Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him :-pray you,uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out pen, good uncle.

of a

Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in
Gloucestershire.

Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under
the degree of a 'squire,

Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
Shal. Marry, Ithank you for it; I thank you for that
good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.
Aune, Now, master Slender.

Slen. Now, good mistress Anne.
Anne. What is your will?

Slen. My will? od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest,
indeed! Ine'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am
not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
Anne. I mean, master Slender, what would you with
me?

Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or no-
thing with you: your father, and my uncle, have made
motions; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his
dole! They can tell you how things go, better than
can: you may ask your father; here he comes.

Enter PAGE, and Mistress PAGE.

Page. Now, master Slender :- love him, daughter

Anne.

Why, how now! what does master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
Itold you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient!

Mrs Page. Good master Fenton, come not to my
child!

Page. She is no match for you.
Fent. Sir, will you hear me?
Page. No, good master Fenton.

Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender; in:-
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master l'enton.
[Exeunt Page, Shal. and Slen.

Quick. Speak to mistress Page!
Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your
daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love,

And not retire: let me have your good will!

I

Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond' fool!
Mrs Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
Quick. That's my master, master doctor.

Anne. Alas, I had rather he set quick i' the earth,
And bowl'd to death with turnips.

I

Mrs Page. Come, trouble not yourself: good master
Fenton,

will not be your friend, nor enemy:

My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected;

Till then, farewell, sir!-She must needs go in;
Her father will be angry. [Exeunt Mrs Page and Anne.
Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress! farewell, Nan!
Quick. This is my doing now;-Nay, said I, will you
cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look
or, master Fenton :-this is my doing.

Fent, I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
Give my sweet Nan this ring! There's for thy pains.

[Exit.

Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne; or I would master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would master Fenton had her: I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses; what a beast am I to slack it? [Exit.

SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.
Fal. Bardolph, I say,-
Bard. Here, sir.

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit Bard.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i' the litter and you may know by my size, that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been, when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the wine. Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in! Bed. Come in, woman!

Enter Mrs QUICKLY. Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy give your worship good-morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices. Go brew me e pottle of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-[Exit Bard.]-How now?

Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough. I was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of ford. Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their etection.

Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would

-in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,-his-
sing hot,-think of that, master Brook!
Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry, that for my
sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is despe-
rate; you'll undertake her no more.

yearn your heart to see it.Her husband goes this morn-
ing a birding; she desires you once more to come to
her between eight and nine: I must carry her word
quickly she'll make you amends, I warrant you.
Fal. Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her
think, what a man is : let her consider his frailty, and
then judge of my merit.
Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
Quick. Peace be with you, sir!

Fal. I marvel, I hear not of master Brook; me word to stay within: I like his money well. he comes.

[Exit. he sent O, here

Enter FORD.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Aetna, as I
have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her
husband is this morning gone a birding: I have recei-
ved from her another embassy of meeting ;'twixt eight
and nine is the hour, master Brook.
Ford. 'Tis past eight already, sir.

Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment.
Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall
know, how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned
with your enjoying her: adieu. You shall have her,
master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.

[Exit. Fal. Now, master Brook? you come to know, what Ford. Humph! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? hath passed between me and lord's wife? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake! awake, master Ford! there's a hole made in your best coat,master Ford.This

Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business.

Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-bashouse the hour she appointed me.

Ford. And how sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook.
Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determina-
tion?

kets!--Well, I will proclaim myself what I am : I will
now take the lecher; Ire is at my house; he cannot
'scape me ; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep
into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box; but,lest
the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search
impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid,
yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame; if
have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with
me, I'll be horn-mad.
[Exit.

Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto, her
husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum
of jealousy, comes in the instant of our encoun-I
ter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as
it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his
heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and
instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search
his house for his wife's love.

Ford, What, while you were there?
Fal. While I was there.

Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?

[blocks in formation]

Enter Mrs PAGE, MrS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM. Mrs Page. Is he at master Ford's already, thinks't thou?

