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 hath 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. Enter Mistress PAGE, Mistress 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 dispatch 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 heartbreak. Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies? and the Welsh devil, Hugh? Mrs. Page. They are all couch'd 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 mock'd; if he be amazed, he will every way 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. SCENE IV.-Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS disguised as a Satyr, with ANNE PAGE and others as Fairies. Evans. 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. SCENE V. - Another Part of the Park. [Exeunt. Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne, with a buck's head on. 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: 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: O 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 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' the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? - Who comes here? my doe? 1 A technical phrase; well explained from Turberville's Book of Hunting, 1575: "During the time of their rut the harts live with small sustenance.— The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pysse their greace, they are then so vehement in heat." 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!2 Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow eryngoes; 3 let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a bribed buck,4 each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk,5 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 ! 6 [Noise within. [They run off. Fal. I think the Devil will not have me damn'd, lest the 2 Scut is rump or tail; about the same as the Latin cauda. 3 The sweet potato was used in England long before the introduction of the common potato, in 1586. Both the sweet potato and the eryngo were thought to have strong aphrodisiacal properties. Kissing-comfits were candies perfumed to make the breath sweet. 4 It was long in controversy what bribed buck could mean here, and whether it were not a misprint. Singer fairly settles the question thus: "A bribed buck was a buck cut up to be given away in portions. Bribes in old French were portions or fragments of meat which were given away. Hence bribeur was a beggar, and the old French bribour, a petty thief." This explanation accords well with the context. 5" The fellow of this walk" is the keeper of this park: the shoulders of the buck were among his perquisites. 6 The woodman was an attendant on the forester. The word is here used in a wanton sense, for one who hunts female game. oil that's in me should set Hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, as a Satyr; another person, as Hobgoblin; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brother and others, as Fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. Anne. Fairies, black, gray, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You ouphen-heirs of fixèd destiny,7 Attend your office and your quality. — Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy Oyes.8 Hobgob. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap : Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswep,9 Fal. They're fairies; he that speaks to them shall die : I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. Evans. Where's Pead? maid [Lies down upon his face. Go you, and where you find a That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, 7" Ouphen-heirs of fixed destiny," if such be the right reading, means, apparently, young fairies whose destiny is fixed and unchangeable, or who execute the firm decrees of fate. See Critical Notes. 8 Oyes is hear ye, from the French Oyez. It was used by public criers as a sort of call or summons, to introduce the matter of an advertisement or proclamation. — Quality, in the line before, is profession or function. 9 Unswep is an old form of unswept; used here as a rhyme to leap. 10 This office of the ancient fairies seems to have been a favourite theme with the poets. We find divers allusions to it in old ballad poetry, and Drayton thus sings it in his Nymphidia: These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe, The house for cleanly sweeping. of her fantasy; organs 11 Rein up the But those as 12 sleep and think not on their sins, Pinse them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins. Anne. About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphs, on every sacred room; In seat as wholesome 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 every precious flower: 13 In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; 11 Fantasy here stands for sensual desire, the “sinful fantasy" reproved afterwards in the fairies' Song. Rein up means check, restrain, or repress. See Critical Notes. 12 As and that were among the words used interchangeably in the Poet's time. He has many instances of each where present usage would require the other. So in Julius Cæsar, i. 2: "Under these hard conditions as this time is like to lay on us." Also, in Bacon's essay of Wisdom for a Man's Self: "It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set a house on fire, an it were but to roast their eggs." 13 Luxurious people used to make their furniture smell sweet by rubbing it with aromatic herbs. Pliny tells us that the Romans did so, to drive away evil spirits. Perhaps they found that penny-royal would keep off musquitoes. 14 Charactery is writing by characters, or figures of occult significance. |