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The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 4 Scene 4

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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,

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:

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

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:

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

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

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,

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.

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.

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,

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.

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

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.

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.

[Exit]

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