my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brent ford. Mrs. Ford. Fll first direct my men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I bring linen for him straight. [Exit. Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act, that often jest and laugh; Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the a draff. [Exit. Re-enter Mrs. FORD, with two Servants. Mrs. Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders; your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, despatch. [Exit. 1 Serv. Come, come, take it up. 2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of the knight again. od 1 1 Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS. Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?Set down the basket, villain:-Somebody call my wife: You, youth in a basket, come out here!-O, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging*, a pack, a conspiracy against me: Now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say! come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching. Page. Why, this passes+! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. Eva. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! Shal. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed. Enter Mrs. FORD. was one conveyed out of my house yesterday. in this basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. Purge. Here's no man. Shat. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford: this wrongs you. Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for. Page. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. Ford. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page!— come you and the old woman down; my hus band will come into the chamber. Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune telling She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing--Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say. Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, s sweet husband; good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.' Enter FALSTAFF in women's clothes, led by Mrs. PAGE. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Pratt, come, give me your hand. Ford. F'll prat her:-Out of my door, you witch! [beats him.] You rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyons! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFF. Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think, you have killed the poor woman. Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it:-'Tis a goodly credit for you. Ford. Hang her, witch! Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler, unto Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy if I cry out thus upon no trail never trust me when I open ¶ again. T Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHAL, and EVANS. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Than thee with wantonness: now, doth thy In him that was of late an heretic, 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, But let our plot go forward: let our wives and hang o'er the altar; it hath done merito-Yet once again, to make us public sport, rious service. Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow, Where we may take him, and disgrace him Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again, Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the minis ters. Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publicly shamed: and, methinks, there would be no period to the jest, should he not be pub, licly shamed. Mrs. Page. 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." OWN Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow meet him at court, and they are going to 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? Bard. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you, Host. They shall have my horses; but I'l make them pay, I'll sauce them; they have had my houses a week at command; I have furned 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, Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Sir HUGH Eva. 'Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon, Page. And did he send you both these let ters 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, for it. Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd [cattle; And there he blasts the tree, and takes the And makes mitch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain horns; you [know, In a most hideous and dreadful manner: Page. Why, yet there want not many, that 25 do fear In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak: Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device; Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, Like urchins, ophes, and fairies, green and 3,90s as I en‚9281 total busi And till he tell the truth, Let the supposed 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 John! speak from thy lungs military Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. Fal. [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 honourable: Fye! privacy? fye!! Enter FALSTAFF. Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. Sim. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise § Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't. woman of Brentford? them vizards. Eva. 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 * [all the fairies, Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of Finely attired in a robe of white. [time Page. That silk will I go buy-and in that Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside. And marry her at Eton.Go, send to Falstaff straight. [Brook: Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of He'll tell me all his purpose: Sure, he'll come. Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go, get us And tricking for our fairies. [properties †, Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS. Mrs. Puge. 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. SCENE V. A Room in the Garter Inn. [Exit Enter Host and SIMPLE. Host. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap, Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender.e 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. Sim. 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 Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell; What would you with her? Sim. My master, sir, my master Slender, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that besent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, guiled him of a chain, had the chain, or no. Fal. I spake with the old woman about it. Sim. And what says she, I pray, sir? Ful. Marry, she says, that the very same man, that beguiled master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it. Sim. I would, I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him. Fal. What are they? let us know. Sim. I may not conceal them, sir. mistress Anne Page; to know, if it were any Sim. May I be so bold to say so, sir? Fal. Ay, sir Tike; who more bold?, master glad with these tidings. [Exit SIMPLE Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, sir John: Was there a wise woman with thee? Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one, that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life: and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning. Enter BARDOLPH. Bard, Out, alas, sir! cozenage! meer cozen age! Host. Where be my horses? speak well of them varletto. Bard. Run away with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs, and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses. villain: do not say, they be fled; Germans Host. They are gone but to meet the duke, are honest men. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS. Eva. Where is mine host? Host. What is the matter, sir? ,,,,,、སཾཝེ 196) ya otai སྙ་ A cannibal. Cunning woman, a fortune-teller. Eva. Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town, tells me, there is three couzin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good-will, look you; you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs; and 'tis not convenient you should be cozened: Fare you well. [Exit. Enter Doctor CAIUS. Caius. Vere is mine Host de Jarterre. Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma. Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tella me, dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke, dat the court is know to come; I tell you for good vill: adien. [Exit. Host. Hue and cry, villain, go:-assist me, knight; I am undone fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone! [Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH. Fal. I would, all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgeled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at Primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. Enter Mrs. QUICKLY. Now! whence come you? Quick. From the two parties, forsooth. Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed! I have suffered more for their sakes, more, than the villainous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her. Fal. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford; but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the kuave constable had set me i' the 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. [Exeunt. Enter FENTON and Host. Host. Máster Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy, I will give over all. [purpose, Fent. Yet hear me speak: Assist me in my And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee [loss. A hundred pound in gold, more than your Host. I will hear you, master Fenton; and I will, at the least, keep your counsel. [you Fent. From time to time I have acquainted With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Pages Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection (So far forth as herself might be her chooser,). Even to my wish: I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at; The mirth whereof so larded with my matter, That neither, singly, can be manifested, Without the show of both; wherein fat Hath a great scene: the image of the jest [Showing the Letter. I'll show you here at large. Hark, good [and one, To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve Must my sweet Nan present the fairy queen The purpose why, is heret; in which disguise, While other jests are something rank on foot, Her father hath commanded her to slip Away with Slender, and with him at Eton Immediately to marry: she hath consented : Now, sir, Falstaff mine host: Her mother, even strong against that match, The better to denote her to the doctor, With ribands pendant, flaring 'bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and on that token, The maid hath given consent to go with him. Host. Which means she to deceive? father [with me: or mother? Fent. Both, my good host, to go along And here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and And, in the lawful name of marrying, [one, To give our hearts united ceremony. Host. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar: [priest. Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a Fent. So shall I evermore be bound to thee Besides, I'll make a present recompense. [Exeunt. ཚོ། ACT V. SCENE I. A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. QUICKLY. Fal. Prythee, 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, Fal. I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave, Ford her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you. He beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also, life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me; I'll tell you all, master' Brook. Since i plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand.-Follow Strange things in hand, master Brook! follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Windsor Park. Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-wordt, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry, mum; she cries, budget; and by that we know one another. s Shal. That's good too: But what needs either your mum, or her budget? the white will decipher her well enough. It hath strack ten o'clock. 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. Florante [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Street in Windsor Enter Mrs. PAGE, FORD, CATUS010 and Dr. Mrs. Page. Master doctor, my daughter Keep to the time. 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 yat 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? hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit 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. be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will way be mocked. Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely. Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and Those that betray them do no treachery. their lechery, Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on; To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies. member your parts: be pold, I pray you; Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and refollow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. Dan,ands ) (1 my t[Exeunt. SCENE V. Another part of the Park. Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a buck's Whead on. Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me :-Remember, Jove, thon 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 Jove, a beastly fanit ! 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? Fal. My doe with the black scut f-Let Watch-word. |