PISTOL.
Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
Sir John affects thy wife.
FORD.
Why, sir, my wife is not young.
PISTOL.
He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
Both young and old, one with another, Ford.
He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
FORD.
Love my wife?
PISTOL.
With liver burning hot.
Prevent, or go thou like Sir Actaeon he,
With Ringwood at thy heels.
O, odious is the name!
FORD.
What name, sir?
PISTOL.
The horn, I say. Farewell.
Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night.
Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.—
Away, Sir Corporal Nym.—Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.
[Exit Pistol.]
FORD
[Aside.] I will be patient. I will find out this.
NYM.
[To Page.] And this is true, I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there’s the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym. I speak, and I avouch ’tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese. Adieu.