The Merry Wives of Windsor (18 page)

Fie on sinful
fantasy
⁹³
,

Fie on lust and
luxury
⁹⁴
!

Lust is but a
bloody fire
⁹⁵
,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

Pinch him, fairies,
mutually
⁹⁹
,

Pinch him for his villainy.

Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

PAGE
    Nay, do not fly, I think we have
watched
¹⁰³
you now.

Will none but Herne the hunter
serve your turn
¹⁰⁴
?

MISTRESS PAGE
    I pray you, come,
hold up the jest no higher
¹⁰⁵
.

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?

See you these, husband? Do not these fair
yokes
¹⁰⁷

Become the forest better than the town?

FORD
    Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Broom,

Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave: here are his horns,

Master Broom. And, Master Broom, he hath enjoyed nothing

of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds

of money, which must be paid to Master Broom. His horses

are
arrested
¹¹⁴
for it, Master Broom.

MISTRESS FORD
    Sir John, we have had ill luck, we could never

meet
¹¹⁶
. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always

count you my
deer
¹¹⁷
.

FALSTAFF
    I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

FORD
    Ay, and an ox too. Both the
proofs
are
extant
¹¹⁹
.

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
¹²²
, drove the

grossness of the
foppery
into a received belief,
in despite of
¹²³

the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See

now how ‘
Wit
may be made a
Jack-a-Lent
¹²⁵
, 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.

FALSTAFF
    Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it

wants matter
to prevent so gross
o’erreaching
¹³⁴
as this? Am I

ridden
with
a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a
coxcomb
¹³⁵
of

frieze
¹³⁶
? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANS
    Seese is not good to give putter. Your belly is all

putter.

FALSTAFF
    ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’? Have I lived to stand at the taunt

of one that makes
fritters
¹⁴⁰
of English? This is enough to be the

decay of lust and
late-walking
¹⁴¹
through the realm.

MISTRESS 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
¹⁴⁶
?

MISTRESS PAGE
    A
puffed
¹⁴⁷
man?

PAGE
    Old, cold, withered and of
intolerable
¹⁴⁸
entrails?

FORD
    And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

PAGE
    And as poor as
Job
¹⁵⁰
?

FORD
    And as wicked as his wife?

EVANS
    And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack,

and wine, and
metheglins
¹⁵³
, and to drinkings, and swearings,

and
starings
¹⁵⁴
, pribbles and prabbles?

FALSTAFF
    Well, I am your
theme
. You have the
start of
¹⁵⁵
me. I

am
dejected
. I am not able to answer the Welsh
flannel
¹⁵⁶
.

Ignorance itself is a
plummet
¹⁵⁷
o’er me. Use me as you will.

FORD
    Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master

Broom, that you have cozened of money, to whom you
should
¹⁵⁹

have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffered, I

think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

PAGE
    Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a
posset
¹⁶²

tonight 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.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my

daughter, she is, by
this
¹⁶⁷
, Doctor Caius’ wife.

SLENDER
    Whoa ho, ho, father Page!

PAGE
    Son, how now? How now, son, have you
dispatched
¹⁶⁹
?

SLENDER
    Dispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire

know
¹⁷¹
on’t. Would I were hanged, la, else.

PAGE
    
Of what
¹⁷²
, son?

SLENDER
    I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,

and she’s a great
lubberly
¹⁷⁴
boy. If it had not been i’th’church,

I would have
swinged
¹⁷⁵
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
postmaster
¹⁷⁷
’s boy.

PAGE
    Upon my life, then, you
took the wrong
¹⁷⁸
.

SLENDER
    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
¹⁸¹
.

PAGE
    Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how

you should know my daughter by her garments?

SLENDER
    I went to her in
green
¹⁸⁴
, and cried ‘mum’, and she

cried ‘budget’, as Anne and I had appointed, and yet it was

not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Good George, be not angry. I knew of your

purpose, turned my daughter into
white
¹⁸⁸
, and indeed, she is

now with the Doctor at the deanery, and there married.

CAIUS
    Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened. I ha’

married
un garçon
, a boy,
un
paysan
¹⁹¹
, by gar, a boy. It is not

Anne Page. By gar, I am cozened.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Why, did you take her in
white
¹⁹³
?

CAIUS
    Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy. By gar, I’ll
raise
¹⁹⁴
all Windsor.

FORD
    This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

PAGE
    My heart misgives me. Here comes Master Fenton.

How now, Master Fenton?

ANNE
    Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.

