Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on; To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies. Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be poid, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt. 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 ;-0 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! 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 1 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, sweetheart. Quick. About, about; Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger end: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend, Fal. Divide me like a bride-buck, each a And turn him to no pain; but if he start haunch; I will keep my sides to myself, myIt is the flesh of a corrupted heart. shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise? Mrs. Page. Away, away. [They run off. 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. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry; • Keeper of the forest. † Fellowship. Wortleberry. Pist. A trial, come. Eva. Come, will this wood take fire! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in de sire ! About him fairies; sing a scornful rhyme : SONG. Fye on sinful fantasy! Till candles, and star-light, and moonskine During this song, the faries pinch FALSTAFF. • The letters. FALand Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. FORD. They lay hold on him. Page. Nay, do not fly: I think we have watch'd you now : Will noue but Herne the hunter serve your turn? Mrs. Puge. 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 horus, 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 or Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends: Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. 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 langbs at thee: Tell her, master Slender hath married her daughter. Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: If Aune Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius wife. [Aside. 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 If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy. Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three four times in the thought they were not fairies and yet the guiluness of my mind, theme., sudden surprise of my powers, drove the gross. ness 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. Eca. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Era. 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 Welsh 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 latewalking, through the realm. Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong. Sten. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a gul: If I had been married to him, for all be 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 Aune and I had ap pointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy. Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys? Page. Oh I am vexed at heart: What shall I do? 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. Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un Caius, Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by given ourselves without scruple to hell, that gar, I am cozened. ever the devil could have made you our delight? Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? Mrs. Puge. 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 ine; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plainnet o'er me: use me as you will. Ford. Marry, Sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, • Horns which Falstaff had. A fool's cap of Welsh materials. * Flanuel was originally the manufacture of Wales. Mrs. Page. Why did you take her in green ? I'll raise all Windsor. Aune ? |