The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 365

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 Heme'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 G.o.ds a.s.sist 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 p.i.s.s 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 Heme the Hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes rest.i.tution.

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 d.a.m.n'd, lest the oil that's in me should set h.e.l.l 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 moons.h.i.+ne 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 s.l.u.ts and s.l.u.ttery.

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 s.h.i.+ns.

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 compa.s.s, 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 l.u.s.t and luxury!

l.u.s.t is but a b.l.o.o.d.y 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 moons.h.i.+ne 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 Heme 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 a.s.s.

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.