PAGE
    Now, mistress, how chance you went not with

Master Slender?

MISTRESS PAGE
    Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

FENTON
    You do
amaze
²⁰²
her. Hear the truth of it:

You would have married her most shamefully,

Where there was no
proportion held in love
²⁰⁴
.

The truth is, she and I, long since
contracted
²⁰⁵
,

Are now so
sure
²⁰⁶
that nothing can dissolve us.

Th’offence is holy that she hath committed,

And this deceit loses the name of craft,

Of disobedience, or
unduteous
title
²⁰⁹
,

Since therein she doth
evitate
²¹⁰
and shun

A thousand irreligious cursèd hours

Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.

FORD
    Stand not amazed, here is no remedy.

In love the heavens themselves do
guide the state
²¹⁴
.

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

FALSTAFF
    I am glad, though you have ta’en a

special
stand
²¹⁷
to strike at me, that your arrow

hath
glanced
²¹⁸
.

PAGE
    Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschewed must be embraced.

FALSTAFF
    When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

MISTRESS PAGE
    Well, I will
muse
²²²
no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days.

Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire,

Sir John and all.

FORD
Let it be so. Sir John,

To Master Broom you yet shall hold your word,

For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.

All entrances mid-scene
= Ed. F
groups names of all characters in each scene at beginning of scene

1.1.24 py’r lady
spelled
per-lady
in
F
136–39
set as verse
= Q. F =
set as prose
137 latten
= Q
(spelled
laten
)
. F = Latine
152 careers
spelled
Car-eires
in
F
215 contempt
= Ed. F = content

1.3.0 SD
and Robin
= Ed. F =
Page (pageboy)
14 lime
= Q. F =
Liue
46 legion
= Ed. Q = legions. F = legend
52 oeillades
spelled
illiads
in
F
73 o’th’hoof
= F2. F = ith’hoofe
74 humour
= Q. F = honor

1.4.39
une boîtie en vert
= Ed. F = vnboyteene verd
44–45
chaud. Je m’en vais voir à le
Court
la grande affaire
= Ed. F =
chando, Ie man voi a le Court la grand affaires
79
baillez
= Ed. F = ballow
109 good-year
= Ed. F = good-ier

2.1.1 I
= Q3.
Not in
F
51 praised
= Ed. F = praise
190 cavalier
spelled
Caualeire
in
F
191 SH FORD
= Q. F =
Shal
193 Broom
= F
(spelled
Broome).
Ford’s disguised name is
Brooke
throughout
Q

2.2.33 That I am
= Q.
Not in
F
207 exchange
= Q3. F = enchange

2.3.50 A word
= Q. F = a

3.1.4 Petty
= Ed. F = pittie
92 Give … terrestrial, so
= Q.
Not in
F
98 lads
= Q. F = Lad

3.3.30 cue
spelled
Qu
in
F
54 Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend
= F2
punctuation. Comma after
foe
in
F
67 kiln
= Ed. F = kill
130 SH JOHN
= Ed. F =
Ser
164 foolish
= F2. F = foolishion

3.4.13 SH FENTON
= Q3.
Not in
F
65 Fenton
= Ed. F =
Fenter

3.5.26 sperm
spelled
Spersme
in
F

4.1.60 lunatics
= Ed. F = Lunaties

4.2.47 kiln
= Ed. F = Kill
85 direct
= Q3. F = direct direct
87 misuse him
= F2. F = misuse
95, 97 SH JOHN
= Ed. F =
1. Ser
96 SH ROBERT
= Ed.
F =
2. Ser
97 as lief
= F2. F = liefe as
126 SH PAGE
= Ed. F =
M. Ford
.
159 not strike
= Q3. F = strike

4.3.9 house
= Q. F = houses

4.4.6 cold
= Ed. F = gold
31 makes
= F2. F = make
60 SH MISTRESS
FORD = Ed. F =
Ford

4.5.35 SH SIMPLE
= Ed. F =
Fal
.
46 art
= Q. F = are

4.6.38 denote
= Ed. F = deuote

5.2.3 daughter
= F2.
Omitted in
F

5.3.12 Hugh
= Ed. F = Herne

5.5.53 oafs
spelled
Ouphes
in
F
64 More
= F2. F = Mote
92 SH FAIRIES
= Ed.
Not in
F
94–102
Stage direction based on
Q,
but with colors of costumes altered to conform to
F—
see “Text” in Key Facts
191
un paysan
= Ed. F = oon pesant