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?
MRS. 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?
MRS. 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 diffusèd song; upon their sight
We two in great amazèdness 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.
MRS. FORD
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
MRS. 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.
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.
MRS. 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
Nay, I’ll to him again, in name of Brook;
He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.
MRS. PAGE
Fear not you that. Go, get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.
EVANS
Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.
[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS.]
MRS. PAGE
Go, Mistress Ford.
Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
[Exit MRS. 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 court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
[Exit.]
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter HOST and SIMPLE.]
HOST
What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thickskin? Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
SIMPLE
Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.
HOST
There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and truckle-bed; ‘tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go knock and call; he’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee; knock, I say.
SIMPLE
There’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed.
HOST
Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robbed. I’ll call. Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.
FALSTAFF
[Above] How now, mine host?
HOST
Here’s a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourible. Fie! privacy? fie!
[Enter FALSTAFF.]
FALSTAFF
There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with, me; but she’s gone.
SIMPLE
Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brainford?
FALSTAFF
Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
SIMPLE
My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.
FALSTAFF
I spake with the old woman about it.
SIMPLE
And what says she, I pray, sir?
FALSTAFF
Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.
SIMPLE
I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.
FALSTAFF
What are they? Let us know.
HOST
Ay, come; quick.
SIMPLE
I may not conceal them, sir.
FALSTAFF