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!