You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office, and your quality. Crier Hobgobolin, make the fairy o-yes. Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept, Fal. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: [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, 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, back, shoulders, sides, and shins. Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget. Eva. 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 trans form me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. 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. * Fellowship. Whortleberry. The letters. [They burn him with their tapers. Eva. Come, will this wood take fire? 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! Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him for his villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, 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 Mrs. ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF 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? 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. 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 rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment. *Horns which Falstaff had. Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Eva. 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'er-reaching 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. Fal. 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? 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 sacks, and wines, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? 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 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 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. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. Enter SLENDER. Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page. [Aside. Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched? Slen. Despatched-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son? Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page * A fool's cap of Welsh materials. If I 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. 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 cried 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 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 CAIUS. Caius. Vere is mistress Page? by gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. Mrs. Page. Why, did you not take her in green? Caius. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy: be gar, I'll raise all Windsor. Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE. How now, master Fenton ? Anne. Pardon, good father, good my mother, pardon! Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid ? You would have married her most shamefully, A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state: Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. * Confound her by your questions. † Avoid. Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd, must be embraced. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. 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, Ford. Let it be so:-Sir John, To master Brook you yet shall hold your word: [Exeunt. |