# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

(stage directions)

1407

[Enter Servants with a basket]

2

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

Mistress Ford

1411

Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be
ready here hard by in the brew-house: and when I
suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause
or staggering take this basket on your shoulders:
that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry
it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there
empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

3

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

Mistress Page

1517

For shame! never stand 'you had rather' and 'you
had rather:' your husband's here at hand, bethink
you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot
hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here
is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he
may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as
if it were going to bucking: or—it is whiting-time
—send him by your two men to Datchet-mead.

4

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

(stage directions)

1532

[Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]

5

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

Ford

1548

Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!
Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck;
and of the season too, it shall appear.
[Exeunt Servants with the basket]
Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my
dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my
chambers; search, seek, find out: I'll warrant
we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first.
[Locking the door]
So, now uncape.

6

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 3]

Mistress Page

1570

What a taking was he in when your husband asked who
was in the basket!

7

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 5]

Falstaff

1748

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.

8

Merry Wives of Windsor
[III, 5]

Falstaff

1832

Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good.
Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's
knaves, his hinds, were called 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
asked them once or twice what they had in their
basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave
would have searched 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 compassed, like a good
bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to
point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped 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 stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be
thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot,
in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of
that,—hissing hot,—think of that, Master Brook.

9

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Mistress Page

1996

Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the
last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests
to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and
the rest of their company from their sport, to make
another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad
the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

10

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Ford

2008

Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
Shall I put him into the basket again?

11

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Falstaff

2011

No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go
out ere he come?

12

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Mistress Page

2050

Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket
too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

13

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Mistress Ford

2052

We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the
basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as
they did last time.

14

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Mistress Ford

2057

I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the
basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.

15

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Mistress Ford

2067

Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders:
your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it
down, obey him: quickly, dispatch.

16

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Ford

2075

Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket,
villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket!
O you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a
pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil
be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth!
Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!

17

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

(stage directions)

2095

[Pulling clothes out of the basket]

18

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Ford

2101

Empty the basket, I say!

19

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 2]

Ford

2103

Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed
out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may
not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is:
my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.
Pluck me out all the linen.