Free The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare Page B

chairs of order 57 look you scour
    With juice of balm 58 and every precious flower.
    Each fair instalment , coat , and sev’ral crest 59 ,
    With loyal blazon 60 evermore be blest.
    And nightly meadow-fairies, look you sing,
    Like to the Garter’s compass 62 , in a ring.
    Th’expressure 63 that it bears, green let it be,
    More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.
    And Honi soit qui mal y pense
65 write
    In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white,
    Like sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
    Buckled 68 below fair knighthood’s bending knee.
    Fairies use flowers for their charactery 69 .
    Away, disperse. But till ’tis one o’clock,
    Our dance of custom 71 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 glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
    To guide our measure 75 round about the tree.
    But stay, I smell a man of middle-earth 76 .
    FALSTAFF     Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy,
    Aside
    lest he transform me to a piece of cheese 78 !
    PISTOL     Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked 79 even in
    To Falstaff
    thy birth.
    MISTRESS QUICKLY     With trial-fire touch me 81 his finger-end.
    If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
    And turn him to no pain. But if he start 83 ,
    It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
    PISTOL     A trial, come.
    EVANS     Come, will this wood 86 take
    fire?
    They burn him with their tapers
    FALSTAFF     O, O, O!
    MISTRESS QUICKLY     Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire.
    About 90 him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme,
    And, as you trip , still 91 pinch him to your time.
    FAIRIES     [sing]
The Song
    Fie on sinful fantasy 93 ,
    Fie on lust and luxury 94 !
    During this song they pinch Falstaff. Caius comes one way and steals away a boy in green; Slender another way and takes off a boy in white; and Fenton comes and steals away Anne
.
    Lust is but a bloody fire 95 ,
    Kindled with unchaste desire,
    Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
    As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
    Pinch him, fairies, mutually 99 ,
    A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head and rises
    Pinch him for his villainy.
    Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
    Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
    [
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford]
    PAGE     Nay, do not fly, I think we have watched 103 you now.
    Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn 104 ?
    MISTRESS PAGE     I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher 105 .
    Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
    See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes 107
    Points to horns
    Become the forest better than the town?
    FORD     Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Broom,
    Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave: here are his horns,
    Master Broom. And, Master Broom, he hath enjoyed nothing
    of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds
    of money, which must be paid to Master Broom. His horses
    are arrested 114 for it, Master Broom.
    MISTRESS FORD     Sir John, we have had ill luck, we could never
    meet 116 . I will never take you for my love again, but I will always
    count you my deer 117 .
    FALSTAFF     I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
    FORD     Ay, and an ox too. Both the proofs are extant 119 .
    FALSTAFF     And these are not fairies. I was three or four times in
    the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of
    my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers 122 , drove the
    grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of 123
    the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See
    now how ‘ Wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent 125 , when ’tis upon ill
    employment!’
    EVANS     Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave
    Unmasks
    your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
    FORD     Well said, fairy Hugh.
    EVANS     And leave you your jealousies