The Merry Wives of Windsor Part 30

Fie on l.u.s.t and luxury!

l.u.s.t is but a b.l.o.o.d.y fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart, whose flames aspire, 95 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 moons.h.i.+ne be out. 100

_During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR 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 Mrs 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 and MISTRESS FORD._

_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 105 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 110 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. 115

_Fal._ I do begin to perceive that I am made an a.s.s.

_Ford._ Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.

_Fal._ 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, 120 drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment!

_Evans._ Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your 125 desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

_Ford._ Well said, fairy Hugh.

_Evans._ And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

_Ford._ I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. 130

_Fal._ Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this?

Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a c.o.xcomb of frize? Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. 135

_Evans._ Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

_Fal._ 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of l.u.s.t and late-walking through the realm. 140

_Mrs Page._ Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to h.e.l.l, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

_Ford._ What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? 145

_Mrs Page._ A puffed man?

_Page._ Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

_Ford._ And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

_Page._ And as poor as Job?

_Ford._ And as wicked as his wife? 150

_Evans._ And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

_Fal._ Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh 155 flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will.

_Ford._ Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you 160 have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

_Page._ Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender 165 hath married her daughter.

_Mrs Page._ [_Aside_] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

_Enter SLENDER._

_Slen._ Whoa, ho! ho, father Page!

_Page._ Son, how now! how now, son! have you 170 dispatched?

_Slen._ Dispatched!--I'll make the best in Gloucesters.h.i.+re know on't; would I were hanged, la, else!

_Page._ Of what, son?

_Slen._ I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne 175 Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis a postmaster's boy.

_Page._ Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. 180

_Slen._ What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.

_Page._ Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? 185

_Slen._ I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

_Mrs Page._ Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, 190 she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.

_Enter CAIUS._

_Caius._ Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. 195

_Mrs Page._ Why, did you take her in green?

_Caius._ Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [_Exit._

_Ford._ This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

_Page._ My heart misgives me:--here comes Master 200 Fenton.

_Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE._

How now, Master Fenton!