THE NINTH INNER SCENE
The gigantic trunk of an oak rises in moonlight, surrounded by the glimmering purple of the obscure forest.
Trooping from the left, enter the disguised Fairies, following their leader Sir Hugh Evans.]
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. [They conceal themselves. A distant chiming sounds as Falstaff enters, disguised as Herne, wearing a stag’s head with great horns.]
FALSTAFF 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.
CALIBAN [Listening intently near the edge of the scene.] A man a beast!
FALSTAFF Think on ’t, Jove: Where 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! Who comes here? My doe?
[Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.]
MRS. FORD Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? My male deer?
FALSTAFF My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of green sleeves; I will shelter me here.
MRS. FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? As I am a true spirit, welcome!
[Noise within.]
MRS. PAGE Alas, what noise?
MRS. FORD Heaven forgive our sins!
FALSTAFF What should this be?
MRS. PAGE AND MRS. FORD Away! Away! [They run off.]
FALSTAFF 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.
[Enter Sir Hugh Evans, disguised as before; Pistol, as Hobgoblin; Mistress Quickly, Anne Page, and others as Fairies, with tapers.]
MRS. QUICKLY Fairies, black, gray, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys!
FALSTAFF They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [He lies upon his face.]
EVANS Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid That, ere she sleeps, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy; Sleep she as sound as careless infancy! But those as sleep and think not on their sins Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins!
CALIBAN [Growing excitedly absorbed.] Ha, pinch them, saith!
MRS. QUICKLY Away; disperse: but till ’tis one o’clock, Our dance of custom round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.
EVANS Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set; And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be To guide our measure round about the tree. But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
FALSTAFF Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
PISTOL Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.
MRS. QUICKLY With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
PISTOL A trial, come.
EVANS Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers.]
FALSTAFF Oh! Oh! Oh!
CALIBAN [Crying out.] Ah, ah! They plague him, too!
MRS. QUICKLY Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, Fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
ALL [As they dance about him, pinch, burn him, and sing:]
Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a bloody fire Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart, whose flames aspire As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, Fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out!
FALSTAFF [Rising and pulling off his buck’s head, cries out:] Oh! Oh! Oh! [As he is about to flee, tormented by the dancing figures,
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
CALIBAN [Bursting into bitter laughter.] Ah-ha, ha! “Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!” Mocketh me, mocketh me, ah!—A man with horns And heart of monster! [Striding fiercely toward Ariel.] He mocketh me, thy lord!
ARIEL [Laughing silverly.] Why, ’tis but fairy sport for laughter.
CALIBAN [With choking passion.] Laughter! Ah-ha! Me, too—me, too, thy spirits plagued And pinched, to piping jigs. [Seizing Ariel.] I tell thee, smiling Spirit, thy laughter scorcheth me with nettles, [Pointing toward the curtains.] And that hot bulk of lust hath made my loins To rage with boiling blood.
ARIEL [Struggling.] Unclutch thy hand!
CALIBAN Not till I bleed that oil of laughter from thee Which lappeth me in flame.
THE VOICE OF WAR [Calls deeply from below.] Hail, Caliban!
CALIBAN [Pausing, releases Ariel, and listens.] Callest me, War?
THE VOICE Miranda shall be thine!
CALIBAN Mine!—Yea, now I am mocked to know myself What rutting stag I am! And her, the doe I mate, my horns shall battle for, and be Mine own—mine, mine! Miranda!
MIRANDA [Coming from within, right, raises her hand in gentle warning.] Hush thy tone; My father slumbers yet. [Showing Prospero’s hood, which she carries.] He hath put by This hood, wherein he sends thee here another Visioning.
CALIBAN [Stares at her, breathing hard.] So: what now?
ARIEL [To Miranda.] He rages, Mistress. Beware! He babbleth of War.
MIRANDA Why, then he conjures The dream my father sends: another picture, Painted in gules on England’s ancient shield: King Harry, by the high walls of Harfleur. [To Caliban.] So you may learn, good friend, how noblest natures Are moved to tiger passions—by a painting Called Honor, dearer than their brothers’ lives.
CALIBAN Why will he show me this?
MIRANDA Perchance that you, Born of a tiger’s loins, seeing that picture, May recognize an image of yourself And so recoil to reason and to love.
CALIBAN So, mocketh me once more?
MIRANDA Nay, never that. But let us look thereon, and learn together.
CALIBAN [Starts toward her, but curbs himself, trembling.] Together!
MIRANDA [To Ariel.] Hold his magic hood and conjure.
ARIEL [Taking the hood of Prospero.]
Image of Strife, may never more Your like draw near! Pageant of long-forgotten War, Appear! Harry of England, lo, is here!
[As Ariel lifts Prospero’s hood on the staff, the Cloudy Curtains party and discover