Free The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare Page A

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
Act 5 Scene 4
    running scene 18 continues
    Enter Evans [disguised, with others as] Fairies
    EVANS      Trib 1 , trib, fairies. Come, and remember your parts.
    Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give
    the watch-’ords 3 , do as I pid you. Come, come, trib, trib.
    Exeunt
Act 5 Scene 5
    running scene 18 continues
    Enter Falstaff [disguised as Herne
]
    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 3 . 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 6 . 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 8 ! And then another
    fault in the semblance of a fowl. Think on’t, Jove, a foul fault!
    When gods have hot backs 10 , what shall poor men do? For me,
    I am here a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i’th’forest.
    Send me a cool rut-time , Jove, or who can blame me to piss 12
    my tallow? Who comes here? My doe 13 ?
    [
Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
]
    MISTRESS FORD     Sir John? Art thou there, my deer 14 ? My male deer?
    FALSTAFF     My doe with the black scut ! Let the sky rain potatoes 15 ,
    let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail kissing-comfits 16
    and snow eryngoes . Let there come a tempest of provocation 17 ,
    I will shelter me here.
    Embraces her
    MISTRESS FORD     Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart 19 .
    FALSTAFF      Divide me like a bribed buck 20 , each a haunch: I will
    keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this 21
    walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a
    woodman 23 , ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is
    Cupid a child of conscience: he makes restitution 24 . As I am a
    true spirit, welcome.
    Horns within
    MISTRESS PAGE     Alas, what noise?
    MISTRESS FORD     Heaven forgive our sins.
    FALSTAFF     What should this be?
    MISTRESS FORD
and
MISTRESS PAGE     Away, away!
    They run off
    FALSTAFF     I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the
    oil 31 that’s in me should set hell on fire. He would never else
    cross me thus.
    Enter [Evans, disguised as before; Pistol, as Hobgoblin 32 ; Mistress
    Quickly, Anne and others, as] Fairies [with tapers
]
    MISTRESS QUICKLY     Fairies black, grey, green and white,
    You moonshine revellers and shades 34 of night,
    You orphan heirs of fixèd destiny 35 ,
    Attend your office and your quality 36 .
    Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyez 37 .
    PISTOL     Elves, list your names. Silence, you airy toys 38 .
    Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap.
    Where fires thou find’st unraked 40 and hearths unswept,
    There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry 41 ,
    Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.
    FALSTAFF     They are fairies, he that speaks to them shall die.
    Aside
    I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye 44 .
    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,
    Raise up the organs of her fantasy 47 :
    Sleep she as sound as careless 48 infancy.
    But those as 49 sleep and think not on their sins,
    Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.
    MISTRESS QUICKLY      About 51 , about.
    Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.
    Strew good luck, oafs 53 , on every sacred room,
    That it may stand till the perpetual doom 54 ,
    In state as wholesome as in state ’tis fit 55 ,
    Worthy 56 the owner and the owner it.
    The several