SCENE 6._The Merry Wives of Windsor（#1781）

The Garter Inn

Enter FENTON and HOST

HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I

will give over all.

FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,

And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the

A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,

keep your counsel.

FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you

With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;

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. Fat Falstaff

Hath a great scene. The image of the jest

I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:

To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,

Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen-

The purpose why is here-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,

Her mother, even strong against that match

And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed

That he shall likewise shuffle her away

While other sports are tasking of their minds,

And at the dean'ry, where a priest attends,

Straight marry her. To this her mother's plot

She seemingly obedient likewise hath

Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:

Her father means she shall be all in white;

And in that habit, when Slender sees his time

To take her by the hand and bid her go,

She shall go with him; her mother hath intended

The better to denote her to the doctor-

For they must all be mask'd and vizarded-

That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,

With ribands pendent, 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 or mother?

FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me.

And here it rests-that you'll procure the vicar

To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,

And in the lawful name of marrying,

To give our hearts united ceremony.

HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.

Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee;

Besides, I'll make a present recompense. Exeunt

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ACT V. SCENE 1.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY

FALSTAFF. 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.

QUICKLY. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to

get you a pair of horns.

FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and

mince. Exit MRS. QUICKLY

Enter FORD disguised

How now, Master Brook. Master Brook, the matter will

be known tonight 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?

FALSTAFF. 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 govern'd 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 pluck'd geese,

play'd truant, and whipp'd 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 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 2.

Windsor Park

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

PAGE. Come, come; we'll couch i' th' Castle ditch till we

see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my

daughter.

SLENDER. 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.

SHALLOW. 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

SCENE 3.

A street leading to the Park

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS

MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when

you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to

the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the

Park; we two must go together.

CAIUS. I know vat 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

heartbreak.

MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and

the Welsh devil, Hugh?

MRS. PAGE. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Herne's

oak, with obscur'd 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 amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be

amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd.

MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.

MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery,

Those that betray them do no treachery.

MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!

Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Windsor Park

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, with OTHERS as fairies

EVANS. 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 5.

Another part of the Park

Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE

FALSTAFF. 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' th' forest. Send me a cool

rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?

Who comes here? my doe?

Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

MRS. FORD. Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer.

FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain

potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, 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.

FALSTAFF. Divide me like a brib'd 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! [A noise of horns]

MRS. PAGE. Alas, what noise?

MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!

FALSTAFF. What should this be?

MRS. FORD. } Away, away.

MRS. PAGE. } Away, away. [They run off]

FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the

oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else

cross me thus.

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, ANNE PAGE as

a fairy, and OTHERS as the Fairy Queen, fairies, and

Hobgoblin; all with tapers

FAIRY QUEEN. 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.

PUCK. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;

Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry;

Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.

FALSTAFF. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.

I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

[Lies down upon his face]

EVANS. Where's Pede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;

But those as sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.

FAIRY QUEEN. About, about;

Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out;

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,

That it may stand till the perpetual doom

In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,

Worthy the owner and the owner it.

The several chairs of order look you scour

With juice of balm and every precious flower;

Each fair instalment, coat, and sev'ral crest,

With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!

And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;

Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;

And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write

In em'rald tufts, flow'rs purple, blue and white;

Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.

Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.

Away, disperse; but till 'tis one o'clock,

Our dance of custom round about the oak

Of Herne the Hunter let us not forget.

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.

FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he

transform me to a piece of cheese!

PUCK. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.

FAIRY QUEEN. 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.

PUCK. A trial, come.

EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?

[They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts]

FALSTAFF. Oh, oh, oh!

FAIRY QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!

About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;

And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

THE 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 villainy;

Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,

Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.

During this song they 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 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, and

SIR HUGH EVANS

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 receiv'd 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'er-reaching as this?

Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb

of frieze? 'Tis time I were chok'd 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 liv'd 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 puff'd man?

PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, 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 cozen'd of money, to whom you

should have been a pander. Over and above that you have

suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting

affliction.

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 dispatch'd'?

SLENDER. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire

know on't; would I were hang'd, 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'

th' church, I would have swing'd him, or he should have

swing'd 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.

MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your

purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she

is now with the Doctor at the dean'ry, and there married.

Enter CAIUS

CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'

married un garcon, 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, be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all

Windsor. Exit 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.

Th' 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.

FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand

to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.

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, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford. Exeunt

THE END