ACT V PIST. A trial, come.
Sc. V

EVANS.

FAL. O! O! O!

QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, Fairies: sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.

SONG.

Fye on sinful fantasy!
Fye on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,1

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, Fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villainy ;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out. 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 MISTRESS ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is made within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises.

1 fire of the blood.

90

Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD.
They lay hold on him.

PAGE. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd2 you

now;

Will none but Herne the Hunter serve your turn?
MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come: hold up the jest no

higher.

3

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes 3
Become the Forest better than the Town?
FORD. Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now ?-Master Brook,
Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldy knave; here are his

3 horns.

2

as a deer in harbour.

100

108

horns, Master Brook. And, Master Brook, he hath
enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his
cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be
paid to Master Brook: his horses are arrested for it,
Master Brook.

MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck, we could
never meet. I will never take you for my love again,
but I will always count you my deer.

FAL. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD. Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. 120
FAL. And these are not Fairies? I was three or four

times in the thought they were not Fairies: and yet
the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my
powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd
belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason,
that they were Fairies. See now, how wit may be made
a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment!
EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
desires, and Fairies will not pinse you.

FORD. Well said, Fairy Hugh.

EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art
able to woo her in good English.

FAL. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that
it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as
this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I
have a coxcomb1 of frize? "Tis time I were chok'd
with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter: your pelly is all
putter.

140

FAL. Seese and putter! Have I liv'd to stand at the
taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is
enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through
the realm.

MRS. PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we
would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head
and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple
to Hell, that ever the Devil could have made you our
delight?

FORD. What, a hodge-pudding?2 a bag of flax?

1 fool's cap.

2 medley, haggis.

I: GG

130

217

150

ACT V

Sc. V

MRS. PAGE. A puff'd man?

PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, 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?

EVANS. And given to fornications and to taverns, and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

FAL. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will.

162

FORD. Marry, Sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one
Master Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to
whom you should have been a pander: over and above
that you have suffer'd, I think to repay that money
will be a biting affliction.

PAGE. Yet be cheerful, Knight: thou shalt eat a posset
to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh
at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, Master
Slender hath married her daughter.
MRS. PAGE. Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my
daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
[aside.

171

Enter SLENDER.

SLEN. Whoo! ho! ho! father Page.

PAGE. Son! how now? how now, son? have you dispatch'd?

SLEN. Dispatch'd!-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on 't; would I were hang'd, la, else!

PAGE. Of what, son?

179

SLEN. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne

Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' th' church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

PAGE. Upon my life then you took the wrong.

SLEN. What need you tell me that? I think so, when
I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to

him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not ACT V
have had him.
Sc. V

190

PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you,

how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLEN. I went to her in white, and cried mum, and she cried budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy.

MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the Doctor at the Deanery, and there married.

Enter CAIUS.

CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozen'd: I
ha' married oon garsoon, a boy; oon pesant, by gar, a
boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozen'd.
MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy; by gar, I'll raise all
Windsor.
[Exit CAIUS.
FORD. This is strange! Who hath got the right Anne?
PAGE. My heart misgives me. Here comes Master
Fenton.

Enter FENTON and ANNE Page.

199

How now, Master Fenton ?

ANNE. Pardon, good father! Good my mother, pardon!
PAGE. Now, Mistress? how chance you went not with
Master Slender?

209

MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

FENT. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed:
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous guile;
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious, cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon

her.

220

ACT V
Sc. V

FORD. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy!

In love, the Heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FAL. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand1 to
strike2 at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.

PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, Heaven give thee
joy!

230

What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac❜d.
FAL. When night-dogs3 run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.
EVANS. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding.
MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further.

Fenton,

Master

240

[exeunt.

3 poachers' hounds.