Ford. Empty the basket, I say. Ford. 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. Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. Page. Here's no man. Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you. Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for. Page. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. Ford. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport: let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber. Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brent ford. 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 spe is, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag you: come down, I say. Mrs. Ford. Nay, good sweet husband;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman. Enter Falstaff in Women's Clothes, led by Mrs. Page. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Pratt, come, give me your hand. Ford. I'll prat her:Out of my door, you witch! [Beats him] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell [Exit Falstaff. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think, you have killed the poor woman. you. Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it:-"Tis a goodly credit for you. Ford. Hang her, witch! Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler. Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt Page, Ford, Shallow, and Evans. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge! Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in feesimple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. It they can find in their hearts, the poor un virtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publicly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed. Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it then, shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt. SCENE III. A Room in the Garter Inn, Enter Host and Bardolph. Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him. Host. What Duke should that be, comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court: Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English? Bard. Ay, sir, I'll call them to you. Host. They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay, l'il sauce them: they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'll sauce them: Come. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in Ford's House. Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans. Eva. "Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon. Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant? Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. Ford. Pardon me, wife: Henceforth do what thou Page. But let our plot go forward: let our wives Page. How! to send him word they'll meet him in the park at midnight! fie, fie! he'll never come. Eva. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks, there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires. Page. So think I too. [he comes, Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him when And let us two devise to bring him thither. the hunter, Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle; And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a In a most hideous and dreadful manner. [chain You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know, Page. Why, yet there want not many, that do fear Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device; That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us, Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his head. Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come, And in this shape: When you have brought him What shall be done with him? what is your plot? Mrs. Page. That likewise have we thought upon, thither, and thus ; Nan Page, my daughter, and my little son, and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber. Ford. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards. Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the Finely attired in a robe of white. [fairies, Page. That silk will I go buy;-and in that time Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside, And marry her at Eton,- Go, send to Falstaff straight. Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook: He'll tell me all his purpose: sure he'll come. Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go, get us proAnd tricking for our fairies. [perties, Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. [Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans. Mrs. Page. Go, mistress Ford, Send quickly to sir John, to know his mind. [Exit Mrs. Ford. I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will, And none but he, to marry with Nan Page, That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot; And he my hu-band best of all affects: The doctor is well money'd, and his friends Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. [Exit. SCENE V. A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Host and Simple. Host. What wouldst thou have, boor? what, thickskin speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap. Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender. taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my Bard. Out, alas, sir! cozenage! mere cozenage! Host. Where be my horses speak well of them, varletto. Bard. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spars, and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses. Host. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain: do not say, they be fled; Germans are honest men. Enter Sir Hugh Evans. Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an Anthropophagi-I nian unto thee: Knock, I say. Sim. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I'll be so bold as to stay, sir, till she come down I come to speak with her, indeed. Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed. I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully sir John! speak from thy lungs military: Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. Fal. [Above] How now, mine host? Host. Here's a Bohemian Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman: Let her descend, bully, let her descend: my chambers are honourable: Fie! privacy? fie! Enter Falstaff. Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. Sim. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford ? Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell; What would you with her? Sim. My master, sir, my master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nyin, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain, or no. Fal. I spake with the old woman about it. Sim. And what says she, I pray, sir? Fal. Marry, she says, that the very same man, that beguiled master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it. Sim. I would, I could have spoken with the woman herself, I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him. Fal. What are they? let us know. Host. Ay, come; quick. Sim. I may not conceal them, sir. Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about mistress Anne Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to have her, or no. Fal. "Tis, 'tis his fortune. Sim. What, sir? Eva. Where is mine host? is a friend of mine come to town, tells me, there is Enter Doctor Caius. Caius. Vere is mine host de Jarterre? Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma. Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me, dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke, dat the court is know to come; I tell you for good vill: adieu. undone ! I am undone :-fly, ran, hue and cry, villain! I am [Exit. Host. Hue and cry, villain, go:-assist me, knight; [Exeunt Host and Bardulph. have been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should Fal. I would, all the world might be cozened; for come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgeled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me; warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I foreswore myself at Primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repeat. Now! whence come you! Quick. From the two parties, forsooth. Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed! I have suffered more for their sakos, more, than the villanous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her. Fal. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, Brentford; but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable had set me i the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch. Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed. [Exeunt. Fal. Come up into my chamber. Fent. Yet hear me speak: Assist me in my pur- Fal. To have her,-or no: Go; say, the woman And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee told me so. Sim. May I be so bold to say so, sir? [Exit. Hast. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, sir John: Was there a wise woman with thee? Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath A hundred pounds in gold, more than your loss. Fent. From time to time I have acquainted you Of such contents as you will wonder at; Her mother, even strong against that match Host. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar; Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. Fent. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE 1. A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly. Fal. Pr'ythee, no more prattling;-go. I'll hold : This is the third time; I hope, good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go; they say, there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away. Quick. I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns. Fal. Away, I say; times wear: hold up your head, and mince. [Exit Mrs. Quickly. Enter Ford. How now, master Brook? Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders. Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? Fal. I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave, Ford her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, master Brook, that ever governed phrensy. I will tell you. He beat me grievously in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also, life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me; I'll tell you all, master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand.-Follow: Strange things in hand, master Brook! follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Windsor Park. Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender. Page. Come, come; we'll couch i'the castle-ditch, till we see the light of our fairies.-Remember, son Slender, my daughter. Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry, mum; she cries, budget; and by that we know one another. Shal. That's good too: But what needs either your mum, or her budget? the white will decipher her well enough.-It bath struck ten o'clock. Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Street in Windsor. Enter Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Doctor Caius. Mrs. Page. Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and despatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we two must go together. Caius. I know vat I have to do; Adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit Caius] 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 Welsh devil, Hugh? Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night. Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely. Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their leThose that betray them do no treachery. [chery, Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on; To the oak, to the oak. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Windsor Park. Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Fairies. Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts; be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt. SCENE V. Another Part of the Park. Enter Falstaff, disguised with a Buck's Head on. Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist ine-Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Ea ropa; love set on thy horns.-O 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;-0, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose-A fault done first in the form of a beast;-0 Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on't, Jove; a foul fault.When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? I think, i'the forest: send me a cool rut-time, Jove, For me, I am here a Windsor-stag; and the fattest, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe! Enter Mrs. Ford and Mrs. 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 [Embracing her. me here. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch I will keep my sides to myself, 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 true spirit, welcome! [Noise within. Mrs. Page. Alas what noise? Mrs. Ford.Away, away. Mrs. Page. [They run off. Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. Enter Sir Hugh Evans, like a Satyr; Mrs. Quickly Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing, In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; [birth. Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, Pist. A trial, come. Mrs. Page. I pray you come; hold up the jest no Now, good sir John, how like you Windsor wives? Ford. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now?-Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, master Brook: And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his back-basket, must be paid to master Brook; his horses are arhis cudgel, and twenty pounds of money; which rested for it, master Brook. could never meet. I will never take you for my love Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. 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 surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment! Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Eva. And leave you your jealousies 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 dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize? "Tis time I were choked 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 lived to stand at 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 ourselves without scruple hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight. Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? Page, Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails? Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? Ford. And as wicked as his wife? Eva. And given to fornications; and to taverns, and sack, and wine, 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 Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er Come, will this wood take fire? Fal. Oh, oh, oh! SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart, whose flames aspire, Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction. Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends: Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. her, master Slender hath married her daughter. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, and Mrs. Ford. Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd you now; Will none but Herne the huuter serve your turn? Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my danghter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. Enter Slender. [Aside. Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched? Slen. Despatched-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 Eton to marry mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy: If it had not been i'the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a postmaster's boy. |