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MISTRESS FORD (calling offstage): What ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down. My husband will come into the chamber.

FORD: “Old woman”? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORD: Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

FORD: A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’ figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.— Come down, you witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say!

[Ford seizes a cudgel.]

MISTRESS FORD: Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

Explanation and Analysis:

Just as Mistress Page and Mistress Ford planned, Master Ford bursts into the house while Falstaff is present. He searches the laundry basket where Falstaff hid last time he was foiled and finds nothing—all while his friends and neighbors look o...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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