William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Till candles and starlight and moonshine 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. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck’s head, and rises.]

[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD. They lay hold on FALSTAFF.]

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

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.

FALSTAFF

I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

FORD

Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.

FALSTAFF

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!

EVANS

Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORD

Well said, fairy Hugh.

EVANS

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.

FALSTAFF

Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze? ‘Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANS

Seese is not good to give putter: your belly is all putter.

FALSTAFF

“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 hodge-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?

EVANS

And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

FALSTAFF

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 Windsor, 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.

MRS. FORD

Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;

Forget that sum, so we’ll all be friends.

FORD

Well, here’s my hand: all is forgiven at last.

PAGE

Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset tonight 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.]

SLENDER

Whoa, ho! ho! father Page!

PAGE

Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

SLENDER

Dispatched! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else!

PAGE

Of what, son?

SLENDER

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 postmaster’s boy.

PAGE

Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

SLENDER

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?

SLENDER

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 postmaster’s boy.

EVANS

Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see put marry poys?

PAGE

O 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 DOCTOR CAIUS.]

CAIUS

Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha’ married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.

MRS. PAGE

Why, did you take her in green?

CAIUS

Ay, by gar, and ‘tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.

[Exit DOCTOR CAIUS.]

FORD

This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

PAGE

My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.

[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE.]

How now, Master Fenton!

ANNE

Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

PAGE

Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

MRS. PAGE

Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

FENTON

You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.

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 cursèd hours,

Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.

FORD

Stand not amaz’d: here is no remedy:

In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

FALSTAFF

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.

FALSTAFF

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas’d.

MRS. PAGE

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!

Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;

Sir John and all.

FORD

Let it be so. Sir John,

To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;

For he, tonight, shall lie with Mistress Ford.

[Exeunt.]

THE END

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