Caius.
Mrs. Page.
Mr. Doctor, my daughter is in green; when you
see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanary,
and dispatch it quickly; go before into the park; we two
must go together.
Caius.
I know vat I have to do; adieu.
[Exit.
-- 310 --
Mrs. Page.
Fare you well, Sir. My husband will not rejoice
so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the Doctor's
marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding,
than a great deal of heart-break.
Mrs. Ford.
Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and
the Welch devil Herne?
Mrs. Page.
They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Herne's oak,
with obscur'd lights; which at the very instant of Falstaff's and
our meeting they will at once display to the night.
Mrs. Ford.
That cannot chuse but amaze him.
Mrs. Page.
If he be not amaz'd he will be mock'd; if he be
amaz'd he will be mock'd.
Mrs. Ford.
We'll betray him finely.
Mrs. Page.
Against such lewdsters, and their lechery,
Those that betray them do no treachery.
Mrs. Ford.
The hour draws on; to the oak, to the oak.
[Exeunt.
Enter Evans and Fairies.
Eva.
Trib, trib, fairies; come and remember your parts:
be bold, I pray you, follow me into the pit, and when I give
the watch-'ords do as I bid you: come, come; trib, trib.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Enter Falstaff.
Fal.
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve, the minute draws
on; now the hot-blooded gods assist me. Remember Jove thou
wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. Oh powerful
love! that in some respects makes a beast a man; in some
other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the
love of Leda: oh omnipotent love! how near the god drew to
the complexion of a goose? A fault done first in the form of a
beast, O Jove, a beastly fault; and then another fault in the
-- 311 --
semblance of a fowl; think on't, Jove, a foul fault. When gods
have hot backs, what shall poor men do? for me, I am here a
Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i'th' forest. Send me a
cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?
who comes here? my doe?
Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.
Mrs. Ford.
Sir John? art thou, there my deer? my male-deer?
Fal.
My doe with the black scut? let the sky rain potatoes,
let it thunder to the tune of Green-Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits,
and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I
will shelter me here.
Mrs. Ford.
Mistress Page is come with me, sweet heart.
Fal.
Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I will keep
my sides to my self, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and
my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha?
Speak I like Herne the hunter? why, now is Cupid a child of
conscience, he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome.
[Noise within.
Mrs. Page.
Alas! what noise?
Mrs. Ford.
Heav'n forgive our sins.
Fal.
What should this be?
Mrs. Ford.
Mrs. Page. Away, away.
[The women run out.
Fal.
I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the oil
that is in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross
me thus.
SCENE IV.
Enter Fairies.
Quic.
Fairies, black, gray, green, and white,
You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night,
-- 312 --
You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office, and your quality.
Crier hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.
Pist.
Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blew as bilbery.
Our radiant Queen hates slutt and sluttery.
Fal.
They're fairies, he that speaks to them shall die.
I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.
[Lyes down upon his face.
Eva.
Where's Bede? go you, and where you find a maid
That ere she sleep hath thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasie,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those that sleep and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.
Quic.
About, about;
Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out.
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,
That it may stand 'till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholsom, as in state 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour,
With juice of balm and ev'ry precious flow'r;
Each fair instalment, coat and sev'ral crest,
With loyal blazon evermore be blest.
And nightly-medow-fairies, look you sing
Like to the Garter-compass in a ring:
Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile fresh than all the field to see;
And, Hony Soit Qui Mal-y-Pense write,
In emrold-tuffs, flow'rs purple, blue and white,
-- 313 --
Like saphire-pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair Knight-hood's bending knee;
Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.
Away, disperse; but 'till 'tis one a clock
Our dance of custom round about the Oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.
Eva.
Lock hand in hand, your selves in order set:
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanthorns be
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But stay, I smell a man of middle earth.
Fal.
Heav'ns defend me from that Welch fairy, lest he transform
me to a piece of cheese.
Pist.
Vild worm, thou wast o'er-look'd ev'n in thy birth.
Quic.
With tryal-fire touch me his finger end;
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pist.
A tryal, come.
[They burn him with their tapers, and pinch him.
Eva.
Come, will this wood take fire?
Fal.
Oh, oh, oh:
Quic.
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire;
About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhime.
And as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
The SONG.
Fie on simple phantasie:
Fie on lust and luxury:
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them higher and higher.
-- 314 --
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany:
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
'Till candles, and star-light, and moon-shine be out.
[He offers to run out.
SCENE V.
Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him.
Page.
Nay do not fly, I think I've watcht you now;
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
Mrs. Page.
I pray you come, hold up the jest no higher.
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these husbands? do not these fair Oaks
Become the forest better than the town?
Ford.
Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now? master Brook, Falstaff's
a knave, a cuckoldy knave, here are his horns, master Brook;
and, master Brook, he hath enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his
buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of mony, which
must be paid to master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, master
Brook.
Mrs. Ford.
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never
meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always
count you my deer.
Fal.
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford.
Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.
Fal.
And these are not fairies: I was three or four times in
the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my
mind, the sudden surprize of my powers, drove the grossness of
the foppery into a receiv'd belief, in despight of the teeth of all
rhime and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may
be made a jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill imployment.
Eva.
Sir John Falstaff, serve got, and leave your desires, and
fairies will not pinse you.
-- 315 --
Ford.
Well said, fairy Hugh.
Eva.
And leave you your jealouzies too, I pray you.
Ford.
I will never mistrust my wife again, 'till thou art able
to woo her in good English.
Fal.
Have I laid my brain in the sun and dry'd it, that it wants
matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this? am I ridden
with a Welch goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'tis time
I were choak'd with a piece of toasted cheese.
Eva.
Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.
Fal.
Seese and putter? have I liv'd to stand in the taunt of one
that makes fritters of English? this is enough to be the decay of
lust and late-walking, through the realm.
Mrs. Page.
Why Sir John, do you think, though we would
have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders,
and have given our selves without scruple to hell, that ever the
devil could have made you our delight?
Ford.
What, a hog's-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page.
A puft man?
Page.
Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?
Ford.
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page.
And as poor as Job?
Ford.
And as wicked as his wife?
Eva.
And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sacks
and wines and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and
starings, pribbles and prabbles?
Fal.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me, I am
dejected; I am not able to answer the Welch flannel, ignorance
it self is a plummet o'er me, use me as you will.
Ford.
Marry Sir, we'll bring you to Windsor to one Mr. Brook,
that you have cozen'd of mony, to whom you should have been
a pander: over and above that you have suffer'd, I think, to repay
that mony will be a biting affliction.
Page.
Yet be cheerful, Knight, thou shalt eat a posset to-night
-- 316 --
at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now
laughs at thee. Tell her Mr. Slender hath marry'd her daughter.
Mrs. Page.
Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daugther,
she is, by this, Doctor Caius's wife.
SCENE VI.
Enter Slender.
Slen.
What hoe! hoe! father Page!
Page.
Son, how now? how now son, have you dispatch'd?
Slen.
Dispatch'd? I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know
on't; would I were hang'd la, else.
Page.
Of what, son?
Slen.
I came yonder at Eaton to marry mistress Anne Page,
and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i'th' church,
I would have swing'd him, or he should have swing'd me. If I
did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir,
and 'tis a post-master's boy.
Page.
Upon my life then you took the wrong.
Slen.
What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took
a boy for a girl: if I had been marry'd to him, for all he was
in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.
Page.
Why this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
you should know my daughter by her garments?
Slen.
I went to her in white and cry'd mum, and she cry'd
budget, as Anne and I had appointed, and yet it was not Anne,
but a post-master's boy.
Mrs. Page.
Good George be not angry; I knew of your purpose,
turn'd my daughter into green, and indeed she is now
with the Doctor at the Deanery, and there marry'd.
-- 317 --
SCENE VII.
Enter Caius.
Caius.
Ver is mistress Page? by gar I am cozen'd, I ha' marry'd
one garsoon, a boy; one pesant, by gar. A boy; it is not
Anne Page, by gar, I am cozen'd.
Mrs. Page.
Why? did you not take her in green?
Caius.
Ay be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
Ford.
This is strange? who hath got the right Anne?
Page.
My heart misgives me; here comes Mr. Fenton. How
now Mr. Fenton?
Anne.
Pardon, good father; good my mother, pardon.
Page.
Now mistress, how chance you went not with Mr. Slender?
Mrs. Page.
Why went you not with Mr. Doctor, maid?
Fent.
You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.
You would have marry'd her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love:
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
Th' offence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title;
Since therein she doth eviate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford.
Stand not amaz'd, here is no remedy.
In love, the heav'ns themselves do guide the state;
Mony buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
Fal.
I am glad, tho' you have ta'en a special stand to strike
at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.
Page.
Well, what remedy? Fenton, heav'n give thee joy;
-- 318 --
What cannot be eschew'd, must be embrac'd.
* noteEva. [To Fenton aside.]
I will dance and eat plums at your
wedding.
Fal.
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chac'd.
Mrs. Page.
Well, I will muse no further. Mr. Fenton,
Heav'n give you many, many merry days.
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire,
Sir John and all.
Ford.
Let it be so, Sir John:
To master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, to-night, shall lye with mistress Ford.
[Exe. Omnes.
