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;-0, 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 1? 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 2, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. 1 This technical. 'During the time of their rut the harts live with small sustenance. The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pysse their greace they are then in so vehement heat. Turberville's Book of Hunting 1575. 2 The sweet potato was used in England as a delicacy long before the introduction of the common potato by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1586. It was imported in considerable quantities from Spain and the Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring decayed vigour. The kissing-comfits were principally made of these aud eringo roots, and were perfumed to make the breath sweet. Gerarde attributes the same virtues to the common potato which he distinguishes as the Virginian sort. Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck3, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow 4 of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman 5? 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! 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. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office, and your quality 7.-- Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, Bi. e. like a buck sent as a bribe. The keeper. The shoulders of the buck were among his perquisites. 5 The woodman was an attendant on the forester. It is here however used in a wanton sense, for one who chooses female game for the object of his pursuit. 6 The old copy reads orphan - heirs. Warburton reads ouphen, and not without plausibility; ouphes being mentioned before and afterward. Malone thinks it means mortals by birth, but adopted. by the fairies: orphans in respect of their real parents, and now only dependent on destiny herself. 7 Profession. There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy 8, 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. Quick. About, about; Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; 8 i. e. elevate her fancy, and amus e her tranquil mind with some delightful vision, though she sleep as soundly as an infant. 9 It was an article of ancient luxury to rub tables, &c. with aromatic herbs. So, in the Baucis and Philemon of Ovid, Met. viii. mensam aequatam Mentha abstersere virenti. Pliny informs us that the Romans did so to drive away evil spirits. 10 Charactery, is a writing by characters, or by strange marks." Bullokar's English Expositor, 12mo, 1656. Away; disperse: But, 'till 'tis one o'clock, And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd 12 even in thy birth. Quick. With trial fire touch me his fingerend: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend, Pist. A trial, come. Eva. Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers.' Fal. Oh, oh, oh! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him fairies; sing a scornful rhyme: And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and iniquity. SONG. Fye on sinful fantasy! Kindled with unchaste desire, 11 By this term is merely meant a mortal man, in contradistinotion to a spirit of the earth or of the air, such as a fairy or gnome. It was in use in the north of Scotland a century since, and appears borrowed from the Saxon Middan Eard. 12 By o'er-looked is here meant bewitched by an evil eye, the word is used in that sense in Glanvilli Sadducismi Triumphatus, p. 95. Steevens erroneously interprets it 'Slighted as soon as born. See note on the Merchant of Venice, Act iii, Sc. 2. "Beshrew your eyes, They have o'er-looked me- Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him for his villany; 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; another way, and takes off a fairy in and Fenton comes, and steals Fal away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. staff pulls off his buck's head, and rises. Enter PAGE, FORD, MRS. PAGE, and MRS. FORD. They lay hold on him. Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd you now; Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher:- Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes 13 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 horns, master Brook; And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buckbasket, 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, 13 The extremities of yokes for oxen, as still used in several counties of England, bend upwards, and rising very high, in shape resemble horns. In Cotgrave's Dictionary, voce JOUELLES, we have Arched or yoked vines; vines so under propped or fashioned that one may go under the middle of them. See also Hutton's Latin, Greek, and English Lexicon, 1585, in voce JUGUM; 'a thing made with forkes, like a gallowes, a frame whereon vines are joyned.” VOL. I. 12 |