William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT V. SCENE 5. Another part of the Park. (continued)

MRS. PAGE.
Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would
have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and
shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

FORD.
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

MRS. PAGE.
A puffed man?

PAGE.
Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

FORD.
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

PAGE.
And as poor as Job?

FORD.
And as wicked as his wife?

EVANS.
And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack and wine, and
metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles
and prabbles?

FALSTAFF.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me;
I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel.
Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.

FORD.
Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master
Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you
should have been a pander: over and above that you have
suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting
affliction.

MRS. FORD.
Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;
Forget that sum, so we';; all be friends.

FORD.
Well, here's my hand: all is forgiven at last.

PAGE.
Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset
tonight at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my
wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, Master Slender hath
married her daughter.

MRS. PAGE.
[Aside] Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be
my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

[Enter SLENDER.]