Читать книгу The Complete Works of Shakespeare онлайн

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Mrs. Page. What’s the matter, woman?

Mrs. Ford. O woman—if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honor!

Mrs. Page. Hang the trifle, woman, take the honor. What is it? Dispense with trifles. What is it?

Mrs. Ford. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.

Mrs. Page. What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

Mrs. Ford. We burn daylight. Here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men’s liking: and yet he would not swear; [prais’d] women’s modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behav’d reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the hundred Psalms to the tune of ‘Green-sleeves.’ What tempest, I trow, threw this whale (with so many tuns of oil in his belly) ashore at Windsor? How shall I be reveng’d on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?