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,1 and snow eringoes; ? let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

4

Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck,3 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!

Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise?

Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!

Fal. What should this be?

[noise within.

[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.

'Sugar plums.

2 Sea-holly.

3 A buck sent for a bribe.

The shoulders of deer were formerly claimed by keepers

as a perquisite.

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.

Mrs. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,1 Attend your office, and your quality.2

Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.3

Pis. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths un

swept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry : 4

Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery.

Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them, shall die:

I'll wink and couch. No man their works must eye. [lies down on his face.

Evans. Where's Pede ?-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;

1 'Orphans in respect of your real parents, and now dependent only on Destiny herself.'-Farmer.

2 Companions.

3 The usual proclamation.

A sweet shrub, called a whortleberry.

But those as sleep, and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and

shins.

Mrs. Quick. About, about;

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes,1 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 bless'd!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure 2 that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And Hony soit qui mal y pense, write,

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white;
Like 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.

}

Evans. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set :

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,

Sinirke del

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Sir John Falstaff, M Ford, M Page, Sir Hugh Evans, Fenton, Anne Page &o.

Act V. Scene V