The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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,
You orphan heirs of fixèd destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL
Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys!
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.]
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.
ANNE
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.
EVANS
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
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
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.
EVANS
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.]
FALSTAFF
Oh, oh, oh!
ANNE
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
[During this song the Fairies pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck’s head, and rises.]
[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD. They lay hold on FALSTAFF.]
PAGE
Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch’d you now:
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
MRS. PAGE
I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?
FORD
Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.
MRS. FORD
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer.
FALSTAFF
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD
Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.