
'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our meaning, 'resolutely.'
His meaning is good.

SHALLOW.
Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDER.
Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

SHALLOW.
Here comes fair Mistress Anne. 

[Re-enter ANNE PAGE.]

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

ANNE.
The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.

SHALLOW.
I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!

EVANS.
Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS.]

ANNE.
Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDER.
No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE.
The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER.
I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are
my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow.

[Exit SIMPLE.]

A justice of peace sometime may be beholding to his friend for a man.
I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what
though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE.
I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.

SLENDER.
I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did.

ANNE.
I pray you, sir, walk in.

SLENDER.
I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th' other day
with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys
for a dish of stewed prunes--and, by my troth, I cannot abide the
smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i'
the town?

ANNE.
I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

SLENDER.
I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man
in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?

ANNE.
Ay, indeed, sir.

SLENDER.
That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty
times, and have taken him by the chain; but I warrant you, the women
have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed; but women, indeed,
cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things.

[Re-enter PAGE.]

PAGE.
Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

SLENDER.
I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

PAGE.
By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come.

SLENDER.
Nay, pray you lead the way.

PAGE.
Come on, sir.

SLENDER.
Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNE.
Not I, sir; pray you keep on.

SLENDER.
Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do you that wrong.

ANNE.
I pray you, sir.

SLENDER.
I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong
indeed, la!

[Exeunt.]

 On a street in Windsor, England, we meet three guys: Justice Robert Shallow ; Shallow's nephew Abraham Slender, who has a habit of strutting around with his nose up in the air; and Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh clergyman with a seriously thick accent. The guys are all standing around talking smack about everyone's favorite disgraced knight, Sir John Falstaff. Justice Shallow is all bent out of shape because Falstaff has somehow insulted him. Don't worry. We'll find out what happened in a minute. Evans tries to change the subject to something better: girls. Specifically, the local teenage hottie, Anne Page. Instead of wasting time worrying about Falstaff, Evans says Slender should try to marry Anne, who is the poster girl for "pretty virginity." Evans is all, "Oh, did I mention that she's rich? Her grandfather left her a boatload of money and when her dad dies, she'll inherit even more. Cha-ching!" Slender's response goes something like this: "Oh, yeah. That girl with the brown hair and squeaky voice? She seems alright." Since Slender seems sort of interested, the guys head over to Anne's house to chat up...her dad. See, in Shakespeare's day, marriages were arranged like business contracts between men, which is why nobody says anything about chatting up Anne. Ah, the good old days. They arrive at the Page house and proceed to talk to Master Page about his favorite greyhound, who just lost a big race. That's Shakespeare's way of painting a picture of what life is like for folks who live in rural towns like Windsor. Apparently, these people like dog racing. LOL, country folk. As it turns out, Falstaff and his low-life pals are also at Master Page's house. You know what that means. Time for a Shakespearean, trash-talking, smack-down! Shallow gets all up in Falstaff's face and accuses him of the following crimes: slapping Shallow's men around, poaching deer from his land, and breaking into a building on his property. Brain Snack: Some scholars think that Shakespeare based Justice Shallow's character on a real guy named Sir Thomas Lucy who supposedly busted Shakespeare for poaching deer when he was a young man . Falstaff is all, "Hey--you forgot to mention that I also made out with the daughter of one of your employees. What are you going to do about it? Tattle to the King?" Oh, snap! More smack talk ensues. There's a lot of name-calling like, "Banbury cheese!" and "Mephistopheles!" and "cony-catching rascals!" Before things can calm down, Slender says that Falstaff's posse of hoodlums stole from him. By the way, Falstaff's posse is made up of Bardolph, Pistol, and Nim, all old favorites from the Henry plays. Evans is the local clergyman so he steps in and tries to break up the fight. He wants the guys settle the dispute quietly and locally without involving any outsiders. Of course, Falstaff's buddies deny everything and accuse Slender of drinking too much, blacking out, and not being able to remember what happened to his money. All this bickering is interrupted when teen dream Anne Page walks in with a tray of wine. Slender says something pretty lame and uninspiring : "O heaven, this is Mistress Anne Page!" By the way, "mistress" doesn't mean she's some married guy's girlfriend. It's a term that was applied to all adult women of Anne's social class. Even though Anne is still a teenager, Slender calls her "Mistress" because she's old enough to marry. Then Mistress Page and her BFF Mistress Ford show up. Finally! We've been wondering when we'd get to meet the "merry wives" of Windsor. Falstaff, who thinks he's a ladies man, runs over to say hello. Then he slobbers all over Mistress Ford's hand while Master Ford watches in silence. Meanwhile, Slender seems to know that he blew it when Anne walked into the room. He tries to make up lost ground by saying that he wishes he could find his book of love poetry so he could use it to put the moves on her. Master Page invites everyone inside for a some tasty "venison pasty," but Slender, Sir Hugh, and Shallow hang back to talk about a potential marriage between Anne and Slender. Slender says he's up for it, if his uncle thinks it's a good idea. Besides, even if they're not in love at the beginning, their affection is sure to grow over time, right? Of course, Slender says it kind of backwards, but everyone is pretty sure that's what he means. Just about everyone goes inside. Slender and Anne linger outside for a while and have a really, really awkward conversation, during which Anne tries to be polite and Slender bores us to tears and tries to act like a macho man. We don't want to bore you to tears with the details but, we will say this: Slender is absolutely clueless about how to talk to girls, which is why he brings up the subject of bear-baiting. Brain Snack: Bear-baiting is an Elizabethan blood sport that involves chaining a bear to a pole and setting a pack of dogs upon it. Bear-baiting arenas were in the same neighborhoods as Elizabethan playhouses, which basically explains why Shakespeare's plays contain so many shout-outs to the delightful pastime. Anyway, acting like a tough guy, Slender brags that he's seen a bear named "Sackerson" get loose "twenty times." Then he claims that he once grabbed the loose bear by his chain. Note to self: Add this to list of worst pick-up lines in Western literature. Before Slender can tell us that he once wrestled with a great white shark, Anne's dad comes outside and is all "you two kids should come inside and eat your deer meat before it gets cold."

