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 frenzy. 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 'twas 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 III. A street leading to the Park. 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 heart-break. II 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. Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne. Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve: the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a ha 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 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 fow 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, c 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, 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 a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within. Mrs Page. Alas, what noise? Mrs Page. Away, away! [They run of Fal. I think the devil will not have me damn ed, lest the oil that's in me should set hell fire; he would never else cross me thus. Exter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; Pis- Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Wacre fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: 50 Fal They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Evans. Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid Thu, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, At those as sleep and think not on their sins, and shins, Quick About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: 60 About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; Fie on sinful fantasy! 100 As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DocTOR CAIUS Comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away Mrs ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises. Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD. Page. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd 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? 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 buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds 70 of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. Is emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, 80 Fal Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. Quick With trial-fire touch me his fingercai: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend 90 Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers. Fal. Oh, Oh, Oh! 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 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 Jacka-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment! Evans. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Evans. And leave your jealousies too, I pray Evans. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly 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 to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? Mrs Page. A puffed man? 160 Page. Old, cold, withered 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? Evans. 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 me: use me as you will. 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. 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 her Master Slender hath married her daughter. Mrs Page. [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I a cozened: I ha' married un garçon, a boy; paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: : gar, I am cozened. Mrs Page. Why, did you take her in greer Caius. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by a I'll raise all Windsor. [Ex Ford. This is strange. Who hath got Lo right Anne? Page. My heart misgives me: here come Master Fenton. Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE. How now, Master Fenton! Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother pardon! Page. Now, mistress, how chance you wer not with Master Slender? Mrs Page. Why went you not with maste doctor, maid? Fent. You do amaze her: hear the truth of You would have married 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 The offence is holy that she hath comnaitted; And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought up m her. Ford. Stand not amazed; here is no remedy In love the heavens themselves do guide the State: Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate Fal I am glad, though you have talen 1 special stand to strike at me, that your arr. hath glanced. Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! 25 What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. Mrs Page. Well, I will muse no further Heaven give you many, many merry days! NENE I. An apartment in the DUKE's palace. Dake. Of government the properties to unfold, Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse; Nice I am put to know that your own science reeds, in that, the lists of all advice Vy strength can give you: then no more remains, at that to your sufficiency. . . . as your worth is able, And let them work. The nature of our people, Car city's institutions, and the terms For common justice, you're as pregnant in As art and practice hath enriched any That we remember. There is our commission, from which we would not have you warp. hither, I say, bid come before us Angelo. II Call [Exit an Attendant. What figure of us think you he will bear? For you must know, we have with special soul cted him our absence to supply, t him our terror, dress'd him with our love, And given his deputation all the organs Four own power: what think you of it? Escal. If any in Vienna be of worth Tundergo such ample grace and honour, ita Lord Angelo. Duke. Look where he comes. Ang. Always obedient to your grace's will, come to know your pleasure. Angelo, Duke. There is a kind of character in thy life, at to the observer doth thy history Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper as to waste ayself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 21 Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Ang. Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do бо As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand: 70 ΙΟ Lucio. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table. Sec. Gent. Thou shalt not steal'? Lucio. Ay, that he razed. First Gent. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal. There's not a soldier of us all, that, in the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace. Sec. Gent. I never heard any soldier dislike it. Lucio. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said. 20 Sec. Gent. No? a dozen times at least. First Gent. What, in metre? Lucio. In any proportion or in any language. First Gent. I think, or in any religion. Lucio. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace. First Gent. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us. Lucio. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet. Thou art the list. 31 First Gent. And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet thou 'rt a three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now? Lucio. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee. First Gent. I think I have done myself wrong, have I not? 40 Sec. Gent. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free. Lucio. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to Sec. Gent. To what, I pray? Lucio. Judge. Sec. Gent. To three thousand dolours a year First Gent. Ay, and more. Lucio. A French crown more. First Gent. Thou art always figuring disease in me; but thou art full of error; I am sound. Lucio. Nay, not as one would say, healthy but so sound as things that are hollow: thy base are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee. Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE. First Gent. How now! which of your hips ha the most profound sciatica? Mrs Ov. Well, well; there's one yonder ar rested and carried to prison was worth five the sand of you all. Sec. Gent. Who's that, I pray thee? Mrs Ov. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio. First Gent. Claudio to prison? 'tis not so. Mrs Ov. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off. Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would ne have it so. Art thou sure of this? Mrs Ov. I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child. Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promise: to meet me two hours since, and he was ever pre cise in promise-keeping. Sec. Gent. Besides, you know, it draws some thing near to the speech we had to such a purpose First Gent. But, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation. Lucio. Away! let's go learn the truth of it. [Exeunt Lucio and Gentlemn. Mrs Ov. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. Enter POMPEY. How now! what's the news with you? Mrs Ov. But what's his offence? Pom. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. Mrs Ov. What, is there a maid with child by him? Pom. No, but there's a woman with maid be him. You have not heard of the proclamatka have you? Mrs Ov. What proclamation, man? Pom. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down. Mrs Ov. And what shall become of those in the city? Pom. They shall stand for seed: they had got down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them Mrs Ov. But shall all our houses of resort is the suburbs be pulled down? Pom. To the ground, mistress. Mrs Ov. Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become of me? Pom. Come; fear not you: good counsellors, lack no clients: though you change your place. you need not change your trade; I'll be year tapster still. Courage there will be pity taken |