ACT V. How now, master Brook? Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, 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? Fal. 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 pluck'd geese, play'd truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford: on whom to-night 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 castleditch, till we see the light of our fairies. - Remember, son Slender, my daughter. Slen. 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. Shal. 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 Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. CAIUS. Mrs. 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 despatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we two must go together. Cuius. I know vat I have to do; Adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CATUS. 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 heart-break. Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welch devil, Hugh? Mrs 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. Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. 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 IV. - Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies. Eva. 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 disguised, with a buck's head on. Fal. 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 Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer? Fal. 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 there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me. sweetheart. Fal. 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. 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! Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise? Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins! Mrs. Ford. } Away, away. Mrs. Page. S [They run off. Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, like a satyr; Mrs. QUICKLY, and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, Attend your office, and your quality. Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them, I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Go you, and where you Eva. Where's Pede?· find a maid, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, 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. Quick. About, about; Search Windsor-castle, elves, within and out: In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white : } Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, Eva. Come, will this wood take fire. [They burn him with their tapers. Fal. Oh, oh, oh! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. and iniquity. no higher : 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 buckbasket, 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. Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. Fal. 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 surprize of my 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. Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! desires, and fairies will not pinse you. lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Eva. 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. Fal. 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 Welch goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. Eva. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter. Fal. 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 walking, through the realm. e Mrs. Page. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust 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? Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? Mrs. 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? Ford. And as wicked as his wife? Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welch 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 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. Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends: Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell her, master Slender hath married her daughter. Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. [Aside. Enter SLENDER. Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched? Slen. Despatched! - I'll make the best in Glocestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son? Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page, 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 post-master's boy. Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong. Slen. 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. Page. Why, this is your cwn folly. Did not I tell you, how you should know my daughter by her garments? Slen. I went to her in white, and cry'd mum, and she cry'd budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy. Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, canno! you see hut marry boys? Page. O, I am vexed at heart: What shali 1 ao? Mrs. 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 CAIUS. Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy: be gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CAIUS. Ford. This is strange: Who hath got the right Anne? Page. My heart misgives me: Here comes mas ter Fenton. Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE. How now, master Fenton ? Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, SCENE I. ACT I. An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending. Duke. If musick be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again;—it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour. Enough; no more; 'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before. Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought, she purg'd the air of pestilence; E'er since pursue me.--ilow now? what news from her? Enter VALENTINE. Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years' heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk, And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this, to season A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh, And lasting, in her sad remembrance. Duke. O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame, SCENE 11.-- The Sea-coast. Pio. What country, friends, is this? Illyris, lady. Vio. And what should I do iu Illyria? Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Cap. Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe, thou hast a mind that suits Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be ; When my tongue olabs, then let mine eyes not see! Vin, I thank thee: Lead me on. [Excunt. SCENE III. A Room in Olivia's House. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, and MARIA. Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure, care's an enerny to life. Mar. By my trota, sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted. Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order. Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps. Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be her wooer. Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek? Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all thesɛ ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal. Sir To. Fye, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gambo, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. Mar. He hath, indeed, - almost natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent, he would quickly have the gift of a grave. Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels, and substractors, that say so of him. Who are they? Mar. They that add moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company. Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria: He's a coward, and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench? Castiliano-vulgo; for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face. Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. Sir A. Sir Toby Belch! how now, sir Toby Belch? Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew. Mar. And you too, sir. Sir To. Accost, sir Andrew, accost. Sir And. What's that? Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid. Sir And Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance. Mar. My name is Mary, sir. Sir And. Good mistress Mary Accost, Sir To. You mistake, knight: accost, is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her. Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost? Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen. Sir To. An thou let part so, sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again. Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand? |