William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT III SCENE 5. A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.]

FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, I say,--

BARDOLPH.
Here, sir.

FALSTAFF.
Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.

[Exit BARDOLPH.]

Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in
the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? Well, if
I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out
and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift.
The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse
as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen
i' the litter; and you may know by my size that I have
a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as
hell I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore
was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor, for the water
swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when
had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of
mummy.

[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack.]

BARDOLPH.
Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

FALSTAFF.
Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed
snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

BARDOLPH.
Come in, woman.

[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.]

QUICKLY.
By your leave. I cry you mercy. Give your
worship good morrow.

FALSTAFF.
Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle
of sack finely.

BARDOLPH.
With eggs, sir?

FALSTAFF.
Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
brewage.

[Exit BARDOLPH.]

How now!

QUICKLY.
Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.