I’ll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.
He lies down, and hides his face
EVANS
Where’s Bead? Go you, and, where you find a maid
That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said,
Raise 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 sev’ral crest
With loyal blazon evermore be blessed;
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring. 65
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.
SIR JOHN (aside)
God defend me from that Welsh fairy,
Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉ (to Sir John)
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked even in thy birth.
MISTRESS QUICKLY (to fairies)
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.
⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉
A trial, come!
EVANS Come, will this wood take fire ?
They burn Sir John with tapers
SIR JOHN 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.
They dance around Sir John, pinching him and singing:
FAIRIES 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, enter Doctor Caius one way, and exit stealing away a fairy in green; enter Master Slender another way, and exit stealing away a fairy in white; enter Master Fenton, and exit stealing away Anne Page. After the song, a noise of hunting within. Exeunt Mistress Quickly, Evans, Hobgoblin, and fairies, running. Sir John rises, and starts to run away. Enter Master Page, Master 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?
(Pointing to Falstaff’s horns)
See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town ?
FORD (to Sir John) Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brooke, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave. Here are his horns, Master Brooke. And, Master Brooke, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money which must be paid to Master Brooke; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brooke.
MISTRESS FORD Sir John, we have had ill luck. We could never mate. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.
SIR JOHN I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. ⌈He takes off the horns⌉
FORD Ay, and an ox, too. Both the proofs are extant.
SIR JOHN And these are not fairies? By the Lord, 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.
SIR JOHN Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o‘er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb 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. z to
SIR JOHN ‘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?
SIR JOHN 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.