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 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 puffed man?

Page. Old, cold, withered, 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?

Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sacks, and wines, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles ?

Fal. 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 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.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends:

Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends.

Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last.

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. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. [Aside.

Enter SLENDER.

Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page.

Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched? Slen. Despatched-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.

Page. Of what, son?

Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page

A fool's cap of Welsh materials.

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 Í did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

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

Slen. 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 ?

Slen. 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 post-master's boy.

Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry poys? Page. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I do?

Mrs. Page. 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.

Enter CAIUS.

Caius. Vere is mistress Page? by gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

Mrs. Page. Why, did you not 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?
Fent. 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.
The offence is holy, that she hath committed:
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title;
Since therein she doth evitatet and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford. Stand not amazed: here is no remedy:-
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

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

* Confound her by your questions.

† Avoid.

Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd, must be embraced.

Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.
Eva. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding.

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, to-night, shall lie with mistress Ford.

[Exeunt.

ORSINO, Duke of Illyria.

FABIAN,

SEBASTIAN, a Young Gentleman, CLOWN; } Servants to Olivia.

Brother to Viola.

ANTONIO, a Sea-captain, Friend to Sebastian.

•}

A SEA-CAPTAIN, Friend to Viola.
VALENTINE, Gentlemen attend-
CURIO,
ing on the Duke.
SIR TOBY BELCH, Uncle of vivia.
SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.
MALVOLIO, Steward to Olivia.

OLIVIA, a rich Countess.
VIOLA, in love with the Duke.
MARIA, Olivia's Woman.

LORDS, PRIESTS, SAILORS, OffiCERS, MUSICIANS, and other Attendants.

SCENE.-A City in Illyria; and the Sea-coast near it.

ACT I.

SCENE I-An Apartment in the Duke's Palace.

Enter DUKE, CURIO, LORDS; Musicians attending.

Duke. If music be the food of love, play on,—
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.-
That strain again;-it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more
'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before.
O, spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity* and pitch soever,
But falls into abatement and low price

* Value.

Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.*

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?
Duke. What, Curio?

Cur. The hart.

Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought, she purged the air of pestilence; That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue me.-How now? what news from her ?
Enter VALENTINE.

Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,
But from her handmaid do return this answer:
The element itself, till seven years heat,t
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this, to season
A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting, in her sad remembrance.

Duke. O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame,
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else

That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd
(Her sweet perfections), with one self-same king!—
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers;

Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers.

SCENE II.-The Sea-coast.

Enter VIOLA, CAPTAIN, and Sailors.

Vio. What country, friends, is this?

Cap. Illyria, lady.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria ?

My brother, he is in Elysium.

[Exeunt.

Perchance, he is not drown'd:-What think you, sailors?
Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.

Vio. O, my poor brother! and so, perchance, may he be.
Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

When you, and that poor number saved with you,
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,

Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea,
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

*Fantastical to the height.

† Heated.