there is three cozen-germans that has cozened all Enter DOCTOR Caius. Cains. Vere is mine host de Jarteer? 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 Jamany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit. 91 Host. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone! [Exeunt Host and Bard. Fal. I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop and liquor fishermen's boots with me: I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY. 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 sakes, 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 tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the | rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered 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. 130 Fal. Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt. A hundred pound in gold more than your loss. Host. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the least keep your counsel. ΙΟ Fent. From time to time I have acquainted you Her mother, ever strong against that match 40 SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY. Fal. Prithee, 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; time wears: hold up your head, and mince. [Exit Mrs Quickly. Enter FORD. How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the 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 II. Windsor Park. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and Slender. Page. Come, come; we'll couch i' the castleditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter. O 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. 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 Shal. That's good too: but what needs either am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, your 'mum 9 or her budget?' the white will de-i' the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or cipher her well enough. It hath struck ten who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes o'clock. here? my doe? 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. 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. 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. 11 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 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 Mrs Page. Alas, what noise? Mrs Ford. Away, away! [They run off. Fal. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. 40 Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; Pis- Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where 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'll 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 That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, But those as sleep and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides 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. The several chairs of order look you scour 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 fingerend: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend 90 Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers. Oh, Oh, Oh! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! Fal. 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 pandar: 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. Slen. I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she cried budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy. Mrs Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married. Enter CAIUS. Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. 220 Mrs Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit. Who hath got the Ford. This is strange. right Anne? Page. My heart misgives me: here comes 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 went not with Master Slender? 231 Mrs Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid? Fent. You do amaze her: hear the truth of it. 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 committed; 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 upon her. 240 Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! 250 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! hither, Now, good my lord, 40 Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure No more evasion: 50 We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Ang. Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do With any scruple; your scope is as mine own, So to enforce or qualify the laws 60 As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand: you well. 70 |