SCENE I. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
FALSTAFF
Prithee, no more prattling; go: I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away! go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!
QUICKLY
I’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.
FALSTAFF
Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and mince.
[Exit MRS. QUICKLY.]
[Enter FORD.]
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known tonight, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.
FORD
Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?
FALSTAFF
I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you: he beat me grievously in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me; I’ll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what ‘twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me: I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Windsor Park
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
PAGE
Come, come; we’ll couch i’ the castle-ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
SLENDER
Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nayword how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry “mum”; she cries “budget,” and by that we know one another.
SHALLOW
That’s good too; but what needs either your “mum” or her “budget”? The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.
PAGE
The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away; follow me.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. The street in Windsor
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS.]
MRS. PAGE
Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park; we two must go together.
CAIUS
I know vat I have to do; adieu.
MRS. PAGE
Fare you well, sir.
[Exit CAIUS.]
My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor’s marrying my daughter; but ‘tis no matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of heart break.
MRS. FORD
Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil, Hugh?
MRS. 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.
MRS. FORD
That cannot choose but amaze him.
MRS. PAGE
If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.
MRS. FORD
We’ll betray him finely.
MRS. PAGE
Against such lewdsters and their lechery,
Those that betray them do no treachery.
MRS. FORD
The hour draws on: to the oak, to the oak!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. Windsor Park
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies.]
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. Another part of the Park
[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE 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.]
MRS. 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]
MRS. 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]
MRS. PAGE
Alas! what noise?
MRS. FORD
Heaven forgive our sins!
FALSTAFF
What should this be?
MRS. FORD
Away, away!
MRS. 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.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a Satyr, PISTOL as a Hobgoblin, ANNE PAGE as the the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brothers and Others, as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.]
ANNE
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,