Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 5
Another part of the Park.
Mistress Ford : Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
Mistress Ford : Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
Mistress Page : Alas, what noise?
Mistress Ford : Heaven forgive our sins
Mistress Ford : [with Mistress Page] Away, away!
Sir Hugh Evans : Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
[p]That, ere she
sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
[p]Raise up the organs of her
fantasy;
[p]Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:
[p]But those as
sleep and think not on their sins,
[p]Pinch them, arms, legs, backs,
shoulders, sides and shins.
Sir Hugh Evans : Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set
[p]And twenty
glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
[p]To guide our measure round about
the tree.
[p]But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
Sir Hugh Evans : Come, will this wood take fire?
Page : Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now
[p]Will none but
Herne the hunter serve your turn?
Mistress Page : I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher
[p]Now, good Sir John,
how like you Windsor wives?
[p]See you these, husband? do not these
fair yokes
[p]Become the forest better than the town?
Ford : Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,
[p]Falstaff's a knave, a
cuckoldly knave; here are his
[p]horns, Master Brook: and, Master
Brook, he hath
[p]enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket,
his
[p]cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be
[p]paid to
Master Brook; his horses are arrested for
[p]it, Master Brook.
Mistress Ford : Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet.
[p]I will never
take you for my love again; but I will
[p]always count you my deer.
Ford : Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.
Sir Hugh Evans : Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
[p]desires, and fairies
will not pinse you.
Ford : Well said, fairy Hugh.
Sir Hugh Evans : And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford : I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art
[p]able to woo her
in good English.
Sir Hugh Evans : Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.
Mistress Page : Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
[p]virtue out of
our hearts by the head and shoulders
[p]and have given ourselves
without scruple to hell,
[p]that ever the devil could have made you
our delight?
Ford : What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mistress 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?
Sir Hugh Evans : And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack
[p]and wine and
metheglins, and to drinkings and
[p]swearings and starings, pribbles
and prabbles?
Ford : Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one
[p]Master Brook, that
you have cozened of money, to
[p]whom you should have been a pander:
over and above
[p]that you have suffered, I think to repay that
money
[p]will be a biting affliction.
Page : Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
[p]to-night at my
house; where I will desire thee to
[p]laugh at my wife, that now
laughs at thee: tell her
[p]Master Slender hath married her daughter.
Mistress Page : [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my
[p]daughter, she is, by
this, Doctor Caius' wife.
Slender : Whoa ho! ho, father Page!
Page : Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
Slender : Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
[p]know on't; would
I were hanged, la, else.
Page : Of what, son?
Slender : I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page,
[p]and she's a
great lubberly boy. If it had not been
[p]i' the church, I would have
swinged him, or he
[p]should have swinged me. If I did not think it
had
[p]been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis
[p]a
postmaster's boy.
Page : Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
Slender : What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took
[p]a boy for a
girl. If I had been married to him, for
[p]all he was in woman's
apparel, I would not have had
[p]him.
Page : Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
[p]you should know
my daughter by her garments?
Slender : I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she
[p]cried 'budget,' as
Anne and I had appointed; and yet
[p]it was not Anne, but a
postmaster's boy.
Mistress Page : Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose;
[p]turned my
daughter into green; and, indeed, she is
[p]now with the doctor at the
deanery, and there married.
Doctor Caius : Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha'
[p]married un
garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy;
[p]it is not Anne Page: by
gar, I am cozened.
Mistress Page : Why, did you take her in green?
Doctor Caius : Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
Ford : This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
Page : My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
[p][Enter FENTON and
ANNE PAGE]
[p]How now, Master Fenton!
Anne Page : Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
Page : Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
Mistress Page : Why went you not with master doctor, maid?
Fenton : You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
[p]You would have married her
most shamefully,
[p]Where there was no proportion held in love.
[p]The
truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
[p]Are now so sure that
nothing can dissolve us.
[p]The offence is holy that she hath
committed;
[p]And this deceit loses the name of craft,
[p]Of
disobedience, or unduteous title,
[p]Since therein she doth evitate
and shun
[p]A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
[p]Which forced
marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford : Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
[p]In love the heavens themselves
do guide the state;
[p]Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
Page : Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
[p]What cannot be
eschew'd must be embraced.
Mistress Page : Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
[p]Heaven give you many,
many merry days!
[p]Good husband, let us every one go home,
[p]And
laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
[p]Sir John and all.
Ford : Let it be so. Sir John,
[p]To Master Brook you yet shall hold your
word
[p]For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
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