The Merry Wives of Windsor William Shakespeare (top novels of all time TXT) 📖

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. Sir Hugh 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 Kneeling. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt; Page

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! Sir Hugh 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 wintertime, 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:
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,
Disguis’d, 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, 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,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffuséd song; upon their sight
We two in great amazédness 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 supposéd 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 practis’d well to this or they’ll ne’er do’t.

Sir Hugh Evans 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. 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

To Page. 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.

Sir Hugh Evans Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. Exeunt Page, Ford, and Sir Hugh 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 money’d, and his friends
Potent at