The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT IV SCENE IV	A room in FORD'S house.
	Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD,and SIR HUGH EVANS
SIR HUGH EVANS	'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever
	I did look upon.
PAGE	And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
MISTRESS PAGE	Within a quarter of an hour.	5
FORD	Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
	I rather will suspect the sun with cold
	Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand
	In him that was of late an heretic,
	As firm as faith.	10
PAGE	'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:
	Be not as extreme in submission
	As in offence.
	But let our plot go forward: let our wives
	Yet once again, to make us public sport,	15
	Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
	Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
FORD	There is no better way than that they spoke of.
PAGE	How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park
	at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.	20
SIR HUGH EVANS	You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has
	been grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks
	there should be terrors in him that he should not
	come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have
	no desires.	25
PAGE	So think I too.
MISTRESS FORD	Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
	And let us two devise to bring him thither.
MISTRESS PAGE	There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
	Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,	30
	Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
	Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
	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:	35
	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	40
	In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
	But what of this?
MISTRESS FORD	Marry, this is our device;
	That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.
PAGE	Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:	45
	And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
	What shall be done with him? what is your plot?
MISTRESS 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	50
	Like urchins, ouphes 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	55
	With some diffused song: upon their sight,
	We two in great amazedness 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,	60
	In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
	In shape profane.
MISTRESS FORD	And till he tell the truth,
	Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
	And burn him with their tapers.	65
MISTRESS 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 practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.	70
SIR HUGH EVANS	I will teach the children their behaviors; 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 and buy them vizards.
MISTRESS PAGE	My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,	75
	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.	80
FORD	Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook
	He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come.
MISTRESS PAGE	Fear not you that. Go get us properties
	And tricking for our fairies.
SIR HUGH EVANS	Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery	85
	honest knaveries.
	Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS
MISTRESS PAGE	Go, Mistress Ford,
	Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.
	Exit MISTRESS FORD
	I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will,
	And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.	90
	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.	95
	Exit