William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT II. SCENE 1. Before PAGE'S house (continued)

MRS. PAGE.
What's the matter, woman?

MRS. FORD.
O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,
I could come to such honour!

MRS. PAGE.
Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What
is it?--Dispense with trifles;--what is it?

MRS. FORD.
If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment
or so, I could be knighted.

MRS. PAGE.
What? thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights
will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy
gentry.

MRS. FORD.
We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive
how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's
liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women's
modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof
to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition
would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no
more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth
Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow,
threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly,
ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I
think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till
the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.
Did you ever hear the like?

MRS. PAGE.
Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill
opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine
inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he
hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
different names, sure, more, and these are of the second
edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not
what he puts into the press, when he would put us two: I
had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well,
I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste
man.

MRS. FORD.
Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the
very words. What doth he think of us?