Quick. Sure he is by this, or will be presently; but truly, he is very courageous mad, about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come sud

Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's dis-denly. traction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. Ford. A buck-basket!

Fal. By the lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks,foul stockings,and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell, that ever offended no stril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?

Mrs Page, I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, I see. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS. How now, sir Hugh? no school to-day? Eva. No; master Slender is let the boys leave to play. Quick. Blessing of his heart!

Eva.Come hither, William ;hold up your head; come! Mrs Page. Come on, sirrah! hold up your head; auswer your master, be not afraid!

Eva. William, how many numbers is in nouns ?

Will. Two.

Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one number more; because they say, od's nouns. Eva. Peace your tattlings!-What is fair, William?

Wil. Pulcher.

[ocr errors]

Quick. Poulcats! there are fairer things than poul

Mrs Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my son proFal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have fits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you, ask suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Be-him some questions in his accidence. ing thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jeous knave their master in the door,who asked them once or twice, what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well; on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, master Brook : I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an in-cats, sure. tolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinklothes, that fretted in their own grease: think of that,- - a man of my kidney, - think of that; that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease,like aDutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot,

Eva. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you, peace!-What is lapis, William?

Will. A stone.

Eva. And what is a stone, William?
Will. A pebble.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Eva. No, it is lapis; I pray you, remember in your prain.

Will. Lapis.

Eva. That is good, William. What is he, William, that does lend articles? Will. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be

way

M

Fas

E

Get

F

thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec,

hoc.

Mrs Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs Page. Of none but him; and swears, he was carEva. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-pray you, mark:ried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband, he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad, the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

genitivo, huius: well, what is your accusative case? Will, Accusativo, hinc.

Eva. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo, hing, hang, hog.

Quick. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. Eva. Leave your prabbles, 'oman.—What is the focative case, William?

[blocks in formation]

Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call horum:-fie upon you! Eva. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs Page. Pr'ythee, hold thy peace!

Mrs Ford. How near is he, mistress Page?

Mrs Page. Hard by; at street end; he will be here

anon.

Mrs Ford, I am undone! the knight is here. Mrs Page. Why, then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you?— Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder. Mrs Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? Re-enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: may I not go out, ere he come?

Mrs Page. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chimney. Mrs Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kilnhole!

Fal. Where is it?

Mrs Ford. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.

Eva. Shew me now, William, some declensions of abstract for the remembrance of such places, and your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Eva. It is ki, kae, cod; if you forget your kies, your kaes, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go!

Mrs Page. He is a better scholar, than I thought he

was.

Eva. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, mistress Page!

Mrs Page. Adieu, good sir Hugh! [Exit Sir Hugh.] Get you home,boy!-Come,we stay too long.[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-A room in Ford's house. Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs FORD. Fal.Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance; I see, you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth ; not only, mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

Mrs Ford. He's a birding, sweet sir John.

Mrs Page. [Within.] What hoa, gossip Ford! what hoa!

Mrs Ford. Step into the chamber, sir John!

Enter Mrs PAGE.

[Exit Falstaff.

Mrs Page. How now, sweetheart? who's at home besides yourself?

Mrs Ford. Why, none but mine own people.
Mrs Page. Indeed?

Mrs Ford. No, certainly:
:- speak louder! [Aside.
Mrs Page. Truly, I am so glad, you have nobody here.
Mrs Ford. Why?

Mrs Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying Peer-out, peer-out! that any madness, I ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper, he is in now: I am glad, the fat knight

not here.

is

[blocks in formation]

I

Fal. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity,

rather than a mischief.

Mrs Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

Mrs Page. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is; and there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too. Run up, sir John!

Mrs Ford. Go, go, sweet sir John! mistress Page and will look some linen for your head. Mrs Page. Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while! [Exit Falstaff. Mrs Ford. I would, my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears, she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

Mrs Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel! and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! Mrs Ford.But is my husband coming?

