ARKCODEX
Act IV, Scene 4
1A room in Ford’s house.
2Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans.
3Sir Hugh Evans’Tis one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon.
4PageAnd did he send you both these letters at an instant?
5Mistress PageWithin a quarter of an hour.
6FordKneeling. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;
7PageI 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.
8Page’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,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
9FordThere is no better way than that they spoke of.
10PageHow? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie! he’ll never come!
11Sir Hugh EvansYou 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.
12PageSo think I too.
13Mistress FordDevise but how you’ll use him when he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
14Mistress PageThere is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the wintertime, 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:
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.
15PageWhy, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
But what of this?
16Mistress FordMarry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguis’d, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
17PageWell, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,
And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
18Mistress PageThat 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
Like urchins, ouphs, 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
With some diffusèd song; upon their sight
We two in great amazédness 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,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
19Mistress FordAnd till he tell the truth,
Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.
20Mistress PageThe truth being known,
We’ll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
21FordThe children must
Be practis’d well to this or they’ll ne’er do’t.
22Sir Hugh EvansI will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.
23FordThat will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.
24Mistress PageMy Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.
25PageThat 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.
26FordTo Page. Nay, I’ll to him again, in name of Brook;
He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.
27Mistress PageFear not you that. Go, get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.
28Sir Hugh EvansLet us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.
29Exeunt Page, Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans.
30Mistress PageGo, Mistress Ford.
Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
31Exit Mistress Ford.
32I’ll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
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.
33Exit.