Shakespeare Merry Wives Windsor Falstaff monologue

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
by William Shakespeare

INT: THE GARTER INN.

FALSTAFF

Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have

suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being

thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his

hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in

the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on

their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the

door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their

basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have

search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,

held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away

went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master

Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,

an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten

bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the

circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and

then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with

stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that

-a man of my kidney. Think of that-that am as subject to

heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It

was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of

this bath, when I was more than half-stew'd in grease, like

a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,

glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that

-hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.