was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, master Brook: follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Windsor Park. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Page. Come, come: we'll couch i' the castle-ditch, till we see the light of our fairies.-Remember, son Slender, my daughter'. Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry, "mum;" she cries, "budget"," and by that we know one another. Shal. That's good too: but what needs either your "mum," or her "budget?" the white will decipher her well enough.-It hath struck ten o'clock. Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me. [Exeunt. 5 Remember, son Slender, my DAUGHTER.] "Daughter," is from the folio, 1632, the word, perhaps, having accidentally dropped out in the folio, 1623. It is clearly necessary, as is shown by the context; "Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her," &c. and cry "mum;" she cries "budget,"] This seems to have been an ordinary "nay-word." In "Ulysses upon Ajax," 1596, we have "Mum, budget; not a word." SCENE III. The Street in Windsor. Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. CAIUS. Mrs. Page. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the park: we two must go together. Caius. I know vat I have to do. Adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding, than a great deal of heart-break. Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welch devil, Hugh'? Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night. Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely. Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery, Those that betray them do no treachery. Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on: to the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt. 7 — and the Welch devil, HUGH?] It stood Herne until the time of Theobald, but "Hugh" is certainly right. Sir Hugh had undertaken to perform a principal part in the conspiracy against Falstaff. The error, no doubt, arose from Hugh" having been indicated in the old MS. by the initial letter, which the compositor erroneously applied to Herne. 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 rut-time, 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? 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. [Noise within. Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise? Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins! Fal. What should this be? Mrs. Ford. Mrs. Page.} Away, away! [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. Queen. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, 8 Divide me like a BRIBE-BUCK,] "A buck (says Theobald) sent for a bribe." The old copies read, brib’d-buck; and to "bribe," of old, meant to steal. See Mr. Way's "Promptorium," p. 50: therefore "a brib'd-buck" may be a stolen buck. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,] At the suggestion of the Rev. Mr. Harness, I have no difficulty in assigning this, and other speeches, to the Fairy Queen, or Anne Page, so disguised: they are quite out of character with Mrs. Quickly, to whom they have hitherto been given. The prefix in the old copies is Qu. and Qui., but it was an easy error of the press, and much more probably so, than that such a part should have been entrusted to Mrs. Quickly. Attend your office, and your quality.- Pist. Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys! Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery. 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. Eva. Where's Bead 10?-Go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; But those as sleep, and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins. Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: 10 Where's BEAD!] Spelt Bede in the folios, and Pead in the quartos. Probably the name was chosen to indicate the smallness of the fairy. Malone printed the name Pede, without assigning any reason. There is no such name among those of the fairies in “The Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow," printed by the Percy Society, from the unique edition of 1628, at Bridgewater House, where they are thus enumerated: "Pinch and Patch, Gull and Grim Sib and Tib, Lick and Lull." p. 38. |