About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time'. SONG, by one. 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. CHORUS. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy ; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine be out. During this song, the fairies pinch FALSTAFF: Doctor CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green: SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF 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? - still pinch him to your time.] After this line Malone, and others before him, added the following, assigned to Evans in the 4tos. "It is right, indeed, he is full of lecheries and iniquity." It is to be observed that in the 4tos. the Welsh dialect of Sir Hugh is preserved, and from what Falstaff says, it ought to have been so in the folios. The whole scene varies considerably in the 4tos. 5 Fie on sinful fantasy!] Robert Greene, in his "Groatsworth of Wit," 1592, (where he calls Shakespeare "the only Shake-scene in a country") has a song beginning, "Fie, fie on blind fancy!" Sign. C b, edit. 1617. Chorus.] The corr. fo. 1632 informs us that the first six lines were sung by a single voice, and that the four last lines formed the "Chorus." Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rises.] Theobald states that he inserted this stage-direction from the 4tos: he ought to have added that he corrected and varied it in the 4to, 1602, it runs in the-e words,-" Here they pinch him and sing about him, and the Doctor comes one way, and steals away a boy in red; and Slender another way, he takes a boy in green; and Fenton steals Mistress Anne, being in white. And a noise of hunting is made within, and all the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rises up." 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 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. 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. Fal. I do begin to perceive, that I am made an ass. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. Fal. 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! Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh. Eva. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you. Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching 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. Eva. Seese is not good to give putter: your pelly is all putter. Fal. 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. Mrs. Page. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would 8-a coxcomb of FRIZE?] i. e. A fool's cap (says Steevens) made out of Welsh materials: Wales was famous for frize. In the Prompt. Parvul. "fryze or fryzed cloth" is called pannus villatus: Way's edit. for the Camden Society, 1843, p. 179. See also Vol. iii. p. 568. have thrust 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? Mrs. Page. A puffed man? Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails? Page. And as poor as Job? Ford. And as wicked as his wife? Era. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? Fal. 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 tonight 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. Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. Enter SLENDER, crying. Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! [Aside. Page. Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? Slen. Dispatched!-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son? 64 • What, a HODGE-pudding?] We do not venture to alter the old copy here, but the corr. fo. 1632 instructs us to read " hog-pudding" instead of " hodgepudding." "Hodge-pudding" is not in our day very intelligible, but a hogspudding in the provinces is made of the entrails, stuffed with flour, spice, and other savoury materials. to repay that money will be a biting affliction.] Here the 4tos. add what may be worth giving in a note : "Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends: Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here is my hand: all's forgiven at last. Fal. It hath cost me well: I have been well pinch'd, and wash'd." Slen. 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 post-master's boy. Page. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. Slen. 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? Slen. 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 post-master's boy. Mrs. 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. Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy: it is not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened. Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CAIUS 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. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon! Page. Now, mistress; how chance you went not with master Slender? Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid? Fent. 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. 2 in WHITE,] The folios read, "in green;" and in the two subsequent speeches of Mrs. Page, instead of green we find "white." The corrections, which are fully justified by what has preceded, were made by Pope. The offence is holy that she hath committed; Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. Fal. 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 embrac'd. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd. Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no farther.-Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days. Good husband, let us every one go home, Ford. Let it be so.-Sir John, To master Brook you yet shall hold your word; [Exeunt. 3 Of disobedience, or unduteous GUILE,] "Guile" is title in all the folios, and we find "guile" substituted in the corr. fo. 1632. Mr. Singer could not resist this emendation, and he very becomingly confesses from whence he obtained it. - a special stand to strike at me,] To take a stand, for the pupose of killing deer, was a technical expression of the chase. See the opening of A. iv. sc. 1, of "Love's Labour's Lost," Vol. ii. p. 123: the Princess there asks, "Where is the bush Where we must stand to play the murderer in?" and the Forester answers, 66 Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may take the fairest shoot." Many other authorities might be, and have been, quoted on the same point; but one is sufficient, especially when Shakespeare is his own illustrator. For he, to-night, shall lie with mistress Ford.] In the 4to. Ford ends a longer speech with the same point : "All parties pleased, now let us in to feast, And laugh at Slender, and the Doctor's jeast. To waite upon you; so, God give you joy : For Brooke this night shall lye with mistris Ford." Of course for "now shal keep your word we must read " you shal keep your word," the blunder having arisen from the fact that "you," of old, was often written and printed yow. VOL. I. S |