William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT IV. SCENE 4. A room in FORD'S house. (continued)

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?

MRS. FORD.
Marry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguis'd, like Herne, with huge horns on his head.

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?

MRS. 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, ouphs, 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.

MRS. FORD.
And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
And burn him with their tapers.

MRS. 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 practis'd well to this or they'll ne'er do 't.

EVANS.
I will teach the children their behaviours; 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 buy them vizards.

MRS. 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.