THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 5.5

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THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 5.5

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 5

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 10

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 15

doe?

[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE]

MISTRESS 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 Green

Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let 20

there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

FALSTAFF 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. 25

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!

[Noise within]

MISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise?

MISTRESS FORD Heaven forgive our sins 30

FALSTAFF What should this be?

MISTRESS FORD, MISTRESS PAGE |Away, away!

[They run off]

FALSTAFF I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the

oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would

never else cross me thus. 35

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL,

as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and

others, as Fairies, with tapers]

MISTRESS QUICKLY 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. 40

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

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. 45

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]

SIR HUGH EVANS Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

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

Raise up the organs of her fantasy; 50

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.

MISTRESS QUICKLY About, about;

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: 55

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 60

With juice of balm and every precious flower:

Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,

With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!

And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring: 65

The 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 emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;

Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery, 70

Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:

Fairies use flowers 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. 75

SIR HUGH 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 80

transform me to a piece of cheese!

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY 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, 85

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

PISTOL A trial, come.

SIR HUGH EVANS Come, will this wood take fire?

[They burn him with their tapers]

FALSTAFF Oh, Oh, Oh!

MISTRESS QUICKLY Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! 90

About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;

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

SONG.

Fie on sinful fantasy! 95

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. 100

Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

[During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS

comes one way, and steals away a boy in green;

SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white;

and FENTON comes and steals away ANN 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]

PAGE Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now 105

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

MISTRESS 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? 110

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 115

paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for

it, Master Brook.

MISTRESS 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. 120

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 125

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! 130

SIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your

desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORD Well said, fairy Hugh.

SIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.

FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art 135

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'erreaching as

this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I

have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked 140

with a piece of toasted cheese.

SIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.

FALSTAFF '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 145

through the realm.

MISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the

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? 150

FORD What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

MISTRESS 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? 155

FORD And as wicked as his wife?

SIR HUGH 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 160

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 165

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.

PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset

to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to 170

laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her

Master Slender hath married her daughter.

MISTRESS 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! 175

PAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

SLENDER Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire

know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.

PAGE Of what, son?

SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, 180

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. 185

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. 190

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. 195

MISTRESS 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 DOCTOR CAIUS]

DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'

married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; 200

it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

MISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green?

DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.

[Exit]

FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

PAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton. 205

[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE]

How now, Master Fenton!

ANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

PAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

MISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

FENTON You do amaze her: hear the truth of it. 210

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.

The offence is holy that she hath committed; 215

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. 220

FORD Stand not amazed; 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 glanced. 225

PAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

FALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

MISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days! 230

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 tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. 235

[Exeunt]

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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	5
	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	10
	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	15
	doe?
	[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE]

FALSTAFF	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	20
	there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

FALSTAFF	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.	25
	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!
	[Noise within]

FALSTAFF	I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the
	oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would
	never else cross me thus.	35
	[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL,
	as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and
	others, as Fairies, with tapers]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	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.	40

PISTOL	Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
	Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
	Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
	There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
	Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.	45

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]

SIR HUGH EVANS	Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
	That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
	Raise up the organs of her fantasy;	50
	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.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	About, about;
	Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:	55
	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	60
	With juice of balm and every precious flower:
	Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
	With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
	And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
	Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:	65
	The 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 emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
	Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,	70
	Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
	Fairies use flowers 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.	75

SIR HUGH 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	80
		transform me to a piece of cheese!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	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,	85
	It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

SIR HUGH EVANS		Come, will this wood take fire?
		[They burn him with their tapers]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!	90
	About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
	And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

	SONG.
	Fie on sinful fantasy!	95
	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.	100
	Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
	Pinch him for his villany;
	Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
	Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
	[During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS
	comes one way, and steals away a boy in green;
	SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white;
	and FENTON comes and steals away ANN 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]

PAGE		Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now	105
		Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

MISTRESS 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?	110

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	115
	paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for
	it, Master Brook.

MISTRESS 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.	120

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	125
	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!	130

SIR HUGH EVANS		Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
		desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORD		I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art	135
		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'erreaching as
	this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I
	have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked	140
	with a piece of toasted cheese.

FALSTAFF	'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	145
	through the realm.

MISTRESS PAGE	Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
	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?	150

SIR HUGH 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	160
	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	165
	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.

PAGE	Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
	to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to	170
	laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
	Master Slender hath married her daughter.

MISTRESS PAGE		[Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
		daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
		[Enter SLENDER]

SLENDER		Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
		know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.