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ACT V.

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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?

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Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit Cars. My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's manying 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.

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.-minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist Follow Strange things in hand, master Brook! follow.

[Exeunt.

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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.

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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.

SCENE V. Another part of the Park.
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Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a buck's head on.
Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the

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?

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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

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Mrs. Page. S Away, away.

[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,
You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,

Attend your office, and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy

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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 several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Hony soit qui mal y pense, write,

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white:
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knight-hood'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.

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Eva. 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.

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and iniquity.

SONG.

Fye on sinful fantasy!
Fye 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.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villainy ;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and star-light, and moon-shine be out. During this song, the fairies 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 comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his

buck's head, and rises.

Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. FORD.
They lay hold on him.

Page. Nay, do not fly; I think, we have watch'd

you now:

Will none but Herne 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 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.

ass.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an

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 tewalking, through the realm.

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, cannot 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 master Fenton.

Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE. How now, master Fenton ?

Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother,

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SCENE 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.
O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soever,
But falls into abatement and low price,

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Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high-fantastical.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?

Duke.

What, Curio?

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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,
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich, golden shaft,
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd,
(Her sweet perfections,) with one self king!-
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers;
Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers.
[Exeunt.

SCENE 11.-- The Sea-coast.
Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors.
Fio. What country, friends, is this?
Cap.

Illyris, lady.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria?

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Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
When you, and that poor number saved with you,
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

Vio.
For saying so, there's gold:
Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
Cap. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and

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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,
Who shortly also died for whose dear love,
They say, she hath abjur'd the company
And sight of men.

Vio.
O, that I served that lady:
And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is.

Cap.
That were hard to compass;
Because she will admit no kind of suit,
No, not the duke's.

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
With this thy fair and outward character.
I pray thee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
For such disguise as, haply, shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke;
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him,
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of musick,
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap, to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be ; When my tongue olabs, then let mine eyes not see! Vio, I thank thee: Lead me on. [xcunt.

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?
Mar. Ay, he.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these 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.

sir Toby Belch?

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.
Sir A. Sir Toby Belch! how now,
Sir To. Sweet sir Andrew?
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?

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