The Windsor bell hath struck twelve, the minute draws on. Now the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love, that in some respects, makes a beast a man, in some other a man a beast! You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love, how near the god 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?

Sir John? Art thou there, my deer, my male deer?

My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of “Greensleeves”, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

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!

Alas, what noise?

Heaven forgive our sins!

What should this be?

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked even in thy birth.

A trial, come.

Come, will this wood take fire?

O, o, o!

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.

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.

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

Ay, and an ox too. Both the proofs are extant.

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!

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

Well said, fairy Hugh.

And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

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 cox-comb of frieze? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

Seese is not good to give putter. Your belly is all putter.

“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.

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?

What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax?

A puffed man?

Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

And as poor as Job?

And as wicked as his wife?

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

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.

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.

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.

[Aside.] Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.

Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!

Son, how now! How now, son, have you dispatched?

Dispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t. Would I were hanged, la, else!

Of what, son?

I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! And ’tis a postmaster’s boy.

Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

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.

Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

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.

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.

Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened, I ha’ married un garçon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy. It is not Anne Page. By gar, I am cozened.

Why, did you take her in green?

Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy. By gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.

This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

My heart misgives me. Here comes Master Fenton.—How now, Master Fenton!

Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.

Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

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

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.