Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 100 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

4.1 Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Quickly, and William Page

MISTRESS PAGE Is he at Mistress Ford’s already, thinkest thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLY Sure he is by this, or will be presently. But truly he is very courageous-mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.

MISTRESS PAGE I’ll be with her by and by. I’ll but bring my young man here to school.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans

Look where his master comes. ’Tis a playing day, I see.—How now, Sir Hugh, no school today?

EVANS No, Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart!

MISTRESS PAGE Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you ask him some questions in his accidence.

EVANS Come hither, William. Hold up your head. Come.

MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah. Hold up your head.

Answer your master; be not afraid.

EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM TWO.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say ‘’Od’s nouns’.

EVANS Peace your tattlings!—What is ‘fair’, William?

WILLIAM ‘Pulcher’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats? There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

EVANS You are a very simplicity ‘oman. I pray you peace.—What is ‘lapis’, William?

WILLIAM A stone.

EVANS And what is ‘a stone’, William?

WILLIAM A pebble.

EVANS No, it is ‘lapis’. I pray you remember in your prain.

WILLIAM ‘Lapis’.

EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?

WILLIAM Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined. Singulariter nominativo: ‘hic, haec, hoc’.

EVANS Nominativo: ‘hig, hag, hog’. Pray you mark: genitivo: ‘huius’. Well, what is your accusative case?

WILLIAM Accusativo: ‘hinc’—

EVANS I pray you have your remembrance, child.

Accusativo: ‘hing, hang, hog’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY ’Hang-hog’ is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

EVANS Leave your prabbles, ’oman!—What is the focative case, William?

WILLIAM O—vocativo, O—

EVANS Remember, William, focative is caret.

MISTRESS QUICKLY And that’s a good root.

EVANS ’Oman, forbear.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Mistress Quickly) Peace.

EVANS What is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM Genitive case?

EVANS Ay.

WILLIAM Genitivo: ‘horum, harum, horum’.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Vengeance of Jenny’s case! Fie on her!

Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

EVANS For shame, ’oman!

MISTRESS QUICKLY You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘whorum’. Fie upon you!

EVANS ’Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Mistress Quickly) Prithee, hold thy peace.

EVANS Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

WILLIAM Forsooth, I have forgot.

EVANS It is ‘qui, que, quod’. If you forget your ‘qui’s, your ‘que‘s, and your ‘quod’s, you must be preeches. Go your ways and play; go.

MISTRESS PAGE He is a better scholar than I thought he was.

EVANS He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

MISTRESS PAGE Adieu, good Sir Hugh. Exit Evans

Get you home, boy. Exit William

(To Mistress Quickly) Come, we stay too long. Exeunt

4.2 Enter Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Ford

SIR JOHN Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth: not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MISTRESS FORD He’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGE (within) What ho, gossip Ford, what ho!

MISTRESS FORD Step into th’ chamber, Sir John.

Sir John steps into the chamber

Enter Mistress Page

MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides yourself?

MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people.

MISTRESS PAGE Indeed?

MISTRESS FORD No, certainly. (Aside to her) Speak louder.

MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MISTRESS FORD Why?

MISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old lines again. He so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion soever, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying ‘Peer out, peer out!’, that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him?

MISTRESS PAGE Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket, protests to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport to make another experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here. Now he shall see his own foolery.

MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGE Hard by at street end. He will be here anon. 35

MISTRESS FORD I am undone: the knight is here.

MISTRESS PAGE Why then, you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him, away with him! Better shame than murder.

MISTRESS FORD Which way should he go? How should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Sir John comes forth from the chamber

SIR JOHN No, I’ll come no more i’th’ basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out. Otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

SIR JOHN What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.

⌈MISTRESS PAGE⌉ Creep into the kiln-hole.

SIR JOHN Where is it?

MISTRESS FORD He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house.

SIR JOHN I’ll go out, then.

MISTRESS ⌈PAGE⌉ If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John—unless you go out disguised.

MISTRESS FORD How might we disguise him?

MISTRESS PAGE Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman’s gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.

SIR JOHN Good hearts, devise something. Any extremity rather than a mischief.

MISTRESS FORD My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he is; and there’s her thrummed hat, and her muffler too.—Run up, Sir John.

MISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and

I will look some linen for your head.

MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! We’ll come dress you straight. Put on the gown the while. Exit Sir John

MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him in this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford. He swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

MISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming?

