Part 131

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS PAGE. Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.

MISTRESS FORD. I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I’ll bring linen for him straight.

[_Exit Mistress Ford._]

MISTRESS 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. We do not act that often jest and laugh; ’Tis old but true: “Still swine eats all the draff.”

[_Exit._]

Enter Mistress Ford with John and Robert.

MISTRESS 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, dispatch.

[_Exit Mistress Ford._]

JOHN. Come, come, take it up.

ROBERT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

JOHN. I hope not, I had lief as bear so much lead.

Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius and Sir Hugh Evans.

FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?—Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! There’s a knot, a gin, 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 bleaching!

PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford! You are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

EVANS. Why, this is lunatics, this is mad as a mad dog.

SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

FORD. So say I too, sir.

Enter Mistress Ford.

Come hither, Mistress Ford—Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

MISTRESS FORD. Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

FORD. Well said, brazen-face, hold it out.—Come forth, sirrah.

[_Pulls clothes out of the basket._]

PAGE. This passes.

MISTRESS FORD. Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORD. I shall find you anon.

EVANS. ’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come, away.

FORD. Empty the basket, I say.

MISTRESS FORD. Why, man, why?

FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed 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.

MISTRESS FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.

PAGE. Here’s no man.

SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford, this wrongs you.

EVANS. 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 nowhere 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.

[_Exeunt John and Robert with the basket._]

MISTRESS FORD. What, ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

FORD. Old woman? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORD. Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

FORD. A witch, a quean, an 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 by 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!

MISTRESS FORD. Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

Enter Falstaff disguised as an old woman, led by Mistress Page.

MISTRESS PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.

FORD. I’ll prat her. [_Beats him_.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

[_Exit Falstaff._]

MISTRESS PAGE. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MISTRESS FORD. Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.

FORD. Hang her, witch!

EVANS. By yea and no, I think the ’oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler.

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 further. Come, gentlemen.

[_Exeunt Ford, Page, Caius, Evans and Shallow._]

MISTRESS PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.

MISTRESS FORD. Nay, by th’ mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

MISTRESS PAGE. I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious service.

MISTRESS FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him?

MISTRESS 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 further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS PAGE. Come, to the forge with it, then shape it. I would not have things cool.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn

Enter Host and Bardolph.

BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses. The Duke himself will be tomorrow 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 turned away my other guests. They must come off, I’ll sauce them. Come.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A room in 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 I did look upon.

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

MISTRESS 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 punished; he shall have no desires.

PAGE. So think I too.

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

MISTRESS PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest, Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragged 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 superstitious 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?

MISTRESS 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 thither, What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MISTRESS 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, oafs 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.

MISTRESS FORD. And till he tell the truth, Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound And burn him with their tapers.

MISTRESS 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 practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do ’t.

EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a jackanapes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

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

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS 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._]

MISTRESS PAGE. Go, Mistress Ford. Send quickly to Sir John to know his mind.

[_Exit Mistress 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 moneyed, and his friends Potent at court. He, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

[_Exit._]

SCENE V. A room in 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 call. 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 robbed. 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 honourable. 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 Brentford?

FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you with her?

SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled 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 beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened 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 worship; 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 learned 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.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans.

EVANS Where is mine host?

HOST. What is the matter, sir?

EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen-Germans that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you. You are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.

[_Exit Evans._]

Enter Doctor Caius.

CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?

HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat, but it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come. I tell you for good will. Adieu.

[_Exit Doctor Caius._]

HOST Hue and cry, villain, go!—Assist me, knight, I am undone.—Fly, run, hue and cry, villain, I am undone!

[_Exeunt Host and Bardolph._]

FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough, I would repent.

Enter Mistress Quickly.

Now, whence come you?

MISTRESS QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.

FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.

MISTRESS QUICKLY. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant, speciously one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

FALSTAFF. What tellst thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i’ the stocks, i’ the common stocks, for a witch.

MISTRESS QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber, you shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.

FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn

Enter Fenton and Host.

HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me. My mind is heavy. I will give over all.

FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose, And, as I am a gentleman, I’ll give thee A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton, and I will, at the least, keep your counsel.

FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page, Who mutually hath answered my affection, So far forth as herself might be her chooser, Even to my wish. I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at, The mirth whereof so larded with my matter That neither singly can be manifested Without the show of both, wherein fat Falstaff Hath a great scene; the image of the jest I’ll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host: Tonight at Herne’s oak, just ’twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen— The purpose why is here—in which disguise, While other jests are something rank on foot, Her father hath commanded her to slip Away with Slender, and with him at Eton Immediately to marry. She hath consented. Now, sir, Her mother, even strong against that match And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed That he shall likewise shuffle her away, While other sports are tasking of their minds, And at the dean’ry, where a priest attends, Straight marry her. To this her mother’s plot She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests: Her father means she shall be all in white And in that habit, when Slender sees his time To take her by the hand and bid her go, She shall go with him. Her mother hath intended The better to denote her to the doctor, For they must all be masked and vizarded— That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed, With ribbons pendant flaring ’bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and on that token The maid hath given consent to go with him.

HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?

FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me. And here it rests, that you’ll procure the vicar To stay for me at church, ’twixt twelve and one, And, in the lawful name of marrying, To give our hearts united ceremony.

HOST. Well, husband your device; I’ll to the vicar. Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I’ll make a present recompense.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT V

SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn

Enter Falstaff and Mistress Quickly.

FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling. Go. I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go! They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!

MISTRESS QUICKLY. I’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears. Hold up your head, and mince.

[_Exit Mistress Quickly._]

Enter Ford.

How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known tonight or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.

FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?

FALSTAFF. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man, but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste. Go along with me; I’ll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what ’twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me, I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Windsor Park

Enter Page, Shallow and Slender.

PAGE. Come, come. We’ll couch i’ the castle ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter—

SLENDER. Ay, forsooth. I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry “mum”; she cries “budget”; and by that we know one another.

SHALLOW. That’s good too. But what needs either your “mum” or her “budget”? The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.

PAGE. The night is dark. Light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away; follow me.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The street in Windsor

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Doctor Caius.

MISTRESS PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green. When you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the park. We two must go together.

CAIUS. I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

MISTRESS PAGE. Fare you well, sir.

[_Exit Caius._]

My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor’s marrying my daughter. But ’tis no matter. Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak.

MISTRESS FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh?

MISTRESS PAGE. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne’s oak, with obscured lights, which, at the very instant of Falstaff’s and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

MISTRESS FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him.

MISTRESS PAGE. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

MISTRESS FORD. We’ll betray him finely.

MISTRESS PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery, Those that betray them do no treachery.

MISTRESS FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. Windsor Park

Enter Sir Hugh Evans disguised, and children 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 V. Another part of the Park

Enter Falstaff wearing a buck’s head.

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 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 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 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 “Greensleeves”, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

[_He embraces her._]

MISTRESS FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.