The Merry Wives of Windsor

of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? Mistress Page The spirit of wantonness is sure scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. Mistress Ford Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? Mistress Page Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. Mistress Ford I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed. Mistress Page Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I would not have things cool. Exeunt.

Scene III

A room in the Garter Inn.

	Enter Host and Bardolph.
Bardolph	Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the Duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.
Host	What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?
Bardolph	Ay, sir; I’ll call them to you.
Host	They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them; they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests. They must come off; I’ll sauce them. Come.
	Exeunt.

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	Kneeling. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;
Page	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 wintertime, 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, Disguis’d, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
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, ouphs, 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 diffuséd song; upon their sight We two in great amazédness 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 supposéd 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 practis’d well to this or they’ll ne’er do’t.
Sir Hugh Evans	I will teach the children their behaviours; 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 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	To Page. 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