The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

FALSTAFF pulls off his buck’s head, and rises Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch’d you now.

Will none but Heme 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.

FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.

FALSTAFF. 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 receiv’d 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.

EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh.

EVANS. 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.

FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross, o’erreaching as this?

Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze? ‘Tis time I were chok’d with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.

FALSTAFF. ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’! Have I liv’d 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 puff’d man?

PAGE. Old, cold, wither’d, 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?

EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh 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 cozen’d of money, to whom you should have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffer’d, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset tonight 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. [Aside] Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.

Enter SLENDER

SLENDER. Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!

PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! Have you dispatch’d’?

SLENDER. Dispatch’d! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hang’d, la, else!

PAGE. Of what, son?

SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’

th’ church, I would have swing’d him, or he should have swing’d me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!-and ‘tis a postmaster’s boy.

PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think 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?

SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried ‘mum’ and she cried ‘budget’ as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose; turn’d my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the Doctor at the dean’ry, and there married.

Enter CAIUS

CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha’

married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, 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?

FENTON. 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 I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.

Th’ 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 amaz’d; here is no remedy.

In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc’d.

PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschew’d must be embrac’d.

FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas’d.

MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days!

Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire; Sir John and all.

FORD. Let it be so. Sir John,

To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word; For he, tonight, shall lie with Mistress Ford. Exeunt THE END

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1596

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

by William Shakespeare

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THESEUS, Duke of Athens

EGEUS, father to Hermia

LYSANDER, in love with Hermia

DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia

PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus QUINCE, a carpenter

SNUG, a joiner

BOTTOM, a weaver

FLUTE, a bellows-mender

SNOUT, a tinker

STARVELING, a tailor

HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander HELENA, in love with Demetrius

OBERON, King of the Fairies

TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies

PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW

PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy

COBWEB, fairy

MOTH, fairy

MUSTARDSEED, fairy

PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by: QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG

Other Fairies attending their King and Queen Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta

<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS

PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE

WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE

DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS

PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED

COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY

SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>

SCENE:

Athens and a wood near it

ACT I. SCENE I.

Athens. The palace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS

THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, Like to a stepdame or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow Newbent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.

THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals;

The pale companion is not for our pomp. Exit PHILOSTRATE

Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS

EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!

THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what’s the news with thee?

EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke, This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchang’d love-tokens with my child; Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love, And stol’n the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats-messengers Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth; With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart; Turn’d her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke, Be it so she will not here before your Grace Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine I may dispose of her;

Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case.

THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid.

To you your father should be as a god; One that compos’d your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA. So is Lysander.

THESEUS. In himself he is;

But, in this kind, wanting your father’s voice, The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA. I would my father look’d but with my eyes.

THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold, Nor