part I
would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions. If it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole. They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask your father. Here he comes.
Enter Page and Mistress Page.
PAGE Now, Master Slender.—Love him, daughter Anne.— Why, how now? What does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house. I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
MISTRESS PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
PAGE. She is no match for you.
FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?
PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.— Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.— Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
[_Exeunt Page, Shallow and Slender._]
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.
FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love And not retire. Let me have your good will.
ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
MISTRESS PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. That’s my master, Master Doctor.
ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ th’ earth, And bowled to death with turnips.
MISTRESS PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself, good Master Fenton, I will not be your friend, nor enemy. My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected. Till then, farewell, sir. She must needs go in; Her father will be angry.
FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.
[_Exeunt Mistress Page and Anne._]
MISTRESS QUICKLY. This is my doing now. “Nay,” said I, “will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.” This is my doing.
FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once tonight Give my sweet Nan this ring. There’s for thy pains.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune!
[_Exit Fenton._]
A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne, or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised and I’ll be as good as my word—but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!
[_Exit._]
## SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn
Enter Falstaff.
FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!
Enter Bardolph.
BARDOLPH. Here, sir.
FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in ’t.
[_Exit Bardolph._]
Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a New Year’s gift. ’Sblood, the rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ the litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow—a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
Enter Bardolph with sack.
BARDOLPH Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water, for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.
Enter Mistress Quickly.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. By your leave, I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.
FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.
BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?
FALSTAFF. Simple of itself. I’ll no pullet sperm in my brewage.
[_Exit Bardolph._]
How now?
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford? I have had ford enough. I was thrown into the ford, I have my belly full of ford.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault. She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her, between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF. Well, I will visit her. Tell her so, and bid her think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. I will tell her.
FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, sayst thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.
FALSTAFF. Well, be gone. I will not miss her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir.
[_Exit Mistress Quickly._]
FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.
Enter Ford disguised.
FORD God bless you, sir.
FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife?
FORD. That indeed, Sir John, is my business.
FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you. I was at her house the hour she appointed me.
FORD. And how sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
FORD. How so, sir? Did she change her determination?
FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook, but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.
FORD. What, while you were there?
FALSTAFF. While I was there.
FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford’s approach; and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
FORD. A buck-basket!
FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
FORD. And how long lay you there?
FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane. They took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook. I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that, a man of my kidney, think of that—that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It was a miracle to ’scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horseshoe! Think of that—hissing hot—think of that, Master Brook.
FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate. You’ll undertake her no more?
FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from her another embassy of meeting. ’Twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.
FORD. ’Tis past eight already, sir.
FALSTAFF. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook. Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.
[_Exit Falstaff._]
FORD Hum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford! There’s a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ’tis to be married; this ’tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am. I will now take the lecher. He is at my house. He cannot scape me. ’Tis impossible he should. He cannot creep into a half-penny purse, nor into a pepperbox. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn-mad.
[_Exit._]
## ACT IV
## SCENE I. The street
Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Quickly and William.
MISTRESS PAGE. Is he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Sure he is by this; or will be presently. But truly he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
MISTRESS PAGE. I’ll be with her by and by. I’ll but bring my young man here to school. Look where his master comes; ’tis a playing day, I see.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans.
How now, Sir Hugh, no school today?
EVANS. No, Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!
MISTRESS PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you ask him some questions in his accidence.
EVANS. Come hither, William. Hold up your head, come.
MISTRESS PAGE. Come on, sirrah. Hold up your head. Answer your master, be not afraid.
EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?
WILLIAM. Two.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say “’Od’s nouns.”
EVANS. Peace your tattlings! What is “fair,” William?
WILLIAM. _Pulcher_.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Polecats? There are fairer things than polecats, sure.
EVANS. You are a very simplicity ’oman; I pray you, peace.—What is _lapis_, William?
WILLIAM. A stone.
EVANS. And what is “a stone,” William?
WILLIAM. A pebble.
EVANS. No, it is _lapis_. I pray you remember in your prain.
WILLIAM. _Lapis_.
