The Merry Wives of Windsor The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] · William Shakespeare
SCENE V. _Another part of the Park._
_Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Horne._ _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 5 were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O 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 10 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 MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE._ _Mrs Ford._ Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my 15 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 shelter me here. 20 _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 fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? 25 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? 30 _Mrs Ford._} Away, away! [_They run off._ _Mrs Page._} _Fal._ I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. _Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL, as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and others, as Fairies, with tapers._ _Quick._ Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, 35 You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. _Pist._ Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. 40 Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. _Fal._ They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: 45 I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [_Lies down upon his face._
_Evans._ Where’s Bede? 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: 50 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; 55 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: 60 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: Th’ expressure that it bears, green let it be, 65 More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ write In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee: 70 Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away; disperse: but till ’tis one o’clock, Our dance of custom round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget. _Evans._ Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set; 75 And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree.-- But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.