Page. How to send him word, they'll meeet him in the park

At midnight! fie, fie; he will never come.

Eva. You say, he has been thrown in the rivers ; and hath been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman : methinks, there should be terrors in him, that he should not come; methinks, his flesh is punish'd, he shall have no desires.

Caius. So tink I too, by gar.

Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him hither.

Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner:

You've heard of such a spirit; and well you know, The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv'd, 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?

Mrs. 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 ? Mrs. Page. That likewise we have thought upon.Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,

And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress Like urchins, ouphes, 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 saw-pit rush at once
With some diffused song: upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness 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?

Mrs. Ford. And, till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.

Eva. 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. This will be excellent: I'll go buy them vi

zards.

Mrs. Page. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies.

Eva. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries.

Mrs. Ford. Let us about it.

Host. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short quick, snap.

Sump. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.

Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed: Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: Knock, I say.

Simp. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down: I come to speak with her, indeed.

Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robb'd; I'll call.—Bully knight! Bully Sir John! speak from thy lungs military: Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.

Fal. [Within.] How now, mine host?

Host. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarriès the coming down of thy fat woman: Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable: Fie! privacy! fie!

Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone.

Simp. 'Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford ?

Fal. Ay, marry was it, musselshell: What would you with her?

Simp. My master, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain, or no.

Fal. I spake with the old woman about it.
Simp. And what says she, I pray, sir?

Fal. Marry, she says, that the very same man, that beguil'd Master Slender of his chain, cozen'd him of it.

Simp. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoke with her too, from him.

Fal. What are they? let us know.

H

Host. Ay, come; quick.

Simp. I may not conceal them, sir.
Fal. Conceal them, or thou dy'st.

Simp. Why, sir, they are nothing but about Mistress Anne Page; to know, if it were my master's fortune to have her, orno.

Fal. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.

Simp. What, sir ?

Fal. To have her, or no : Go; say the woman told

me so.

Simp. May I be so bold to say so, sir?

Fal. Ay, Sir Tike; who more bold?

Simp. I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit SIMPLE. Host. Thou art clerk ly, thou art clerkly, Sir John: Was there a wise woman with thee?

Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning. [Bell rings. [Exit HOST.

Host. Coming-coming. Fal. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transform'd, and how my transformation hath been wash'd and cudgel'd, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with it; I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fall'n as a dry'd pear. I never prosper'd since I foreswore myself at Primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.

Enter MRS. QUICKLY, with a Letter.

Now! whence come you?

Quickly. From the two parties, forsooth.

Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestow'd! I have suffer'd more for their sakes, more, than the villainous inconstancy of man is able to bear.

Quick. And have not they suffer'd? yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

Fal. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford; but that my admirable dexterity of wit, counterfeiting the action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable had set me i'the stocks, i'the common stocks, for a witch.

Quick. Sir, let me speak, and you shall hear how things go, and I warrant to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat [FALSTAFF reads the Letter.] Good hearts, what ado is here to bring you together! sure, one of you does not serve Heaven well, that are so cross'd,

you

Fal. Pr'ythee, no more prattling :-go.-I'll hold -This is the third time: I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away.

Quick. I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can, to get you a pair of horns.

Fal. Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince.

[Exeunt.