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. Fal. Above. How now, mine host! 19 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: fie! privacy? fie! 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 woman of Brentford ? Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell: what would you with her? 29 Sim. My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled 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? Fal. Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it. 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 Jartiere? Host. Here, Master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma. Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell a me dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat de court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. Exit. 91 Host. Hue and cry, villain! go. Assist me, knight; I am undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone! Exeunt IIost and BARDOLPH. Fal. I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened 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 cudgelled, 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 crestfallen 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 Mistress QUICKLY. Now, whence come you? Quick. From the two parties, forsooth. Pul. 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 villanous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. 113 Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you warrant; speciously one of them: Mistress Ford, cannot see a white spot about her. Fal. What tellest thou me of black and blue? rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for I was beaten myself into all the colours of the the witch of Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch. 125 there is three cozen-germans that has cozened | A hundred pound in gold more than your loss. one, Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen; 20 Her mother, ever strong against that match Her father means she shall be all in white, 40 With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head; Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with me : 50 Host. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar. Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. Fent. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. ACT V. Exeunt. SCENE I.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and Mistress QUICKLY. Fal. Prithee, 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 Mistress QUICKLY. Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? 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 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow. Exeunt. mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be | Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, like a Satyr; ANNE mocked. SCENE V.-Another Part of the Park. Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne, 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; 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' the forest: send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe? 17 Enter Mistress FORD and Mistress PAGE. 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, sweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a bribe 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! 33 Noise within. Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise? 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. PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brother and Others, dressed like Fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. Anne. 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. Hobgoblin. Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys! Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt leap 't: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry : 50 Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. Fal. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: eye. I'll wink and couch: no man their works must That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, and shins. 70 Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: Evans. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set; And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns 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! Hobgoblin. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. 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 villany; 100 Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles and star-light 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, and Mistress FORD. They lay hold on him. 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. 110 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. 120 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 an ass. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. Fal. 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 rime 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. 140 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'erreaching 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. Evans. Seese is not good to give putter: your pelly is all putter. 150 Fal. 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of Fal. 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 pandar: 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; 180 Slen. Whoa, ho! ho! father Page! Page. Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? Slen. Dispatched! I'll make the best in Glostershire know on 't; would I were hanged, la, else! Page. Of what, son? 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 me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! and 'tis a postmaster's boy. 201 Page. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. Slen. 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? 210 Slen. 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. 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. The offence is holy that she hath committed, 240 Ford. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy: Fal. 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! 251 What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd. Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further. Heaven give you many, many merry days! Let it be so. Exeunt. SCENE I.-An Apartment in the DUKE's Palace. Escal. My lord. Duke. Of government the properties to unfold, My strength can give you: then no more remains, as your worth is able, And let them work. The nature of our people, Our city's institutions, and the terms For common justice, you 're as pregnant in, That we remember. There is our commission, 10 From which we would not have you warp. Call hither, I say, bid come before us, Angelo. Exit an Attendant. Look where he comes. Ang. Always obedient to your grace's will, I come to know your pleasure. 20 E |