Quick. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I Those that betray them do no treachery. can to get you a pair of horns.

Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on: to the oak, to the

Fal. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, │oak! [Exit Mrs. QUICKLY.

and mince.1

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.

[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. [Exeunt.

Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you | Come, come; trib, trib. 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
Goliah 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 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.

SCENE III.-The Street in Windsor. Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. 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 't is 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, Evans ?2

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 lechery,

1 Walk (mincingly.) 2 Hugh: in f. e. 3 Buck sent for a bribe.

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 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 ;-0 Jove, a beastly fault! -O 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? 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 me here. [Embracing her.

Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweet

heart.

3

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. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!
Fal. What should this be?

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,
and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, at-
tended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies,
with waxen tapers on their heads.

Queen. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
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 when thoust leapt,*
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery.
Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them,
shall die :
[To himself.

4 shalt thou leap. 5 Not in f. e.

I'll wink and couch. No man their works must eye. | Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. FORD. They [Lies down upon his face.

Eva. Where's Bead?-Go you, and where you find

a maid,

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Rouse1 up the organs of her fantasy,

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.
Queen. 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 wholesome, as in state 't is fit ;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, ever more be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Honi soit qui mal y pense, write,

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white;
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies, use flowers for their charactery.
Away! disperse ! but, till 't is one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

lay hold of him.

Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have match'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?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?

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 of money, 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 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 't is upon ill employment ! Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your

Eva. Lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set; desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay! I smell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! [To himself.3 Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'er-look'd even in thy birth.

Queen. With trial-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 trial! come.
Eva.

Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.

Fal. Oh, oh, oh!
Queen. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire !
About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.5
SONG, by one.

Fie on sinful fantasy!

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.

CHORUS.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually ;

Pinch him for his villainy;

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'er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welch 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 to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

Ford. What, a hog-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page. A puffed man?

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?

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 Welch flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will.

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and star-light, and moon-shine bé out. During this song, the fairies pinch FALSTAFF: Doctor CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away ANNE PAGE. Á Ford. Marry, sir, we 'll bring you to Windsor, to one noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises. | whom you should have been a pander: over and above

1 raise in f. e 2 as: in f. e. 3 Not in f. e. 4 Bewitched. 5 Malone adds, from the quarto :-Eva. It is right, indeed, he is full of lecheries and iniquity. • A fool's cap of frieze.

Lucio. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the ten commandments, but scraped one out of the table.

2 Gent. Thou shalt not steal? Lucio. Ay, that he razed.

1 Gent. Why ?1 'T was 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, doth relish the petition well that prays for peace.

2 Gent. I never heard any soldier dislike it. Lucio. I believe thee; for, I think, thou never wast where grace was said.

2 Gent. No? a dozen times at least.

1 Gent. What, in metre?

Lucio. In any proportion, or in any language.

1 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.

1 Gent. Well, there went but a pair of sheers between us.

Lucio. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet thou art the list.

+

1 Gent. And thou the velvet? thou art good velvet: thou art a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of an English kersey, as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?

Lucio. I thing 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.

not?

Gent. I think, I have done myself wrong, have I

2 Gent. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted, or free.

Lucio. Behold, behold, where madam Mitigation comes !

1 Gent. I have purchased as many diseases under her roof, as come to—

2 Gent. Thou art always figuring diseases 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 bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee. Enter Bawd.

1 Gent. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica ?

Bawd. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth five thousand of you all. 2 Gent. Who's that, I pray thee?

Bawd. Marry, sir, that's Claudio; signior Claudio. 1 Gent. Claudio to prison! 't is not so.

Bawd. Nay, but I know, 't is so ; I saw him arrested ; saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head is3 to be chopped off.

Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?

Bawd. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting madam Julietta with child.

Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.

2 Gent. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose.

1 Gent. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.

Lucio. Away: let's go learn the truth of it. [Exeunt Lucio and Gentlemen. Bawd. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. How now? what's the news with you?

Enter Clown.

Clo. Yonder man is carried to prison.
Bawd. Well: what has he done?

Clo. A woman.

Bawd. But what's his offence?

Clo. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
Bawd. What, is there a maid with child by him?
Clo. No; but there's a woman with maid by him.
You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?
Bawd. What proclamation, man?

Clo. All bawdy houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.

Bawd. And what shall become of those in the

city?

Clo. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. Bawd. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull'd down?

Clo. To the ground, mistress.

Bawd. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me

Clo. Come; fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage ! there will be pity taken on you; you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service: you will be considered.

Bawd. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.

Clo. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison; and there's madam Juliet. [Exeunt.

1 Mr. Dyce removes the interrogation (?) giving why an emphatic sense only. 2 A quibble upon dolours.

34 Not in f. e.