TPTT The Merry Wives of Windsor: ACT IV
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
SCENE I. A street.
SCENE II. A room in FORD'S house.
SCENE III. A room in the Garter Inn.
SCENE IV. A room in FORD'S house.
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn.
SCENE VI. Another room in the Garter Inn.
ACT V
About the Play
Feedback
  Search:   
for:

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More
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
5     Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
      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
10    '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,
15    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
20    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
25    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,
30    Doth all the winter-time, 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:
35    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
40    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.
PAGE
      Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
45    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
50    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 sawpit rush at once
55    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,
60    In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
      In shape profane.
MISTRESS FORD
      And till he tell the truth,
      Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
      And burn him with their tapers.
MISTRESS PAGE
65    The truth being known,
      We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
      And mock him home to Windsor.
FORD
      The children must
      Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.
SIR HUGH EVANS
70    I will teach the children their behaviors; 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 and buy them vizards.
MISTRESS PAGE
      My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
75    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
80    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
85    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.
90    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 court: he, none but he, shall have her,
      Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
Exit
Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene