ACT IV SCENE III A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter Host and BARDOLPH] BARDOLPH Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow 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] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV 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 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. SIR HUGH 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 tree 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. 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, 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 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, 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. SIR HUGH EVANS 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, 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 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 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. 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] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE V A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter Host 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; hell 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. FALSTAFF [Above] 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 FALSTAFF] FALSTAFF 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? FALSTAFF Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her? SIMPLE My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no. FALSTAFF I spake with the old woman about it. SIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir? FALSTAFF 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. FALSTAFF 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. FALSTAFF 'Tis, 'tis his fortune. SIMPLE What, sir? FALSTAFF To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so. SIMPLE May I be bold to say so, sir? FALSTAFF Ay, sir; like 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? FALSTAFF 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] BARDOLPH Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage! 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] SIR HUGH EVANS Where is mine host? Host What is the matter, sir? SIR HUGH EVANS Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, 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] DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is mine host de Jarteer? Host Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma. DOCTOR 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, dere is no duke dat the court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit] Host Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone! [Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH] FALSTAFF 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 crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] Now, whence come you? MISTRESS QUICKLY From the two parties, forsooth. FALSTAFF 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 villanous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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. FALSTAFF 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' the stocks, i' the 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. FALSTAFF Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE VI Another room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FENTON and Host] 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 answer'd 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. To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen; 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 deanery, 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 mask'd and vizarded, That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed, With ribands pendent, 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] ACT V SCENE I A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY] FALSTAFF Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away! MISTRESS QUICKLY I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns. FALSTAFF Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince. [Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY] [Enter FORD] How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders. FORD Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? FALSTAFF I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you: he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas 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] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V 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. SLENDER 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. SHALLOW 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] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE III A street leading to the Park. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS] MISTRESS PAGE Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the band, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park: we two must go together. DOCTOR CAIUS I know vat I have to do. Adieu. MISTRESS PAGE Fare you well, sir. [Exit DOCTOR 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. MISTRESS FORD Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh? MISTRESS 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. MISTRESS FORD That cannot choose but amaze him. MISTRESS PAGE If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. MISTRESS FORD We'll betray him finely. MISTRESS PAGE Against such lewdsters and their lechery Those that betray them do no treachery. MISTRESS FORD The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE IV Windsor Park. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies] SIR HUGH EVANS 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] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE V Another part of the Park. [Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne] FALSTAFF 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 MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS FORD Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer? FALSTAFF 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. MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. FALSTAFF 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] MISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise? MISTRESS FORD Heaven forgive our sins FALSTAFF What should this be? MISTRESS FORD | | Away, away! MISTRESS PAGE | [They run off] FALSTAFF I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL, as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and others, as Fairies, with tapers] MISTRESS QUICKLY Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. PISTOL Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. FALSTAFF 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] SIR HUGH EVANS Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy; 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. MISTRESS QUICKLY About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room: That it may stand till the perpetual doom, In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit, Worthy the owner, and the owner it. The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm and every precious flower: Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, With loyal blazon, evermore be blest! And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring: The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock, Our dance of custom round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget. SIR HUGH EVANS Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree. But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth. FALSTAFF Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! PISTOL Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. MISTRESS QUICKLY With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. PISTOL A trial, come. SIR HUGH EVANS Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers] FALSTAFF Oh, Oh, Oh! MISTRESS QUICKLY Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a bloody fire, 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 villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. [During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white; and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises] [Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD] PAGE Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? MISTRESS 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 Become the forest better than the town? FORD Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed 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. MISTRESS 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. FALSTAFF I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. FALSTAFF 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 received 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! SIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD Well said, fairy Hugh. SIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English. FALSTAFF Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. SIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter. FALSTAFF 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived 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. MISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the 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? a bag of flax? MISTRESS PAGE A puffed man? PAGE Old, cold, withered 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? SIR HUGH EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FALSTAFF 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. FORD Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, 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. MISTRESS PAGE [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. [Enter SLENDER] SLENDER Whoa ho! ho, father Page! PAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? SLENDER Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. PAGE Of what, son? SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the 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 postmaster's boy. PAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. SLENDER 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 have had him. PAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLENDER 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 postmaster's boy. MISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married. [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS] DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. MISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green? DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit] FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? PAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton. [Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE] How now, Master Fenton! ANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon! PAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender? MISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid? FENTON 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 title, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. FORD Stand not amazed; here is no remedy: In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. FALSTAFF I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. PAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced. FALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. MISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all. FORD Let it be so. Sir John, To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. [Exeunt]