Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 4
A room in FORD’S house.
Sir Hugh Evans : 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever
[p]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;
[p]I rather will
suspect the sun with cold
[p]Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy
honour stand
[p]In him that was of late an heretic,
[p]As firm as
faith.
Page : 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:
[p]Be not as extreme in
submission
[p]As in offence.
[p]But let our plot go forward: let our
wives
[p]Yet once again, to make us public sport,
[p]Appoint a meeting
with this old fat fellow,
[p]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
[p]at midnight?
Fie, fie! he'll never come.
Sir Hugh Evans : You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has
[p]been grievously
peaten as an old 'oman: methinks
[p]there should be terrors in him
that he should not
[p]come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall
have
[p]no desires.
Page : So think I too.
Mistress Ford : Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
[p]And let us two devise
to bring him thither.
Mistress Page : There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
[p]Sometime a keeper
here in Windsor forest,
[p]Doth all the winter-time, at still
midnight,
[p]Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
[p]And
there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle
[p]And makes milch-kine
yield blood and shakes a chain
[p]In a most hideous and dreadful
manner:
[p]You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
[p]The
superstitious idle-headed eld
[p]Received and did deliver to our
age
[p]This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
Page : Why, yet there want not many that do fear
[p]In deep of night to walk
by this Herne's oak:
[p]But what of this?
Mistress Ford : Marry, this is our device;
[p]That Falstaff at that oak shall meet
with us.
Page : Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
[p]And in this shape when
you have brought him thither,
[p]What shall be done with him? what is
your plot?
Mistress Page : That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
[p]Nan Page my daughter
and my little son
[p]And three or four more of their growth we'll
dress
[p]Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,
[p]With
rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
[p]And rattles in their hands:
upon a sudden,
[p]As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,
[p]Let them
from forth a sawpit rush at once
[p]With some diffused song: upon
their sight,
[p]We two in great amazedness will fly:
[p]Then let them
all encircle him about
[p]And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean
knight,
[p]And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
[p]In their so
sacred paths he dares to tread
[p]In shape profane.
Mistress Ford : And till he tell the truth,
[p]Let the supposed fairies pinch him
sound
[p]And burn him with their tapers.
Mistress Page : The truth being known,
[p]We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the
spirit,
[p]And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford : The children must
[p]Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er
do't.
Sir Hugh Evans : I will teach the children their behaviors; and I
[p]will be like a
jack-an-apes also, to burn the
[p]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,
[p]Finely attired in a
robe of white.
Page : That silk will I go buy.
[p][Aside]
[p]And in that time
[p]Shall
Master Slender steal my Nan away
[p]And marry her at Eton. Go send to
Falstaff straight.
Ford : Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook
[p]He'll tell me all his
purpose: sure, he'll come.
Mistress Page : Fear not you that. Go get us properties
[p]And tricking for our
fairies.
Sir Hugh Evans : Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery
[p]honest
knaveries.
Mistress Page : Go, Mistress Ford,
[p]Send quickly to Sir John, to know his
mind.
[p][Exit MISTRESS FORD]
[p]I'll to the doctor: he hath my good
will,
[p]And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
[p]That Slender,
though well landed, is an idiot;
[p]And he my husband best of all
affects.
[p]The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
[p]Potent at
court: he, none but he, shall have her,
[p]Though twenty thousand
worthier come to crave her.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 5
