Page 2509 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.

MISTRESS FORD
Go to, then: we’ll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion;
we’ll teach him to [35] know turtles from jays.
[Exit Mistress Page.]

Enter Falstaff.

FALSTAFF

Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me die, for I have lived
long enough; this is the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!

MISTRESS FORD
O sweet Sir John! [40]

FALSTAFF
Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in
my wish: I would thy husband were dead; I’ll speak it before the best lord: I
would make thee my lady.

MISTRESS FORD
I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a [45] pitiful lady.

FALSTAFF
Let the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would
emulate the diamond: thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow that
becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian [50]

admittance.

MISTRESS FORD

A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else, nor that well
neither.

FALSTAFF
Thou art a tyrant to say so; thou wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the
firm fixture of thy foot [55] would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a