poor woman.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it. ‘Tis a goodly credit for you.
FORD Hang her, witch!
SIR HUGH EVANS By the 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 his 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, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS
MISTRESS PAGE Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
MISTRESS FORD Nay, by the 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 3
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 to-morrow 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 4
A room in FORD’S house.
Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS
SIR HUGH 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.
SIR HUGH 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 ragg’d 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.
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, ouphes 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS I will teach the children their behaviors; and I
will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the
knight with my taber.
FORD That will be excellent. I’ll go and 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.
SIR HUGH EVANS Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery
honest knaveries.
Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH 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 money’d, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
Exit
Scene 5
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; hell 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, 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;