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; — 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 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 ruttime, 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 shelter me here. [Embracing her. 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 1? 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! Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise? Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins! Fal. What should this be? Mrs. Ford. Mrs. Page. } Away, away. [Noise within. [They run off. 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, 9 my shoulders for the fellow of this walk,] A walk is that district in a forest, to which the jurisdiction of a particular keeper extends. To the keeper the shoulders and humbles belong as a perquisite. 1 a woodman? A woodman was an attendant on the officer, called forrester. It is here, however, used in a wanton sense, for one who chooses female game as the objects of his pursuit. 2 You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,] Dr. Warburton corrects Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery. 3 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. and where Eva. Where's Pede?· Go you, a maid, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, 4 Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; But those as sleep, and think not on their sins, you find Pinch them, arms, legs, back, shoulders, sides, and shins. Quick. About, about; Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in respect of their real parents, and now only dependent on destiny herself. FARMER. 3 4 as bilberry :] The bilberry is the whortleberry. - Raise up the organs of her fantasy,] Mr. Malone supposes the sense of the passage, collectively taken, to be as follows:"Go you, and wherever you find a maid asleep, that hath thrice prayed to the Deity, though, in consequence of her innocence, she sleep as soundly as an infant, elevate her fancy, and amuse her tranquil mind with some delightful vision; but those whom you find asleep, without having previously thought on their sins, and prayed to heaven for forgiveness, pinch, &c." The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm, and every precious flower: In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; } Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set: And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. 7 Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: 5 letters. 6 charactery.] For the matter with which they make of middle earth.] Earth, or world, from its imaginary situation in the midst, or middle of the Ptolemaic system. 7 born. o'er-look'd even in thy birth.] i.e. slighted as soon as Eva. Come, will this wood take fire? Fal. Oh, oh, oh! [They burn him with their tapers. 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. Fye on sinful fantasy! Fye 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 for his villainy ; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, During this Song, the Fairies pinch Falstaff. Doctor 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 : |