SCE E V.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Host. What wouldst 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. 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 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 honorable: 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 woman of Brentford? Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell; What would you with her? Sim. My master, sir, my 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. 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. Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Fal. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune. Sim. What, sir? you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs; 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 tell-a 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: Adieu. [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 cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the car 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 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 villanous 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 colors 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 knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch. Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chammas-ber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say some what. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure one of you does not serve heaven Fal. To have her, or no: Go; say, the woman well, that you are so crossed. told me so. Sim. May I be so bold to say so, sir? Sim. I thank your worship: I shall make my 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. Fal. Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.Another Room in the Garter Inn. Fent. Yet hear me speak: Assist me in my pur- And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee Fent. From time to time I have acquainted you [Showing the letter. A game at cards. Her mother ever strong against that match, With ribands pendant, flaring 'bout her head: Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with me: Host. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar: Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. Fenf. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE 1.-4 Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. QUICKLY. Fal. Pr'ythee, 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, the mat ter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders. 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 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! [Exeunt. follow. SCENE II.-Windsor Park. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Page. Come, come; we'll couch i' the castleditch, till we see the light of our fairies.-- Remember, son Slender, my daughter. Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry mum; she cries budget; and by that we know one another. Shal. That's good too: But what needs either your mum or her budget? the white will decipher her well enough.-It hath struck 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. [Exeunt. Caius. I know vat I have to do; Adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well sir. (Erit Catus. 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 couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured 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 amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely. Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery, mocked. Those that betray them do no treachery. Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on; to the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt. SCENE IV.- Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies. Era. 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. SCENE V. Another Part of the Park. Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a buck's head on. minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the me! - Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns.-0 powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupi love! how near the god drew to the complexion of ter, a swan, for the love of Leda; 0, omnipotent a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast; in the semblance of a fowl; think on't Jove, a foul - Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault fault.-When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow! the fattest, I think i' the forest: send me a cool rutWho comes here! my doc? 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? - 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 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 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. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS like a satyr; Mrs. QUICKLY and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green and white, Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimney shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: shall die: I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Pede?-Go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Quick. About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out; 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! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlooked 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. Eva. Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers. Fal. Oh, oh, oh! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme: And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and iniquity. SONG. Fye on sinful fantasy! Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out. During this song, the fairies pinch Falstaff. Doc tor Caius comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; Slender another way, and takes of a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Fal staff pulls off his buck's head, and rises.] Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. 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? Ford. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now?-- Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cockoldly knave; here are his horns, master Brook: And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buckbasket, 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. Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an 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 rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment. Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Era. 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. 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. Eva. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter. the taunt of one, that makes fritters of English! Fal. Seese and putter! Have I lived to stand at This is enough to be the decay of 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? Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? of me: I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start 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 4 Horns which Falstaff had. A fool's cap of Welsh materials. 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. Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to night 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. Doctors doubt that:-If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius's wife. [Aside. Enter SLENDER. Page. Of what, son? Sten. 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 post-master's boy. 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? Slen. I went to her in white, and cried mum, and she cry'd budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy. Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys! 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 CAIUS. Caius. Vere is mistress Page! By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garcon, a boy; un paisan, by.gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Aye, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CATUS. 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 doc tor, maid? Fent. 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 1, 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 cursed hours, Which forced 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. 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! What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd. Eva. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding. Heaven give you many, many merry days! Ford. SCENE I.- An Apartment in the Duke's palace. no more: Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord? Cur. What, Curio? The hart. Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought, she purg'd the air of pestilence; That instant was I turned into a hart; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, To pay this debt of love but to a brother, SCENE II.-The Sea Coast. Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors. Illyria, lady. Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. Perchance, he is not drown'd:-What think you, sailors? Cap. It is perchance, that you yourself were saved. Vio. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, may he be. Cap. True, madam: and to comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and that poor number saved with you, E'er since pursue me.- How now? what news Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, from her? Enter VALENTINE. Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh Duke. O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame, Most provident in peril, bind himself (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) Vio. 63 |