William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William ShakespeareЧитать онлайн книгу.
of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.
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’ll 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.]
SLENDER
Whoa, ho! ho! father Page!
PAGE
Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
SLENDER
Dispatched! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else!
PAGE
Of what, son?
SLENDER
I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy: if it had not been i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! and ‘tis a postmaster’s boy.
PAGE
Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
SLENDER
What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him.
PAGE
Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?
SLENDER
I went to her in white and cried “mum” and she cried “budget” as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.
EVANS
Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see put marry poys?
PAGE
O I am vexed at heart: what shall I do?
MRS. PAGE
Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
CAIUS
Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha’ married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.
MRS. PAGE
Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS
Ay, by gar, and ‘tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.
[Exit DOCTOR CAIUS.]
FORD
This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
PAGE
My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.
[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE.]
How now, Master Fenton!
ANNE
Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
PAGE
Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
MRS. PAGE
Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
FENTON
You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursèd hours,
Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD
Stand not amaz’d: here is no remedy:
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF
I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
PAGE
Well, what remedy? — Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew’d must be embrac’d.
FALSTAFF
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas’d.
MRS. PAGE
Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, tonight, shall lie with Mistress Ford.
[Exeunt.]
THE END
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM