Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely.
Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their

lechery,

Those that betray them do no treachery. Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on: To the oak, to the oak.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-Windsor Park. Enter Sir Hugh Evans, and Fairies.

Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you: Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt.

SCENE V.-Another part of the Park. Enter Falstaff disguised, with a buck's head on.

Fal. 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; 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;-0, 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! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on't, Jove; a foul fault. When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest: send me a

cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe?

Enter Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

Fal. My doe with the black scut?-Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will [Embracing her.

shelter me here.

Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me,

sweetheart.

Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow1 of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman? ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter?-Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within.

Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise?
Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!

Fal. What should this be?

Mrs. Ford.

Mrs. Page Away, away.

Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans, like a satyr; Mrs. Quickly and Pistol; Anne Page, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen, tapers on their heads.

Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,

VOL. I.

(1) Keeper of the forest.

L

Attend your office, and your quality.1 -
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy

toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths un

swept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry :2 Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery.

Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them,

shall die. I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Pede?--Go you, and where you find a maid,

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those as sleep, and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides,

and shins.

Quick. About, about;

Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room;
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome, as in state 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Hony soit qui mal y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white

(1) Fellowship.

(2) Whortleberry.

Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee :
Fairies use flowers for their charactery. I
Away; disperse: But, till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves

in order set:

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; 1 smell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'er-look'd even in

thy birth.

Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger end:

If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Pist. A trial, come.

Eva.

Come, will this wood take fire?

[They burn him with their tapers.

Fal. Oh, oh, oh !

Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!

About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme :
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and

iniquity.

SONG.

Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

(1) The letters.

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine, be out.

During this song, the fairies pinch Falstaff. Doc

tor Caius comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; Slender another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rises.

Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, and Mrs. Ford. They lay hold on him.

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 yokest 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 buckbasket, his cudgel, and twenty 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.

ass.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an

extant.

Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought, they were not fairies :

(1) Horns which Falstaff had.