160 Ford. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.
Fal. Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be your servant.
Ford. Sir, I hear you are a scholar,—I will be brief with you,—and you have been a man long known to me, though 165 I had never so good means, as desire, to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine own [imperfection]: but, good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your 170 own; that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.
Fal. Very well, sir; proceed.
Ford. There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband’s name is Ford.
II. 2.
175 Fal. Well, sir.
Ford. I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; [fee’d] every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only 180 [bought] many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have 185 received none; unless experience be a [jewel that] I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to say this:
‘Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.’
190 Fal. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands?