the genders? Thou art as foolish christian creatures as I would desires.

of

MRS. PAGE. Pr'ythee hold thy peace.

EVA. Shew me now, William, some declensions your pronouns.

WILL. Forsooth, I have forgot.

EVA. It is ki, kæ, cod; if you forget your kies, your kæs, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go.

MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar, than I thought he was.

8

EVA. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, mistress Page.

MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good sir Hugh. [Exit Sir HUGH.] Get you home, boy.-Come, we stay too long. [Exeunt.

your kies, your kæs, &c.] All this ribaldry is likewise found in Taylor the water-poet. See fol. edit. p. 106.

7

STEEVENS.

you must be preeches.] Sir Hugh means to say-you must be breeched, i. e. flogged. To breech is to flog. So, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"I am no breeching scholar in the schools." Again, in The Humorous Lieutenant, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "Cry like a breech'd boy, not eat a bit." STEEVens.

sprag-] I am told that this word is still used by the common people in the neighbourhood of Bath, where it signifies ready, alert, sprightly, and is pronounced as if it was writtensprack. STEEVENS.

A spackt lad or wench, says Ray, is apt to learn, ingenious.

Reed.

SCENE II.

A Room in Ford's House.

Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. FORD.

FAL. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance: I see, you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MRS. FORD. He's a birding, sweet sir John.

MRS. PAGE. [Within.] What hoa, gossip Ford! what hoa!

MRS. FORD. Step into the chamber, sir John. [Exit FALSTAFF.

Enter Mrs. PAGE.

MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart? who's at home besides yourself?

MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people. MRS. PAGE. Indeed?

MRS. FORD. No, certainly;-Speak louder.

[Aside. MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

9

your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance: I see, you are obsequious in your love,] So, in Hamlet:

66

for some term

"To do obsequious sorrow."

The epithet obsequious refers, in both instances, to the seriousness with which obsequies, or funeral ceremonies, are per

formed. STEEVENS.

MRS. FORD. Why?

MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes' again: he so takes on 2 yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, Peer-out, peer out!3 that any madness, I ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?

MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears, he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband, he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

1

MRS. FORD. How near is he, mistress Page?

lunes] i. e. lunacy, frenzy. See a note on The Winter's Tale, Act II. sc. ii. The folio reads-lines instead of lunes. The elder quartos-his old vaine again. STEEVENS.

2

The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

he so takes on-] To take on, which is now used for to grieve, seems to be used by our author for to rage. Perhaps it was applied to any passion. JOHNSON.

It is used by Nash in Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, 1592, in the same sense: "Some will take on like a madman, if they see a pig come to the table." MAlone.

3

Peer-out!] That is, appear horns.

his old lunes. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare is at

Shakspeare here refers to the practice of children, when they call on a snail to push forth his horns:

"Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
"Or else I'll beat you black as a coal.”

VOL. V.

M

HENLEY.

MRS. PAGE. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

MRS. FORD. I am undone !—the knight is here.

MRS. PAGE. Why, then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you?-Away with him, away with him; better shame than murder.

MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter FALstaff.

FAL. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: May I not go out, ere he come?

4

MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? 5

FAL. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney.

MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces: Creep into the kiln-hole.

4

6

watch the door with pistols,] This is one of Shakspeare's anachronisms. DOUCE.

Thus, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Thaliard says:

66

if I

"Can get him once within my pistol's length," &c. and Thaliard was one of the courtiers of Antiochus the third, who reigned 200 years before Christ; a period rather too early for the use of pistols. STEEVENS.

But what make

you

here?] i. e. what do you here?

The same phrase occurs in the first scene of As you

66

Now, sir! what make you here? STEEVENS.

MALONE.

like it:

·creep into the kiln-hole.] I suspect, these words be

FAL. Where is it?

7

MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: There is no hiding you in the house.

FAL. I'll go out then.

MRS. PAGE. If you go blance, you die, sir John. guised,

MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him? · MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.

FAL. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief.

MRS. FORD. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him;

long to Mrs. Page. See Mrs. Ford's next speech. That, however, may be a second thought; a correction of her former proposal: but the other supposition is more probable. MALONE. -] i. e. a list, an inventory. STEEVens. Rather, a short note or description. So, in Hamlet: "The abstract, and brief chronicle of the times."

7

an abstract

MALONE.

Mrs. Page. If you go &c.] In the first folio, by the mistake of the compositor, the name of Mrs. Ford is prefixed to this speech and the next. For the correction now made I am answerable. The editor of the second folio put the two speeches together, and gave them both to Mrs. Ford. The threat of danger from without ascertains the first to belong to Mrs. Page. See her speech on Falstaff's re-entrance. MALONE.