(no subject)
So, uh, I'm meant to be writing this dissertation chapter on The Merry Wives of Windsor, only I got kind of distracted by all of the profound questions about this play that have been tragically neglected by the world of literary criticism, such as why there are random German horse thieves in it, whether Evans and Caius ever got around to getting revenge on the Host, and how in the world Pistol and Mistress Quickly got invited to the Falstaff-torturing scene at the end. So I wrote fanfic that answers 'em all.
I recommend reading this only if you have a high tolerance for silliness, badly rendered accents, and the odd anachronism, but then, you probably shouldn't be reading Merry Wives at all if such things bother you.
Honest Knaveries
“This is well!” exclaimed Sir Hugh Evans. “He has made us his vlouting-stog. I desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of the Garter.”
“By gar, with all my heart,” agreed Dr. Caius. “He promise to bring me where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.”
“Well, I will smite his noddles.” Evans was in such a towering state of rage that he had entirely forgotten he was a parson. “Pray you, follow.”
“By gar, we shall clapper-de-claw him.”
The two men had not precisely been on friendly terms of late, as Evans was hoping to make a match between Abraham Slender and Anne Page, while the French doctor had his eye on Anne himself. For the moment, however, their old quarrel was forgotten. The host of the Garter had made fools of them both with his latest jest, and if he thought he could smooth things over with a pint or two of burnt sack, he was sadly mistaken.
As they trudged across the muddy fields, Evans began to sing his revenge song.
To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals;
There will we make our beds of roses -
“We should not smite-a mine ‘ost de Zharteer,” said Caius thoughtfully, mostly because he hoped to make the parson stop singing. “Are we not men of learning, by gar? Can we not revenge ourselves wit de word and not de sword? De plus, if we killed-a him dere would be no more sack.”
“That is fery true. I would desires that we be clever in our revenges.”
Evans led the way into a small tavern near Frogmore. Caius nodded his approval: It was dark and sooty inside, with a shady-looking group of men sitting in the corner and a one-eyed cat that hissed when they came in, but both men took pleasure in the sinister atmosphere. It felt like a suitable place to plot revenge.
They called for wine, paper, and ink, and began to write.
* * *
“Out upon it, by God’s liggens!” shouted the Host of the Garter. “One day these Germans say they are coming on Monday, and I must turn away my other guests and have everything in the house ready to receive them, for they are potent at court. The next day, when I have made ready for them, they write to put me off until Wednesday; on Tuesday night they put me off again, and so on and so forth, and all the while I see neither hide nor hair of them. I defy these mad Bavarians, these fawning court-knolls, these yea-sayers and nay-sayers. What says Bardolph, what says my bully tapster? Shall we not give them a taste of their own sauce and turn them away when they come?”
Bardolph looked very absorbed in the mug of ale he was drawing. “Not yet, my good host. I, that have consorted with princes and know the ways of the court - I pray you, do not turn them away; our fortunes are made if they be once our friends.”
The Host shrugged. “Well, thou art a valiant cavaliero of the spigot; I will be ruled by thee.”
* * *
Sir Hugh Evans looked dubiously at the fake beards that Caius had furnished. One was jet black; that was all right. Another was a flaming Judas red; that seemed less right, but in dim light it might pass for a natural color. The third was an unearthly shade of green.
“Is this a French-colored peard?” he asked.
“No, I borrowed it of Bardolph, and de red one is of Pistol. By gar, Bardolph said there are many of de Zhairmans wit dis color beards-a; dey are de fashion at court.”
“I do not trust that Pardolph,” said Hugh. Like most of the inhabitants of Windsor, he was not sure what to make of the strangers from Eastcheap. They had arrived with Sir John Falstaff, but showed no sign of departing now that he had turned his followers away; Bardolph had found a job at the Garter, and Nell Quickly, who had bright canary-yellow hair and pretended to be a widow, was keeping house for Dr. Caius. Hugh felt quite firmly that he ought not to approve of Mistress Quickly. She had been present the other day when he had examined young William Page in Latin, and she seemed capable of finding bawdy double-entendres in the most inoffensive of demonstrative pronoun declensions.
And yet, if Hugh were going to be completely honest with himself, he would have had to admit that he had found the conversation oddly stimulating. But he was a respectable clergyman, and rarely completely honest with himself.
“Mistress-a Quickly says-a dat Bardolph is a good christom man,” said Caius.
Hugh shook his head sadly. “I do not think that ‘oman knows a good Christians from a pad. She is as a lost ewe lamb, and fery much in need of pastoral care.”
