Page 2545 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns,
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle, [30]

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv’d, and did deliver to our age, [35]
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

PAGE
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
But what of this?

MISTRESS FORD
Marry, this is our device,
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us. [40]

PAGE
Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come;
And in this shape when you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MISTRESS PAGE

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page (my daughter) and my little son [45]
And three or four more of their growth we’ll dress
Like urchins, ouphs, and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and I are newly met, [50]
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once

With some diffused song; upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness will fly;
Then let them all encircle him about,
And fairy-like to pinch the unclean knight, [55]