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 ragg’d horns;

And there he blasts the trees, 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 saw-pit rush at once,

With some diffused song. Upon their sight

We two in great amazèdness 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 vizors.

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 tire

Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,

And marry her at Eton. (To Mistress Page) Go send to

Falstaff straight.

FORD

Nay, I’ll to him again in name of Brooke.

He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure he’ll come.

MISTRESS PAGE

Fear not you that. (To Page, Ford, and Evans) Go get us

properties

And tricking for our fairies.

EVANS Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. Exeunt Ford, Page, 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

4.5 Enter the Host of the Garter 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.

SIR JOHN (within) 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 Sir John Falstaff

SIR JOHN 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?

SIR JOHN 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 Nim, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

SIR JOHN I spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir?

SIR JOHN 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.

SIR JOHN What are they? Let us know.

HOST Ay, come, quick.

⌈SIMPLE⌉ I may not conceal them, sir.

HOST 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.

SIR JOHN ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.