SCENE IV. A room in FORD'S house. The Merry Wives of Windsor  Shakespeare homepage  |  Merry Wives of Windsor  | Act 4, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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. 



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