FENTON

So shall I evermore be bound to thee.

Besides, I’ll make a present recompense.

Exeunt ⌈severally⌉

5.1 Enter Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Quickly

SIR JOHN 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.

SIR JOHN Away, I say! Time wears. Hold up your head, and mince. Exit Mistress Quickly

Enter Master Ford, disguised as Brooke

How now, Master Brooke ? Master Brooke, 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?

SIR JOHN I went to her, Master Brooke, as you see, like a poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brooke, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brooke, 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 Brooke, 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 Brooke. 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 Brooke. Follow.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Master Page, justice Shallow, and Master Slender

PAGE Come, come, we’ll couch i’th’ 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. (To Page) It hath struck ten o’clock.

PAGE The night is dark; lights and spirits will become it well. God prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away. Follow me. Exeunt

5.3 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 I Exeunt

5.4 Enter Sir Hugh Evans, ⌈Disguised as a satyr,⌉ and ⌈William Page and others⌉ children, disguised 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

5.5 Enter Sir John Falstaff, disguised as Herne, ⌈witch horns on his head, and bearing a chain⌉

SIR JOHN 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’th’ forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow ?

Enter Mistress Ford ⌈followed by⌉ Mistress Page

Who comes here? My doe!

MISTRESS FORD Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer?

SIR JOHN My doe with the black scutt 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.

SIR JOHN 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 within⌉

MISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise?

MISTRESS FORD God forgive our sins!

SIR JOHN What should this be?

MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE Away, away!

Exeunt Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, ⌈running⌉

SIR JOHN 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 Sir Hugh Evans, ⌈William Page,⌉ and

children, disguised as before, with tapers; Mistress

Quickly, disguised as the Fairy Queen; Anne Page,

disguised as a fairy; and one disguised as

Hobgoblin

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Fairies black, grey, green, and white,

You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,

You orphan heirs of fixèd destiny,

Attend your office and your quality.—

Crier hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉

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.

SIR JOHN (aside)

They are fairies. He that speaks to them shall die.