William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

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

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!