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Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil [Hugh]?

Mrs. Page. They are all couch’d in a pit hard by Herne’s oak, with obscur’d lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff’s and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him.

Mrs. Page. If he be not amaz’d, he will be mock’d; if he be amaz’d, he will every way be mock’d.

Mrs. Ford.

We’ll betray him finely.

Mrs. Page.

Against such lewdsters, and their lechery,

Those that betray them do no treachery.

Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Evans [like a satyr] and [others as] fairies.

Evans. Trib, trib, fairies; come, and remember your parts. Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch-ords, do as I pid you. Come, come, trib, trib.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Falstaff [with a buck’s head upon him].

Fal. The Windsor bell hath strook twelve; the minute draws on. Now the hot-bloodied 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’ th’ forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? My doe?