Mrs Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. Mrs Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint 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 Brentford. Mrs Ford. I'll first direct my men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll 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:

| Enter FALSTAFF in women's clothes, led by Mrs PAGE.
Mrs Page. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your

We do not act, that often jest and laugh;
'Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the 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. 1 Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH

EVANS.

hand.

[blocks in formation]

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!

Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you
any way then to unfool me again?-Set down the bas-
Eva. By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch in-
ket, villain; somebody call my wife :-You, youth in deed: I like not, when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy
a basket, come out here!-0, you panderly rascals! a great peard under her muffler.
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 the 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.

Ford. So say Itoo, sir.-Come hither, mistress Ford;
mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the
virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her
husband! Isuspect without cause, mistress, do I?
Mrs Ford. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you sus-
pect me in any dishonesty.
Ford. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come
forth, sirrah!
[Pulls the clothes out of the basket.

Page. This passes!
Mrs Ford. Are you not ashamed?let the clothes alone.
Ford. I shall find you anon.
Eva. 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's
clothes? Come away.

Ford. Empty the basket, I say!
Mrs Ford. Why, man, why!—
Ford. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one con-
veyed 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! Page. Here's no man. death.

Shal. 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 husband will come into the chamber.

Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that?

Mrs Ford. Why, it is my maid's uunt of Brentford. Ford. A witch, a quean, and 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 hy 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, sweet husband;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

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.
Page. Let's obey his humour a little farther! Come,
gentlemen. [Exeunt Page, Ford, Shallow, and Evans.
Mrs Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
Mrs Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat
him most unpitifully, methought.

Mrs Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hang
o'er the altar; it hath doue meritorious service.
Mrs Ford, What think you? May we, with the war-
rant of womanhood, and the witness of a good con-
science, pursue him with any farther 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 farther afflicted, we two will still be the
ministers.

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 publicly shamed. Mrs Page. Come, to the forge with it then, shape it! I would not have things cool. [Exeunt.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

In him, that was of late an heretic,

As firm as faith.

Page. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in submission,

As in offence;

But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page. How! to send him word, they'll meet him in
the park at midnight! fic, fie; He'll never come.
Eva. You say, he has been thrown into the rivers;
and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: me-
thinks, there should be terrors in him, that he should
not come; methinks,his flesh is punished, he shall have
no desires.

Page. So think I too.

Mrs Page.My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.

Page. That silk will I go buy ;-and in that time
Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside.
And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight!
Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook.
He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.
Mrs Page. Fear not you that! Go, get us properties,
And tricking for our fairies.

Eva. Let us about it! It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries!

[Exeunt Page, Ford, and Evans.

Mrs Page. Go, mistress Ford,
Send Quickly to sir John, to know his mind.
I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will,
[Exit Mrs Ford.
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;

Mrs Ford. Devise but, how you'll use him, when he And he my husband best of all affects:

comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.

The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,

Mrs Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,

Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle;

SCENE V.- A room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Host and SIMPLE.

[Exit.

Host. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap! Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender.

chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner:

You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know, Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his The superstitions idle-headed eld

Received, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

Page. Why, yet there want not many, that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
But what of this?

Mrs Ford. Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
And in this shape. When you have brought him
ther,

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 thi-Ephesian, calls.

[blocks in formation]

son,

Nan Page my daughter, and my little
And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once
With some diffused song; upon their sight,
Wetwo in great amazedness will fly:
Then let them all encircle him about,
And, fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so secret paths he dares to tread,
In shape profane.

Mrs Ford. 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

Be practis'd well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours; and

I will be like a jack-an-apes also; to burn the knight

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even 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 thorough 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. 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.
Host. Ay, come; quick!
Sim. I may not conceal them, sir.
Fal. Conceal them, or thou diest!

Sim. Why, sir, they were nothing but about mis-
tress Anne Page: to know, if it were my master's for-
tune to have her, or no.
Fal. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

« ZurückWeiter »