EVANS. That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?
WILLIAM. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined: _singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc_.
EVANS. _Nominativo, hig, haeg, hog_, pray you, mark: _genitivo, huius_. Well, what is your accusative case?
WILLIAM. _Accusativo, hinc_.
EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child. _Accusativo, hung, hang, hog_.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. “Hang-hog” is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
EVANS. Leave your prabbles, ’oman.—What is the focative case, William?
WILLIAM. O—_vocativo_—O—
EVANS. Remember, William; focative is _caret_.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. And that’s a good root.
EVANS. ’Oman, forbear.
MISTRESS PAGE. Peace.
EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?
WILLIAM. Genitive case?
EVANS. Ay.
WILLIAM. Genitive: _horum, harum, horum_.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Vengeance of Jenny’s case, fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.
EVANS. For shame, ’oman.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. You do ill to teach the child such words.—He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves; and to call “whore ’m”!—Fie upon you!
EVANS. ’Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
MISTRESS PAGE. [_To Quickly_.] Prithee, hold thy peace.
EVANS. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
WILLIAM. Forsooth, I have forgot.
EVANS. It is _qui, quae, quod_. If you forget your _quis_, your _quaes_, and your _quods_, you must be preeches. Go your ways and play, go.
MISTRESS PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
EVANS. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
MISTRESS PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.
[_Exit Sir Hugh Evans._]
Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
[_Exeunt._]
## SCENE II. A room in Ford’s house
Enter Falstaff and Mistress Ford.
FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth, not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, compliment, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?
MISTRESS FORD. He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.
MISTRESS PAGE. [_Within_.] What ho, gossip Ford, what ho!
MISTRESS FORD. Step into the chamber, Sir John.
[_Exit Falstaff._]
Enter Mistress Page.
MISTRESS PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides yourself?
MISTRESS FORD. Why, none but mine own people.
MISTRESS PAGE. Indeed?
MISTRESS FORD. No, certainly. [_Aside to her_.] Speak louder.
MISTRESS PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
MISTRESS FORD. Why?
MISTRESS PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again. He so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters, of what complexion soever, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying “Peer out, peer out!” that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.
MISTRESS FORD. Why, does he talk of him?
MISTRESS PAGE. Of none but him, and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here. Now he shall see his own foolery.
MISTRESS FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE. Hard by, at street end. He will be here anon.
MISTRESS FORD. I am undone! The knight is here.
MISTRESS PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! Better shame than murder.
MISTRESS FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?
Enter Falstaff.
FALSTAFF. No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go out ere he come?
MISTRESS PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out, otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?
FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.
MISTRESS FORD. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.
MISTRESS PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.
FALSTAFF. Where is it?
MISTRESS FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.
FALSTAFF. I’ll go out then.
MISTRESS PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John—unless you go out disguised.
MISTRESS FORD. How might we disguise him?
MISTRESS PAGE. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something. Any extremity rather than a mischief.
MISTRESS FORD. My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.
MISTRESS PAGE. On my word, it will serve him. She’s as big as he is. And there’s her thrummed hat, and her muffler too.—Run up, Sir John.
MISTRESS FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head.
MISTRESS PAGE. Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you straight; put on the gown the while.
[_Exit Falstaff._]
MISTRESS FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.
MISTRESS PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!
MISTRESS FORD. But is my husband coming?
MISTRESS PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
MISTRESS FORD. We’ll try that; for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.
MISTRESS PAGE. Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.
MISTRESS FORD. I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I’ll bring linen for him straight.
[_Exit Mistress Ford._]
MISTRESS PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! We cannot misuse him enough. We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry and yet honest too. We do not act that often jest and laugh; ’Tis old but true: “Still swine eats all the draff.”
[_Exit._]
Enter Mistress Ford with John and Robert.
MISTRESS FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders. Your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch.
[_Exit Mistress Ford._]
JOHN. Come, come, take it up.
ROBERT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
JOHN. I hope not, I had lief as bear so much lead.
Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius and Sir Hugh Evans.
FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?—Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! There’s a knot, a gin, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed.—What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching!
PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford! You are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.
EVANS. Why, this is lunatics, this is mad as a mad dog.
SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
FORD. So say I too, sir.
Enter Mistress Ford.
Come hither, Mistress Ford—Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?
MISTRESS FORD. Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.
FORD. Well said, brazen-face, hold it out.—Come forth, sirrah.
[_Pulls clothes out of the basket._]
PAGE. This passes.
MISTRESS FORD. Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.
FORD. I shall find you anon.
EVANS. ’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come, away.
FORD. Empty the basket, I say.
MISTRESS FORD. Why, man, why?
FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is. My intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable.—Pluck me out all the linen.
MISTRESS FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.
PAGE. Here’s no man.
SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford, this wrongs you.
EVANS. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.
FORD. Well, he’s not here I seek for.
PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
FORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport. Let them say of me “As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.” Satisfy me once more, once more search with me.
[_Exeunt John and Robert with the basket._]
MISTRESS FORD. What, ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.
FORD. Old woman? What old woman’s that?
MISTRESS FORD. Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.
FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.—Come down, you witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say!
MISTRESS FORD. Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.
Enter Falstaff disguised as an old woman, led by Mistress Page.
MISTRESS PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand.
FORD. I’ll prat her. [_Beats him_.] Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.
[_Exit Falstaff._]
MISTRESS PAGE. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.
MISTRESS FORD. Nay, he will do it. ’Tis a goodly credit for you.
FORD. Hang her, witch!
EVANS. By 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 her 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, Caius, Evans and Shallow._]
MISTRESS PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
MISTRESS FORD. Nay, by th’ 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 III. 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 tomorrow 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 IV. A room in Ford’s house
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Sir Hugh Evans.
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.
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 ragged 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, Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
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, oafs 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.
EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a jackanapes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
FORD. That will be excellent. I’ll go 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.
EVANS. Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.
[_Exeunt Page, Ford and 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 moneyed, and his friends Potent at court. He, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
[_Exit._]
## SCENE V. 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. He’ll 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, my 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. I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.
FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.
HOST. Ay, come. Quick.
SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.
FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.
SIMPLE. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page, to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.
FALSTAFF. ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.
SIMPLE. What sir?
FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go, say the woman told me so.
SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?
FALSTAFF. Ay, sir; like who more bold?
SIMPLE. I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad with these tidings.
[_Exit Simple._]
HOST Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?
FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.
Enter Bardolph.
BARDOLPH Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!
HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
BARDOLPH. Run away, with the cozeners. For so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire, and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain, do not say they be fled. Germans are honest men.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans.
EVANS Where is mine host?
HOST. What is the matter, sir?
EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen-Germans that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you. You are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.
[_Exit Evans._]
Enter Doctor Caius.
CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.
CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat, but it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come. I tell you for good will. Adieu.
[_Exit Doctor Caius._]
HOST Hue and cry, villain, go!—Assist me, knight, I am undone.—Fly, run, hue and cry, villain, I am undone!
[_Exeunt Host and Bardolph._]
FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough, I would repent.
Enter Mistress Quickly.
Now, whence come you?
MISTRESS QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.
FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant, speciously one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.
FALSTAFF. What tellst thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i’ the stocks, i’ the common stocks, for a witch.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber, you shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.
FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.
[_Exeunt._]
## SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn
Enter Fenton and Host.
HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me. My mind is heavy. I will give over all.
FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose, And, as I am a gentleman, I’ll give thee A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton, and I will, at the least, keep your counsel.
FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page, Who mutually hath answered my affection, So far forth as herself might be her chooser, Even to my wish. I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at, The mirth whereof so larded with my matter That neither singly can be manifested Without the show of both, wherein fat Falstaff Hath a great scene; the image of the jest I’ll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host: Tonight at Herne’s oak, just ’twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen— The purpose why is here—in which disguise, While other jests are something rank on foot, Her father hath commanded her to slip Away with Slender, and with him at Eton Immediately to marry. She hath consented. Now, sir, Her mother, even strong against that match And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed That he shall likewise shuffle her away, While other sports are tasking of their minds, And at the dean’ry, where a priest attends, Straight marry her. To this her mother’s plot She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests: Her father means she shall be all in white And in that habit, when Slender sees his time To take her by the hand and bid her go, She shall go with him. Her mother hath intended The better to denote her to the doctor, For they must all be masked and vizarded— That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed, With ribbons pendant flaring ’bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and on that token The maid hath given consent to go with him.
HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me. And here it rests, that you’ll procure the vicar To stay for me at church, ’twixt twelve and one, And, in the lawful name of marrying, To give our hearts united ceremony.
HOST. Well, husband your device; I’ll to the vicar. Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I’ll make a present recompense.
[_Exeunt._]
## ACT V
## SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn
Enter Falstaff and Mistress Quickly.
FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling. Go. I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go! They say there is divinity 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. Hold up your head, and mince.
[_Exit Mistress Quickly._]
Enter Ford.
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, 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 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 plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, 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, Master Brook! Follow.
[_Exeunt._]
## SCENE II. Windsor Park
Enter Page, Shallow and Slender.
PAGE. Come, come. We’ll couch i’ the 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 how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry “mum”; she cries “budget”; 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 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 Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Doctor Caius.
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.
[_Exit Caius._]
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 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 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 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!
[_Exeunt._]
## SCENE IV. Windsor Park
Enter Sir Hugh Evans disguised, and children as Fairies.
EVANS. 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 wearing a buck’s head.
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; 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 Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.
MISTRESS FORD. Sir John? Art thou there, my deer, my male deer?
FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of “Greensleeves”, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.
[_He embraces her._]
MISTRESS FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF. Divide me like a bribed 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!
[_A noise of horns within._]
MISTRESS PAGE. Alas, what noise?
MISTRESS FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!
FALSTAFF. What should this be?
MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE. Away, away!
[_They run off._]
FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.
Enter Mistress Quickly as the Queen of Fairies, Sir Hugh Evans as a Satyr, Pistol as Hobgoblin, Anne Page and children as Fairies, carrying tapers.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys! Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap, Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry. 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.
[_Lies down upon his face._]
EVANS Where’s Bead? Go you, and where you find a maid That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said, Rein up the organs of her fantasy; 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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. About, about! Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out. Strew good luck, oafs, 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. Th’ expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ write In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white, Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’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.
EVANS. 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.
FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
PISTOL. Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked even in thy birth.
MISTRESS QUICKLY. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end. If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
PISTOL. A trial, come.
EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?
[_They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts._]
FALSTAFF. O, o, o!
MISTRESS QUICKLY. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme, And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie 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 starlight and moonshine be out.
[_During the song they pinch him, and Doctor Caius comes one way and steals away a boy in green; and Slender another way takes a boy in white; Fenton comes in and steals away Anne Page. A noise of hunting is heard within and all the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head, and rises up._]
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford.
PAGE. Nay, do not fly. I think we have watched you now. Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
MISTRESS PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.— Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband?
[_She points to the horns._]
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 buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook. His horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.
MISTRESS 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.
FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD. Ay, and an ox too. Both the proofs are extant.
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, 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!
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 as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb of frieze? ’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 of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking 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?
MISTRESS 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?
EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme. You have the start of me. I am dejected, I am not able to answer the Welsh 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.
PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset 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. [_Aside_.] Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.
Enter Slender.
SLENDER Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!
PAGE. Son, how now! How now, son, have you dispatched?
SLENDER. Dispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t. Would I were hanged, la, else!
PAGE. Of what, son?
SLENDER. 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 postmaster’s boy.
PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
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.
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 white 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 green, and indeed she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter Doctor Caius.
CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened, I ha’ married _un garçon_, a boy; _un paysan_, by gar, a boy. It is not Anne Page. By gar, I am cozened.
MISTRESS PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS. Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy. By gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.
FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
Enter Fenton and Anne Page.
