Act 4, Scene V

SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and SIMPLE
Host
What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?
speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

SIMPLE
Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
from Master Slender.

Host
There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about
with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go
knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian
unto thee: knock, I say.

SIMPLE
There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his
chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come
down; I come to speak with her, indeed.

Host
Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll
call. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from
thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine
host, thine Ephesian, calls.

FALSTAFF
[Above] How now, mine host!

Host
Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her
descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?
fie!

Enter FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF
There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with
me; but she's gone.

SIMPLE
Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
Brentford?

FALSTAFF
Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?

SIMPLE
My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing
her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether
one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the
chain or no.

FALSTAFF
I spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLE
And what says she, I pray, sir?

FALSTAFF
Marry, she says that the very same man that
beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of
it.

SIMPLE
I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;
I had other things to have spoken with her too from
him.

FALSTAFF
What are they? let us know.

Host
Ay, come; quick.

SIMPLE
I may not conceal them, sir.

Host
Conceal them, or thou diest.

SIMPLE
Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne
Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to
have her or no.

FALSTAFF
'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

SIMPLE
What, sir?

FALSTAFF
To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.

SIMPLE
May I be bold to say so, sir?

FALSTAFF
Ay, sir; like who more bold.

SIMPLE
I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad
with these tidings.

Exit

Host
Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
there a wise woman with thee?

FALSTAFF
Ay, that there