MISTRESS PAGE Ay, in good sadness is he, and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

MISTRESS FORD We’ll try that, for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they did last time.

MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.

MISTRESS FORD I’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I’ll bring linen for him straight.

MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet ! We cannot misuse him enough. ⌈Exit Mistress Ford⌉

We’ll leave a proof by that which we will do,

Wives may be merry, and yet honest, too.

We do not act that often jest and laugh.

’Tis old but true: ’Still swine eats all the draff’. Exit

Enter ⌈Mistress Ford, with⌉ John and Robert

MISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders. Your master is hard at door. If he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch! Exit

⌈JOHN⌉ Come, come, take it up.

⌈ROBERT⌉ Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.

⌈JOHN⌉ I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

They lift the basket.

Enter Master Ford, Master Page, Doctor Caius, Sir

Hugh Evans, and Justice Shallow

FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? (To John and Robert) Set down the basket, villains.

John and Robert set down the basket

Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! ! O, you panderly rascals! There’s a knot, a gang, a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed.—What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching.

PAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford. You are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

EVANS Why, this is lunatics; this is mad as a mad dog.

SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.

FORD So say I too, sir.

Enter Mistress Ford

Come hither, Mistress Ford ! Mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

MISTRESS FORD God be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

FORD Well said, brazen-face; hold it out.

He opens the basket and starts to take out clothes

Come forth, sirrah!

PAGE This passes.

MISTRESS FORD (to Ford) Are you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORD I shall find you anon.

EVANS ’Tis unreasonable: will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come, away.

FORD ⌈to John and Robert⌉ Empty the basket, I say.

⌈PAGE⌉ Why, man, why?

FORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is. My intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable. ⌈To John and Robert⌉ Pluck me out all the linen.

He takes out clothes

MISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.

PAGE Here’s no man.

SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford.

This wrongs you.

EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.

FORD Well, he’s not here I seek for.

PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

FORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, ‘As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman’. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. ⌈Exeunt⌉ John and Robert with the basket⌉

MISTRESS FORD What ho, Mistress Page! Come you and the old woman down. My husband will come into the chamber.

FORD Old woman? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORD Why, it is my maid’s Aunt of Brentford.

FORD A witch, a quean, an old, cozening quean! ! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’ figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing.—Come down, you witch, you hag, you ! Come down, I say!

⌈Enter Mistress Page, and Sir John Falstaff,

disguised as an old woman.⌉

⌈Ford makes towards them⌉

MISTRESS FORD Nay, good sweet husband!—Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

MISTRESS PAGE (to Sir John) Come, Mother Prat. Come, give me your hand.

FORD I’ll prat her!

He beats Sir John

Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion! Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you! Exit Sir John

MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it.—’Tis a goodly credit for you!

FORD Hang her, witch!

EVANS By Jeshu, I think the ‘oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under his muffler.

FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. See but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

PAGE Let’s obey his humour a little further. Come, gentlemen. Exeunt the men

MISTRESS PAGE By my troth, he beat him most pitifully.

MISTRESS FORD Nay, by th’ mass, that he did not—he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

MISTRESS PAGE I’ll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious service.

MISTRESS FORD What think you—may we, with the warrant 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

4.3 Enter the Host of the Garter 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

4.4 Enter Master Page, Master Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans

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

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 ’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.

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 winter time at still midnight

Walk round about an oak with great ragg’d horns;

And there he blasts the trees, 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,

Disguised 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, oafs, 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 amazèdness 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 supposed 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 practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.

EVANS I will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a jackanapes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

FORD

That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizors.

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 tire

Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,

And marry her at Eton. (To Mistress Page) Go send to

Falstaff straight.

FORD

Nay, I’ll to him again in name of Brooke.

He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure he’ll come.

MISTRESS PAGE

Fear not you that. (To Page, Ford, and Evans) Go get us

properties

And tricking for our fairies.

EVANS Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. Exeunt Ford, Page, and 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 moneyed, and his friends

Potent at court. He, none but he, shall have her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

Exit

4.5 Enter the Host of the Garter and Simple

HOST What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin? Speak, breathe, discuss. Brief, short, quick, snap.

SIMPLE 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. ’Tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go knock and call. He’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.

SIMPLE 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 robbed. I’ll call.—Bully knight, bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military! Art thou there? It is thine Host, thine Ephesian, calls.

SIR JOHN (within) How now, mine Host?

HOST Here’s a Bohemian Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend. My chambers are honourable. Fie, privacy! Fie!

