William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT I. SCENE 1. Windsor. Before PAGE'S house. (continued)

SLENDER.
I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease
it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and
have more occasion to know one another; I hope upon
familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say
'Marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,
and dissolutely.

EVANS.
It is a fery discretion answer; save, the fall is in the
ort 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,
'resolutely'. His meaning is good.

SHALLOW
 Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDER.
Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

SHALLOW.
Here comes fair Mistress Anne.

[Re-enter ANNE PAGE.]

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

ANNE.
The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
worships' company.

SHALLOW.
I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!

EVANS.
Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS.]

ANNE.
Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDER.
No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE.
The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER.
I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin
Shallow.

[Exit SIMPLE.]

A justice of peace sometime may be beholding to his
friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet,
till my mother be dead. But what though?
Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE.
I may not go in without your worship: they will not
sit till you come.

SLENDER.
I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
though I did.