The Merry Wives Of Windsor

1 Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Sir Hugh Evans.
2 EVANS.
3 ’Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon.
4 PAGE.
5 And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
6 MISTRESS PAGE.
7 Within a quarter of an hour.
8 FORD.
9 Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt.
10 I rather will suspect the sun with cold
11 Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,
12 In him that was of late an heretic,
13 As firm as faith.
14 PAGE.
15 ’Tis well, ’tis well, no more.
16 Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.
17 But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
18 Yet once again, to make us public sport,
19 Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
20 Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
21 FORD.
22 There is no better way than that they spoke of.
23 PAGE.
24 How? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie,
25 fie, he’ll never come.
26 EVANS.
27 You say he has been thrown in the rivers, and has been grievously
28 peaten as an old ’oman. Methinks there should be terrors in him, that
29 he should not come. Methinks his flesh is punished; he shall have no
30 desires.
31 PAGE.
32 So think I too.
33 MISTRESS FORD.
34 Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes,
35 And let us two devise to bring him thither.
36 MISTRESS PAGE.
37 There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
38 Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
39 Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
40 Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns,
41 And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
42 And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
43 In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
44 You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
45 The superstitious idle-headed eld
46 Received and did deliver to our age,
47 This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
48 PAGE.
49 Why, yet there want not many that do fear
50 In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
51 But what of this?
52 MISTRESS FORD.
53 Marry, this is our device,
54 That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
55 Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
56 PAGE.
57 Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,
58 And in this shape; when you have brought him thither,
59 What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
60 MISTRESS PAGE.
61 That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
62 Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
63 And three or four more of their growth, we’ll dress
64 Like urchins, oafs and fairies, green and white,
65 With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads
66 And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,
67 As Falstaff, she, and I are newly met,
68 Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
69 With some diffused song; upon their sight
70 We two in great amazedness will fly.
71 Then let them all encircle him about,
72 And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight,
73 And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
74 In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
75 In shape profane.
76 MISTRESS FORD.
77 And till he tell the truth,
78 Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
79 And burn him with their tapers.
80 MISTRESS PAGE.
81 The truth being known,
82 We’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
83 And mock him home to Windsor.
84 FORD.
85 The children must
86 Be practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do ’t.
87 EVANS.
88 I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a
89 jackanapes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
90 FORD.
91 That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.
92 MISTRESS PAGE.
93 My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
94 Finely attired in a robe of white.
95 PAGE.
96 That silk will I go buy.
97 [_Aside_.] And in that time
98 Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
99 And marry her at Eton.—Go, send to Falstaff straight.
100 FORD.
101 Nay, I’ll to him again in name of Brook.
102 He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.
103 MISTRESS PAGE.
104 Fear not you that. Go, get us properties
105 And tricking for our fairies.
106 EVANS.
107 Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.
108 [_Exeunt Page, Ford and Evans._]
109 MISTRESS PAGE.
110 Go, Mistress Ford.
111 Send quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
112 [_Exit Mistress Ford._]
113 I’ll to the Doctor. He hath my good will,
114 And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
115 That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot,
116 And he my husband best of all affects.
117 The Doctor is well moneyed, and his friends
118 Potent at court. He, none but he, shall have her,
119 Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
120 [_Exit._]