Enter Sir John Falstaff

SIR JOHN There was, mine Host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she’s gone.

SIMPLE Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of Brentford?

SIR JOHN Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you with her?

SIMPLE My master, sir, my master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nim, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no.

SIR JOHN I spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir?

SIR JOHN Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it.

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

SIR JOHN What are they? Let us know.

HOST Ay, come, quick.

⌈SIMPLE⌉ I may not conceal them, sir.

HOST Conceal them, or thou diest.

SIMPLE Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page, to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.

SIR JOHN ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.

SIMPLE What, sir?

SIR JOHN To have her or no. Go say the woman told me SO.

SIMPLE May I be bold to say so, sir?

SIR JOHN Ay, Sir Tike; who more bold?

SIMPLE I thank your worship. I shall make my master glad with these tidings. Exit

HOST Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?

SIR JOHN Ay, that there was, mine Host, one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life. And I paid nothing for it, neither, but was paid for my learning.

Enter Bardolph, ⌈muddy⌉

BARDOLPH O Lord, sir, cozenage, mere cozenagel

HOST Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.

BARDOLPH Run away with the cozeners. For so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire, and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.

HOST They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain. Do not say they be fled. Germans are honest men.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans

EVANS Where is mine Host?

HOST What is the matter, sir?

EVANS Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen Garmombles that has cozened all the hosts of Reading, of Maidenhead, of Colnbrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you. You are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.

Exit

Enter Doctor Caius

CAIUS Vere is mine Host de Jarteer?

HOST Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

CAIUS I cannot tell vat is dat, but it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany. By my trot, der is no duke that the court is know to come. I tell you for good will. Adieu. Exit

HOST (to Bardolph) Hue and cry, villain, go! (To Sir John) Assist me, knight. I am undone. (To Bardolph) Fly, run, hue and cry, villain. I am undone.

Exeunt Host and Bardolph ⌈severally⌉

SIR JOHN I would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened, and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough, I would repent.

Enter Mistress Quickly

Now; whence come you?

MISTRESS QUICKLY From the two parties, forsooth.

SIR JOHN The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.

MISTRESS QUICKLY O Lord, sir, and have not they suffered? 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.

SIR JOHN What tellest 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, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i‘th’ stocks, i’th’ common stocks, for a witch.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber. You shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.

SIR JOHN Come up into my chamber. Exeunt 4.6 Enter Master Fenton and the Host of the Garter HOST Master Fenton, talk not to me. My mind is heavy.

I will give over all.

FENTON

Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,

And, as I am a gentleman, I’ll give thee

A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

HOST I will hear you, Master Fenton, and I will at the least keep your counsel.

FENTON

From time to time I have acquainted you

With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page,

Who mutually hath answered my affection,

So far forth as herself might be her chooser,

Even to my wish. I have a letter from her

Of such contents as you will wonder at,

The mirth whereof so larded with my matter

That neither singly can be manifested

Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff

Hath a great scene. The image of the jest

I’ll show you here at large. Hark, good mine Host.

Tonight at Herne’s Oak, just ‘twixt twelve and one,

Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen—

⌈Showing the letter⌉

The purpose why is here—in which disguise,

While other jests are something rank on foot,

Her father hath commanded her to slip

Away with Slender, and with him at Eton

Immediately to marry. She hath consented.

Now, sir, her mother, ever strong against that match

And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed

That he shall likewise shuffle her away,

While other sports are tasking of their minds,

And at the dean’ry, where a priest attends,

Straight marry her. To this her mother’s plot

She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath

Made promise to the Doctor. Now, thus it rests.

Her father means she shall be all in white;

And in that habit, when Slender sees his time

To take her by the hand and bid her go,

She shall go with him. Her mother hath intended,

The better to denote her to the Doctor—

For they must all be masked and visored—

That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed,

With ribbons pendant flaring ’bout her head;

And when the Doctor spies his vantage ripe,

To pinch her by the hand, and on that token

The maid hath given consent to go with him.

HOST

Which means she to deceive, father or mother?

FENTON

Both, my good Host, to go along with me.

And here it rests: that you’ll procure the vicar

To stay for me at church ’twixt twelve and one,

And, in the lawful name of marrying,

To give our hearts united ceremony.

HOST

Well, husband your device. I’ll to the vicar.

Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

FENTON

So shall I evermore be bound to thee.

Besides, I’ll make a present recompense.

Exeunt ⌈severally⌉