William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare The Complete Works (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

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 couch’d in a pit hard by Herne’s oak, with obscur’d 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 amaz’d, he will be mock’d; if he be amaz’d, he will every way be mock’d.

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.

¶

Enter Evans [like a satyr] and [others as] fairies.

Evans. 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. Come, come, trib, trib.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Falstaff [with a buck’s head upon him].

Fal. The Windsor bell hath strook twelve; the minute draws on. Now the hot-bloodied 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 (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 am here a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i’ th’ forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? My doe?

[Enter] Mistress Page, Mistress Ford.

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.

Fal. Divide me like a brib’d-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!

[There is a noise of horns.]

Mrs. Page. Alas, what noise?

Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!

Fal. What should this be?

Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Page. Away, away!

[The two women run away.]

Fal. I think the devil will not have me damn’d, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

Enter Evans [like a satyr], Anne Page [and Boys dressed like fairies], Pistol [as Hobgoblin, Mistress]

Quickly [like the Queen of Fairies; they sing a song about him and afterward speak].

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 Oyes.

Pist.

Elves, list your names; silence, you aery 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.

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,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy,

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;

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.

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 flow’r;

Each fair installment, coat, and sev’ral crest,

With loyal blazon, evermore 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 em’rald tuffs, flow’rs purple, blue, and white,

Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee:

Fairies use flow’rs for their charactery.

Away, disperse! but till ’tis one a’ clock,

Our dance of custom, round about the oak

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Evans.

Pray you lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanthorns 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!

Pist.

Vild worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.

Quick.

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.

Evans.

Come, will this wood take fire?

[They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts.]

Fal.

O, O, O!

Quick.

Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!

About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme,

And as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

The Song

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.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually!

Pinch him for his villainy!

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out.

[Here they pinch him and sing about him. And the Doctor] Caius [comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; and] Slender [another way; he takes a boy in white; and] Fenton [steals Mistress Anne Page. And a noise of hunting is made within; and all the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head, and rises up.]

[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?

See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes