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. Fal. Come up into my chamber. [Excunt. SCENE VI.-Another Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Fenton and Host. Host. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I will give over all. Feat. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee Hath a great scene: the image of the jest Her mother, even strong against that match, Host. Which means she to deceive, father Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with ACT V. [Exeunt. SCENE I.-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; time wears: 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 SCENE II.-Windsor Park. The better to denote her to the doctor, Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head; and we have a nay-word, how to know one And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, another. I come to her in white, and cry, To pinch her by the hand, and on that token, "Mum;" she cries " Budget," and by that The maid hath given consent to go with him. we know one another. Shal. That's good too: but what needs goose !-A fault done first in the form of a either your "mum, or her "budget?" the beast ;-O Jove, a beastly fault! and then white will decipher her well enough. It hath another fault in the semblance of a fowl: struck ten o'clock. 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? 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 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 Falstaft's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night. [him. Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze 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 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. 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 pid you come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-Another part of the Park. Enter Falstaff disguised as Herne, with a Buck's Head on. 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 nie, sweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a bribed 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? Away, away! [They run off. Fal. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set heil on fire; he would never else have crossed me thus. Enter Sir Hugh Evans, as a Satyr; Mrs. Quickly, Anne Page, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. Quick. 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 shalt thou leap, 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: feye. Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve ; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded I'll wink and couch: no man their works must [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Bede?-Go you, and where you find a maid, [said, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers Raise up the organs of her fantasy, Sleep she as sound as careless infancy: [sins, But those that sleep, and think not on their 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 Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, Quick. About, about! [sides, and shins. 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 '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: 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. And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, 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. [end Quick. With trial-fire touch me his fingerIf 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! [desire!Quick. Corrupt,' corrupt, and tainted in About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme : And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them higher and Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy; noise of hunting is made within. The fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rises. Enter Page, Ford, Mrs Page, and Mrs. Ford. They lay hold on Falstaff. Page. Nay, do not fly: I think we have watch'd you now; [turn? Will none but Herne the hunter serve your Mrs. Page. I pray you come; hold up the jest no higher.[wives? Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor 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. [an ass. Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made 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 '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. [you. Eva. And leave your jealousies too, I pray 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 Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. [pelly is all putter. Eva. Seese is not goot to give putter; your Fal. Seese and putter! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of Enghigher.lish? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. [about, Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him though we would have thrust virtue out of our Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? be 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. Al [flax? Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of Mrs. Page. A puffed man? [able entrails? Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intoler 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? Enter Doctor Caius, Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page : by gar, I am cozened. [green? Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in Caius. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. (Exit. Ford. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? Page. My heart misgives me : here comes 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 Wind-master Fenton. sor, 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. Enter Slender. 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 Page. Of what, son? [hanged, la, else! 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 post-master's boy. [wrong. Page. Upon my life, then, you took the Sien. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him. Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? 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 post-master's boy. Enter Fenton and Anne Page. How now, master Fenton ! Anne. Pardon, good father! - good my mother, pardon ! how chance you Page. Now, mistress, went not with master Slender? Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid? [it. 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 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. [remedy. Ford. Stand not amaz'd: here is no 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 ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. Page. Well, what remedy?-Fenton, heaven give thee joy!— What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd. Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no farther.- Heaven give you many, many merry days! Let it be so. Sir John, To master Brook you yet shall hold your word; Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the For he, to-night, shall lie with mistress Ford. doctor at the deanery, and there married. [Exeunt. ACT I. SCENE I.-An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Enter Duke, Escalus, Lords, and Attendants. Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike Duke. Escalus,Escal. My lord? As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely Duke. Of government the properties to unfold, touch'd, [course, But to fine issues; nor nature never lends Would seem in me t'affect speech and dis- The smallest scruple of her excellence, Since I am put to know that your own science But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice Herself the glory of a creditor.- [speech My strength can give you then no more re- Both thanks and use. But I do bend my mains, [able; To one that can my part in him advertise; But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is Hold, therefore, Angelo: And let them work. The nature of our people, Our 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.Call hither, I say, bid come before us Angelo.- Look where he comes. Duke. Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, [Tendering his commission. Duke. you, As time and our concernings shall importune, Ang. |