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 her. Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure 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, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD. Stand not amazed, here is no remedy. In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state. Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
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 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 Brook you yet shall hold your word, For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
[_Exeunt._]
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Contents
## ACT I
## Scene I.
Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
## Scene II.
The Same. A Room in a Cottage
## ACT II
## Scene I.
A wood near Athens
## Scene II.
Another part of the wood
## ACT III
## Scene I.
The Wood.
## Scene II.
Another part of the wood
## ACT IV
## Scene I.
The Wood
## Scene II.
Athens. A Room in Quince’s House
## ACT V
## Scene I.
Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
Dramatis Personæ
THESEUS, Duke of Athens HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus EGEUS, Father to Hermia HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander HELENA, in love with Demetrius LYSANDER, in love with Hermia DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
QUINCE, the Carpenter SNUG, the Joiner BOTTOM, the Weaver FLUTE, the Bellows-mender SNOUT, the Tinker STARVELING, the Tailor
OBERON, King of the Fairies TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a Fairy PEASEBLOSSOM, Fairy COBWEB, Fairy MOTH, Fairy MUSTARDSEED, Fairy
PYRAMUS, THISBE, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION; Characters in the Interlude performed by the Clowns
Other Fairies attending their King and Queen Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta
SCENE: Athens, and a wood not far from it
## ACT I
## SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate and Attendants.
THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but oh, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.
THESEUS. Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals; The pale companion is not for our pomp.
[_Exit Philostrate._]
Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius.
EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renownèd Duke!
THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke, This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child. Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchang’d love-tokens with my child. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love; And stol’n the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth) With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart, Turn’d her obedience (which is due to me) To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke, Be it so she will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine I may dispose of her; Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid. To you your father should be as a god; One that compos’d your beauties, yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it. Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA. So is Lysander.
THESEUS. In himself he is. But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice, The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA. I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold, Nor how it may concern my modesty In such a presence here to plead my thoughts: But I beseech your Grace that I may know The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessèd they that master so their blood To undergo such maiden pilgrimage, But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon The sealing-day betwixt my love and me For everlasting bond of fellowship, Upon that day either prepare to die For disobedience to your father’s will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would, Or on Diana’s altar to protest For aye austerity and single life.
DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
LYSANDER. You have her father’s love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.
EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love; And what is mine my love shall render him; And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv’d as he, As well possess’d; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d, If not with vantage, as Demetrius’; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, I am belov’d of beauteous Hermia. Why should not I then prosecute my right? Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head, Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena, And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come, And come, Egeus; you shall go with me. I have some private schooling for you both.— For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father’s will, Or else the law of Athens yields you up (Which by no means we may extenuate) To death, or to a vow of single life. Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along; I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial, and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.
[_Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia._]
LYSANDER. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER. Ay me! For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. But either it was different in blood—
HERMIA. O cross! Too high to be enthrall’d to low.
LYSANDER. Or else misgraffèd in respect of years—
HERMIA. O spite! Too old to be engag’d to young.
LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes!
LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And, ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’ The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross’d, It stands as an edict in destiny. Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child. From Athens is her house remote seven leagues, And she respects me as her only son. There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, And to that place the sharp Athenian law Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town (Where I did meet thee once with Helena To do observance to a morn of May), There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA. My good Lysander! I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus’ doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen When the false Trojan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke (In number more than ever women spoke), In that same place thou hast appointed me, Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter Helena.
HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching. O were favour so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I’d give to be to you translated. O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA. None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me. O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn’d a heaven into hell!
LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watery glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass (A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal), Through Athens’ gates have we devis’d to steal.
HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, There my Lysander and myself shall meet, And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and stranger companies. Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia.
[_Exit Hermia._]
Helena, adieu. As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
[_Exit Lysander._]
HELENA. How happy some o’er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste. Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste. And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere. For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne, He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolv’d, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight. Then to the wood will he tomorrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again.
[_Exit Helena._]
## SCENE II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout and Starveling.
QUINCE. Is all our company here?
BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and Duchess, on his wedding-day at night.
BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
QUINCE. Marry, our play is _The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe_.
BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM. Ready. Name what