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A Room in FORD’S House. | |
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Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS. | |
| Eva. ’Tis one of the pest discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon. | |
| Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant? | |
| Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | |
| Eva. You say he has been thrown into 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. | 20 |
| Page. So think I too. | |
| Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes, | |
| And let us two devise to bring him thither. | |
| Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, | |
| Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, | 25 |
| 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: | 30 |
| You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know | |
| The superstitious idle-headed eld | |
| Receiv’d 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 | 35 |
| In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak. | |
| But what of this? | |
| Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device; | |
| That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us, | |
| Disguis’d like Herne with huge horns on his head. | 40 |
| 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? | |
| Mrs. Page. That likewise have we thought upon, and thus: | |
| Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, | 45 |
| And three or four more of their growth, we’ll dress | |
| Like urchins, ouphs 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, | 50 |
| 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; | 55 |
| And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel, | |
| In their so sacred paths he dares to tread | |
| In shape profane. | |
| Mrs. Ford. And till he tell the truth, | |
| Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound | 60 |
| And burn him with their tapers. | |
| Mrs. Page. The truth being known, | |
| We’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit, | |
| And mock him home to Windsor. | |
| Ford. The children must | 65 |
| Be practis’d well to this, or they’ll ne’er do ’t. | |
| Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours; 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 buy them vizards. | |
| Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies, | |
| Finely attired in a robe of white. | 70 |
| 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. | 75 |
| Mrs. Page. Fear not you that. Go, get us properties, | |
| And tricking for our fairies. | |
| Eva. Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS. | |
| Mrs. Page. Go, Mistress Ford, | |
| Send Quickly to Sir John, to know his mind. [Exit MISTRESS FORD. | 80 |
| 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 him my husband best of all affects: | |
| The doctor is well money’d, and his friends | 85 |
| Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her, | |
| Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. [Exit. | |
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