The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 363

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH

BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?

BARDOLPH. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.

HOST. They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay; I'll sauce them; they have had my house a week at command; I have turn'd away my other guests. They must come off; I'll sauce them. Come. Exeunt

SCENE 4

FORD'S house

Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever did look upon.

PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.

FORD. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt; I rather will suspect the sun with cold Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand, 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? Fie, fie! he'll never come!

EVANS. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten as an old oman; methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punish'd; he shall have no desires.

PAGE. So think I too.

MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes, And let us two devise to bring him thither.

MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Heme the 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, And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know The superst.i.tious idle-headed eld Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age, This tale of Heme 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, Disguis'd, like Heme, 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 thither, What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and thus: Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, 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 sawpit rush at once With some diffused song; upon their sight We two 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 sacred 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 nev'r do 't.

EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards.

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. [Aside] And in that time Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away, 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.

EVANS. 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.

Exit MRS. FORD I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will, And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.

That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot; And he my husband best of all affects.

The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. Exit

SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and SIMPLE

HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?

Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.

SIMPLE. 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 can; he'll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.

SIMPLE. 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 robb'd. I'll call.

Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.

FALSTAFF. [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 honourible. Fie, privacy, fie!

Enter FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with, me; but she's gone.

SIMPLE. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brainford?

FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-sh.e.l.l. What would you with her?

SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain or no.

FALSTAFF. I spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLE. And what says she, I pray, sir?

FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that beguil'd Master Slender of his chain cozen'd him of it.

SIMPLE. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.

FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.

HOST. Ay, come; quick.

SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.

FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.

SIMPLE.. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page: to know if it were my master's fortune to have her or no.

FALSTAFF. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

SIMPLE. What sir?

FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.

SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?

FALSTAFF. Ay, sir, like who more bold?

SIMPLE., I thank your wors.h.i.+p; I shall make my master glad with these tidings. Exit SIMPLE HOST. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?

FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.

Enter BARDOLPH

BARDOLPH. Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!

HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.

BARDOLPH. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not say they be fled. Germans are honest men.