The Merry Wives of Windsor (17 page)

FALSTAFF
    Prithee, no more prattling. Go, I’ll
hold
¹
. This is the

third time. I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go.

They say there is
divinity
³
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
⁷
. Hold up your head, and

mince
⁸
.

How now, Master Broom? Master Broom, 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 Broom, as you see, like a poor

old man, but I came from her, Master Broom, like a poor old

woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest

mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Broom, 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 Broom, I

fear not
Goliath with a weaver’s beam
²⁰
, because I know also

life is a
shuttle
²¹
. I am in haste. Go along with me, I’ll tell you

all, Master Broom. Since I plucked geese, played truant and

whipped top
²³
, 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
²⁶
, Master

Broom. Follow.

PAGE
    Come, come. We’ll
couch
¹
i’th’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
⁵
how to know one another: I come to her in white,

and cry
‘mum’, she cries ‘budget’
⁶
, 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
⁹
her well enough. It

hath struck ten o’clock.

PAGE
    The night is dark: light and spirits will
become
¹¹
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.

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.

My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff

as he will
chafe
⁸
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
¹⁴
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
¹⁷
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!

EVANS
    
Trib
¹
, trib, fairies. Come, and remember your parts.

Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give

the
watch-’ords
³
, do as I pid you. Come, come, trib, trib.

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
³
. 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
⁶
. 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
⁸
! And then another

fault in the semblance of a fowl. Think on’t, Jove, a foul fault!

When gods have hot
backs
¹⁰
, 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
piss
¹²

my tallow? Who comes here? My
doe
¹³
?

MISTRESS FORD
    Sir John? Art thou there, my
deer
¹⁴
? My male deer?

FALSTAFF
    My doe with the black
scut
! Let the sky rain
potatoes
¹⁵
,

let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail
kissing-comfits
¹⁶

and snow
eryngoes
. Let there come a tempest of
provocation
¹⁷
,

I will shelter me here.

MISTRESS FORD
    Mistress Page is come with me,
sweetheart
¹⁹
.

FALSTAFF
    
Divide me like a bribed buck
²⁰
, each a haunch: I will

keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the
fellow of this
²¹

walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a

woodman
²³
, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is

Cupid a child of conscience: he makes restitution
²⁴
. As I am a

true spirit, welcome.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Alas, what noise?

MISTRESS FORD
    Heaven forgive our sins.

FALSTAFF
    What should this be?

MISTRESS FORD
and
MISTRESS PAGE
    Away, away!

FALSTAFF
    I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the

oil
³¹
that’s in me should set hell on fire. He would never else

cross
me thus.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    Fairies black, grey, green and white,

You moonshine revellers and
shades
³⁴
of night,

You
orphan
heirs of fixèd destiny
³⁵
,

Attend your office and your quality
³⁶
.

Crier
Hobgoblin, make the fairy
oyez
³⁷
.

PISTOL
    Elves,
list
your names. Silence, you airy
toys
³⁸
.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap.

Where fires thou find’st
unraked
⁴⁰
and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as
bilberry
⁴¹
,

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

FALSTAFF
    They are fairies, he that speaks to them shall die.

I’ll
wink
and couch: no man their works must
eye
⁴⁴
.

EVANS
    Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy
⁴⁷
:

Sleep she
as sound as
careless
⁴⁸
infancy.

But those
as
⁴⁹
sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    
About
⁵¹
, about.

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.

Strew good luck,
oafs
⁵³
, on every sacred room,

That it may stand till the
perpetual doom
⁵⁴
,

In state
as wholesome as in state ’tis fit
⁵⁵
,

Worthy
⁵⁶
the owner and the owner it.

The
several chairs of order
⁵⁷
look you scour

With juice of
balm
⁵⁸
and every precious flower.

Each fair
instalment
,
coat
, and sev’ral
crest
⁵⁹
,

With loyal
blazon
⁶⁰
evermore be blest.

And nightly meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter’s
compass
⁶²
, in a ring.

Th’expressure
⁶³
that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.

And
Honi soit qui mal y pense
⁶⁵
write

In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white,

Like sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,

Buckled
⁶⁸
below fair knighthood’s bending knee.

Fairies use flowers for their
charactery
⁶⁹
.

Away, disperse. But till ’tis one o’clock,

Our
dance of custom
⁷¹
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
⁷⁵
round about the tree.

But stay, I smell a
man of middle-earth
⁷⁶
.

FALSTAFF
    Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy,

lest he transform me to a piece of
cheese
⁷⁸
!

PISTOL
    Vile worm, thou wast
o’erlooked
⁷⁹
even in

thy birth.

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    With
trial-fire
touch me
⁸¹
his finger-end.

If he be chaste, the flame will back descend

And
turn
him to no pain. But if he
start
⁸³
,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

PISTOL
    A trial, come.

EVANS
    Come, will this
wood
⁸⁶
take

fire?

FALSTAFF
    O, O, O!

MISTRESS QUICKLY
    Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire.

About
⁹⁰
him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme,

And, as you
trip
,
still
⁹¹
pinch him to your time.

FAIRIES
    [sing]
The Song