“Oui, dey say de men of Wales like-a de sheep,” said Caius slyly.
Hugh decided at once to change the subject. “You will loog fery well in the blag peard,” he said, “and I must wear the red, for I am fairer than you are.”
Caius nodded and picked up the green beard. “And dis is for Abraham Slender. I ‘ave ask ‘im to make-a de turd in de party.”
Hugh was sure that the doctor really wanted to keep an eye on Slender so that he could not secretly sneak off and marry Anne Page, but he had no objection to the arrangement. Slender was an exceptionally silly and lovesick young man, and Hugh rather hoped that he would stay away from Anne until her father had won her over to the idea of the marriage, since he had so far contrived to make a complete ass of himself every time he had actually spoken to her.
Caius tied the black beard about his chin and attempted to get in character. “Remember you, ve are Zhairmanns,” he said.
“Wir sint Germans,” corrected Hugh as he put on the red beard.
“Oui, oui!” cried Caius heartily. Hugh slapped him about the head, and he remembered himself. “Ja, ja!”
Hugh grinned behind his beard. “Sie is spreggen goot German, ja, mein Herr Dogtor. Let us seeken Herr Slender.”
Hugh felt like an altogether different man now that he was wearing a disguise. He was no longer a respectable village parson and schoolmaster; he was an outlaw, a man who could do anything. He began to sing:
To shallow rivers, to whose falls -
Caius slapped him about the head. “Zhairmann,” he said meaningfully.
Ach, du lieber rivers to whose falls,
Melodious Vogels sing madrigals,
There vill ve make our beds of edelweiss,
Und ein tausand fragrant days and nights...
Caius cleared his throat loudly and made a point of striking up a conversation. “Bardolph said dat ‘e is de good friend of de Prince Henry. When de king is dead, ‘e will be important gentleman at de court, and Pistol also, and Sir Zhon Falstaff will make-a de rare ‘angman. Do you tink-a dat is true?”
Hugh considered the question for a moment. “I do not think princes is any man’s goot friends,” he said at last. “For look you, a friend is an equal; and the prince has no equal.”
“Dat is not de prince’s fault.”
“No.” Hugh began to think some more about disguises. He was in disguise now, and they said the heir apparent sometimes went about in disguise; who would know the parson from the prince? So perhaps all men were equals under a false beard. But one had to take false beards off sooner or later. The one Pistol had lent him was already beginning to itch; he thought it might be infested with fleas.
“Ah, ‘ier kommt de ‘err Slender,” said Caius.
Slender’s nose was buried deep in his Book of Riddles, which he had evidently borrowed back from Alice Shortcake. Hugh was relieved to see this, because it meant that Slender might be capable of making some conversation other than “O sweet Anne Page!” which would, he thought, rather give the third German’s identity away.
“We mean-a to play a merry jest on mine ‘ost de Zharteer,” said Caius. “Will you come-a wit us and make-a one?”
Slender lowered the Book of Riddles. “O excellent! I have as keen a nose for a device as any man in England, I warrant you.”
“Wir sint Germans,” Hugh explained, “kommen von ze court, unt zo Sie mussen spreggen like zis, ja? Verstehen Sie zis, do you understant?”
Slender shook his head. “I cannot speak Welsh.”
“Dat is no Welsh,” said Caius, “today de parson is a Zhairmann, and you need-a only wear-a dis beard and speak de English like a Zhairmann also; dat will serve.”
Slender brightened. “I vill be zee best German zat effer came out of Germanland, you vill see! O schveet Anne Page!”
* * *
“Sir,” said Bardolph, “the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.”
The Host was by now at his wit’s end. “What duke should this be that comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?”
“Ay, sir,” said Bardolph, although he had doubts about whether either Evans’ or Caius’ preferred idiom could really be described as English. “I’ll call them to you.”
He left the Host muttering imprecations against the Germans, who had been threatening to come and putting him off for a full week, and returned a moment later with three bearded figures. Their presence had evidently aroused a great deal of curiosity in Windsor already; Mistress Quickly, Alice Shortcake, and half the boys in the town were tagging behind them.
“So you wish me to lend you my horses, do you?” said the Host in none-too-friendly tones.
“Ja, ja,” said the red-bearded German. “Ze Duke von Germany is comink early to-morrow; zere ist kein time to lose.”
“And you will have them, but you must pay; you must come off, you must tender the coin of the realm, you must render unto Caesar what is the Caesar’s, the Kaiser’s, the emperor’s. Do you understand, my mad Bohemians?”
The red-bearded German shook his head. “Nein; Caesar ist nicht Bohemian. He vas of Rome.”
