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 bribed-buck', 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. [Strange noises within. Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise ? Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins! Fal. What should this be? Mrs. Ford. } Away, away! Mrs. Page. S [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. 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. Queen. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, 7 Divide me like a BRIBED-BUCK,] "A buck (says Theobald) sent for a bribe." The old copies read, "brib'd-buck;" and to bribe, of old, meant to steal. See Mr. Way's "Promptorium," p. 50: therefore " a brib'd-buck" may be a stolen buck. Mr. Singer, not without some appearance of accuracy, contends that " bribed-buck" may mean a buck divided into portions. 8 8 Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,] At the suggestion of the Rev. Mr. Harness, I have no difficulty in assigning this, and other speeches, to the Fairy Queen, or Anne Page, so disguised: they are quite out of character with Mrs. Quickly, to whom they have hitherto been given. The prefix in the old copies is Qu. and Qui.; but it was an easy error of the press, and much more probably so, than that such a part should have been entrusted to Mrs. Quickly.—What precedes was the note in our first edition, and it is entirely confirmed by the corr. fo. 1632, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, 9 Pist. Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys! 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 Bead1?-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; But those as sleep, and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins. Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: where all the speeches hitherto given to Mrs. Quickly are assigned to "Queen." Mr. Singer adopts the same course, but leaves it to be supposed that he was himself the author of the important emendation. That he was capable of making it, we could have believed; but we could not believe, that he would be so shortsighted as thus, by implication even, to appropriate what was notoriously the property of others. The alteration was never dreamed of till 1843. 9 Cricket, to Windsor chimneys WHEN THOU'ST LEAFT] The text has always hitherto been, "Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap ;" and nobody has suspected a decided corruption, by which, at all events, the rhyme has been lost. For the indisputable change we are indebted to the corr. fo. 1632. Mr. Singer states that he had made the correction of " leapt" for leap "long since:" we do not dispute it; but it is, we believe, å fact that it is not contained in his first edition, nor in any edition, until three years after the appearance of our Vol. of "Notes and Emendations," where it occurs on p. 39. 1 Where's BEAD?] Spelt Bede in the folios, and Pead in the 4tos. Probably the name was chosen to indicate the smallness of the fairy: Malone gave the name Pede, without assigning any reason. There is no such name among those of the fairies in "The Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow," printed by the Percy Society, from the unique edition of 1628, at Bridgewater House, where they are thus enumerated :— "Pinch and Patch, Gull and Grim * * * Sib and Tib, Lick and Lull."-p. 38. "Bead" is spelt Pead in the 4tos, perhaps to indicate Sir Hugh's mispronunciation; but there is no other specimen of his Welsh dialect in this particular part of the comedy. In state as wholesome, as in state 'tis fit; In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; 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 Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'er-look'd', even in thy birth. Queen. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: 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. Fal. Oh, oh, oh! Come, will this wood take fire? Queen. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! 2 I smell a man of MIDDLE EARTH.] The globe was frequently called "middle earth" by Gower, Gawin Douglas, and subsequent writers. When Falstaff just afterwards prays to be defended from "that Welsh fairy," he must have formed his judgment from the tone of Sir Hugh's voice, or from mispronunciation not indicated in the old folios. 3 thou wast O'ER-LOOK'D,] Steevens here incautiously informs us that "o'er-look'd is slighted;" but see Vol. ii. p. 306, where it is shown that it means enchanted or bewitched. 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 6. 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. 6 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. |
