William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I would not have things cool.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn

[Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.]

BARDOLPH

Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the Duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

HOST

What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?

BARDOLPH

Ay, sir; I’ll call them to you.

HOST

They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them; they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests. They must come off; I’ll sauce them. Come.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. A room in Ford’s house

[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS.]

EVANS

‘Tis one of the best discretions of a ‘oman as ever I did look upon.

PAGE

And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

MRS. PAGE

Within a quarter of an hour.

FORD

Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;

I rather will suspect the sun with cold

Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand,

In him that was of late an heretic,

As firm as faith.

PAGE

‘Tis well, ‘tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in submission

As in offence;

But let our plot go forward: let our wives

Yet once again, to make us public sport,

Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,

Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.

FORD

There is no better way than that they spoke of.

PAGE

How? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie! he’ll never come!

EVANS

You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten as an old ‘oman; methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished; he shall have no desires.

PAGE

So think I too.

MRS. FORD

Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.

MRS. PAGE

There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;

And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner:

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Received, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

PAGE

Why, yet there want not many that do fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.

But what of this?

MRS. FORD

Marry, this is our device;

That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,

Disguis’d, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.

PAGE

Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,

And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MRS. PAGE

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:

Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,

And three or four more of their growth, we’ll dress

Like urchins, ouphs, and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,

And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,

As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,

Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once

With some diffusèd song; upon their sight

We two in great amazèdness will fly:

Then let them all encircle him about,

And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;

And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,

In their so sacred paths he dares to tread

In shape profane.

MRS. FORD

And till he tell the truth,

Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound,

And burn him with their tapers.

MRS. PAGE

The truth being known,

We’ll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,

And mock him home to Windsor.

FORD

The children must

Be practis’d well to this or they’ll ne’er do ‘t.

EVANS

I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

FORD

That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.

MRS. PAGE

My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,

Finely attired in a robe of white.

PAGE

That silk will I go buy.

[Aside] And in that time

Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,

And marry her at Eton. Go, send to Falstaff straight.

FORD

Nay, I’ll to him again, in name of Brook;

He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.

MRS. PAGE

Fear not you that. Go, get us properties

And tricking for our fairies.

EVANS

Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.

[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS.]

MRS. PAGE

Go, Mistress Ford.

Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.

[Exit MRS. FORD.]

I’ll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,

And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.

That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;

And he my husband best of all affects:

The Doctor is well money’d, and his friends

Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

[Exit.]

SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn

[Enter HOST and SIMPLE.]

HOST

What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thickskin? Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

SIMPLE

Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.

HOST

There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and truckle-bed; ‘tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go knock and call; he’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee; knock, I say.

SIMPLE

There’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed.

HOST

Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robbed. I’ll call. Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.

FALSTAFF

[Above] How now, mine host?

HOST

Here’s a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourible. Fie! privacy? fie!

[Enter FALSTAFF.]

FALSTAFF

There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with, me; but she’s gone.

SIMPLE

Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brainford?

FALSTAFF

Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?

SIMPLE

My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

FALSTAFF

I spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLE

And what says she, I pray, sir?

FALSTAFF

Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.

SIMPLE

I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.

FALSTAFF

What are they? Let us know.

HOST

Ay, come; quick.

SIMPLE

I may not conceal them, sir.

FALSTAFF

Conceal them, or thou diest.

SIMPLE

Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page: to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.

FALSTAFF

‘Tis, ‘tis his fortune.

SIMPLE

What sir?