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

heart break. 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! Exeunt. Scene IV

Windsor Park.

The Fairies approach, dancing, with masked lights; Sir Hugh Evans, disguised as a satyr in frieze and horns, Pistol attired as Puck, Mistress Quickly in white as Fairy Queen, Anne Page with William and many others in red, black, grey, green and white. Sir Hugh 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. Scene V

Beneath a mighty oak in another part of the park.

Enter Falstaff disguised as Herne the hunter with a buck’s head on. Falstaff 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’ the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe? Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Mistress Ford Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? my male deer? Falstaff My doe with the black scut! 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. Embracing her. Mistress Ford Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. Falstaff Divide me like a brib’d 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! Noise within. Mistress Page Alas! what noise? Mistress Ford Heaven forgive our sins! Falstaff What should this be? Mistress Ford Away, away! Mistress Page Away, away! They run off. Falstaff 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. A sudden burst of light; the Fairies appear with crowns of fire and rattles in their hands led by Sir Hugh Evans like a Satyr, holding a taper, Pistol as a Puck, Mistress Quickly as Fairy Queen, Anne Page as a Fairy, and others; they dance towards Falstaff singing. Mistress Quickly

Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixéd destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

Pistol

Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys! They are still.
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find’st unrak’d, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.

Falstaff

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.

Lies down upon his face at the foot of the oak. Sir Hugh Evans

Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Rein 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, ouphes, 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 several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring:
The 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 emerald 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.

Sir Hugh Evans

Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
The Fairies encircle the oak.
And twenty glowworms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.

Falstaff Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pistol Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth. Anne Page

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.

Pistol A trial! come. Sir Hugh Evans