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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 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, I will shelter me here. Embracing her. Mrs Ford. Mistress Page is come with me,

sweetheart.

Fal. 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 to 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.

Mrs Page. Alas! what noise?
Mrs Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!
Fal. What should this be?

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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.Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes. 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,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
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 upon his face.

Eva. 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,

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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, Hony soit qui mal y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers, purple, blue, and
white;

Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knight-hood'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.

Eva. 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.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'er-look'd even in thy birth.

Quick. With trial-fire touch me his fingerend:

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.

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.

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Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs PAGE, and Mrs FORD. They lay hold of 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 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!

Éva. 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

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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 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?

Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Eva. 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 Welch 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.

Mrs Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends:

Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends. Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last.

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.

Mrs Page. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor_Caius' wife. [Aside.

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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 cry'd mum, and she cry'd budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

Era. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys?

Page. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I do?

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 CAIUS.

I am

Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, 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, be gar, and 'tis a boy: be 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 1, 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

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| That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soever,
But falls into abatement and low price,

Duke. If musick be the food of love, play on, Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,

Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,

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That it alone is high-fantastical.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?

Duke. What, Curio?

Cur. The hart.

Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought, she purged the air of pestilence; That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me.-How now? what news from her?

Enter VALENTINE.

Cap. A noble duke, in nature, As in his name.

Vio. What is his name?

Cap. Orsino.

Vio. Orsino! I have heard my father name him:

Val. So please my lord, I might not be ad- He was a bachelor then.

mitted,

But from her handmaid do return this answer:
The element itself, till seven years heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a-day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this, to season
A brother's dead love, which she would keep
fresh,

And lasting, in her sad remembrance.

Duke. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame,

To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and
fill'd

(Her sweet perfections) with one self king !—
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers;
Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with
bowers.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Sea-coast. Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors. Vio. What country, friends, is this? Cap. Illyria, lady.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium.

Perchance he is not drown'd:-What think you, sailors?

Cap. It is perchance, that you yourself were saved.

Vio. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, may he be.

Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
When you, and that poor number saved with

you,

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)

To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

Vio. For saying so, there's gold:
Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
Cap. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and

born

Not three hours travel from this very place. Vio. Who governs here?

Cap. And so is now,

Or was so very late: for but a month

Ago I went from hence; and then 'twas fresh
In murmur, (as, you know, what great ones do,
The less will prattle of,) that he did seek
The love of fair Olivia.

Vio. What's she?

Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count, That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother,
Who shortly also died: for whose dear love,
They say, she hath abjured the company
And sight of men.

Vio. O, that I served that lady:
And might not be delivered to the world
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is.

Cap. That were hard to compass;
Because she will admit no kind of suit,
No, not the duke's.

Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe, thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
I pray thee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as, haply, shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke;
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him,
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of musick,
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap, to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be: When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see! Vio. I thank thee: Lead me on. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-A room in Olivia's house.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, and MARIA. Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure, care's an enemy to life.

Mar. By my troth, sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted. Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an' they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

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