Merry Wives of Windsor — Scene 5. (Part 1 of 5)

A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

FALSTAFF

Bardolph, I say,–

BARDOLPH

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't.
Exit BARDOLPH
Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a
barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the
Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick,
I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give
them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues
slighted me into the river with as little remorse as
they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies,
fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size
that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the
bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had
been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and
shallow, –a death that I abhor; for the water swells
a man; and what a thing should I have been when I
had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack

BARDOLPH

Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

FALSTAFF

Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my
belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for
pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

BARDOLPH

Come in, woman!
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

MISTRESS QUICKLY

By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship
good morrow.

FALSTAFF

Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of
sack finely.

BARDOLPH

With eggs, sir?