“If you want the horses now,” said the Host very slowly and loudly, “you must pay now: if you will stay the night, you may pay in the morning. What will you do?”
“Ve vill stay,” said the black-bearded man. “Ve ‘aff ‘ad a long -” He turned to his red-bearded companion, and Bardolph heard him whisper in a voice suspiciously like that of Dr. Caius, “‘Ow do you say ‘zhournay’ in Zhairmann?”
“Fahrt,” muttered the other German in Sir Hugh Evans’ voice.
The black-bearded German looked around and beamed. “Ve ‘aff ‘ad a long fahrt, and ve are vairy tired.”
Mistress Quickly flew to open the windows.
The third German at last looked up from his book, and all the company saw that his beard was a peculiar green. “Please,” he said to the Host, “how is zee raven like zee writink-desk, ja?”
The Host, perceiving that his mad Bohemians were even madder than he had bargained for, threw up his hands. “Come, let me show you to your chamber; ‘tis the best in the house, ‘tis painted all around with the story of Jacob.”
* * *
Hugh settled into the most comfortable chair in the Jacob chamber and took a swig from his mug. He had called for a pint of the house’s best beer, knowing that the Germans were great drinkers. He knew that he would have to hide his beard and make his escape through the back door shortly, in order to reappear in his own person at the Fords’ house while Caius and Slender made away with the horses. If all went well, the others would also contrive to be seen in public before anybody noticed the horses were missing, and no one would suspect them of being two people at once.
For now, though, he was glad of having a quarter of an hour to relax. Between Ford’s fits of jealousy, the vexing question of who would marry Anne Page, and his own practical joke on the host, it had been quite the most unsettling week Windsor had ever known.
He scratched at a flea bite on his neck and wiped some of the foam from his false beard. Although his disguise was uncomfortable, he felt strangely reluctant to remove it. He felt that as soon as he became Hugh Evans again, he would have to examine his conscience and reflect upon whether he was setting a good example for his flock, and he knew all too well what the answer would be.
There was a knock on the door. “Ja, komm in,” he called.
He had just enough time to reflect that it was a good thing he still had his beard on and was prepared to receive visitors, and then Nell Quickly burst into the room, threw herself into his lap, and kissed him smack on the lips, and he realized he wasn’t prepared for this at all.
She leaned forward so that her generous bosom was squashed against his chest, and kissed him a second time, slower and more gently. Her tongue slid between his parted lips.
Hugh was a bachelor, and though he had his faults he tried his best to be a man of God. He had never had an experience like this before. It was a revelation that shook him to the core, and his whole body responded to it - some parts with considerable alacrity.
After a long minute in his arms, Mistress Quickly at last pulled away for breath, and pulled the false beard away with her.
She gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth when she saw Hugh’s face. “I cry you mercy, parson Evans! I took you for Pistol. Why are you disguised as him?”
“Art thou lunatics, ‘oman?” Hugh demanded, trying to salvage the remaining scraps of his dignity. “How can I be disguised as Pistol? You know as well as I do that Pistol hath no peard!”
Mistress Quickly pursed her lips and frowned. “You were disguised as Pistol in disguise,” she said severely.
This was patently ridiculous. Hugh crossed his arms over his chest and adopted his strictest schoolmaster manner. “Pistol in disguise; fidilicet, Pistol when he is not like himself, looks nothing like Pistol, or it would not be a goot disguise. Ergo, I was disguised as someone who looks nothing like Pistol; quod erat demonstrando, I was not disguised as Pistol at all.”
“Fie on ‘demonstrando,’ if it be erotic,” said Mistress Quickly. “What manner of parson are you, to be always harping on country matters, and in Latin at that!”
Hugh glared at her. “What manner of ‘oman art thou, to be kissing Pistol after a manner that would be unchaste if thou wert his wife!”
“But I am his wife,” replied Mistress Quickly calmly. “We were married Tuesday last, at Frogmore.”
The full horror of the situation hit Hugh square in the face. Kissing a woman of loose morals who had flung herself into one’s lap was the sort of lapse that even a respectable parson might be forgiven; kissing another man’s wife was something else entirely.
With a cry of despair, he fled from the room and ran to the parish church; but he had not had time to pray for absolution before he remembered that he was late for his appointment at the Fords’ house.
* * *
While this interesting scene was playing out in the Jacob room at the Garter, Dr. Caius and Slender, assisted by Bardolph, led the Host’s horses out of the stable. Slender was in favor of turning them loose in Windsor Park and letting them find their own way home, but Bardolph pointed out that they were sure to be mistaken for deer and shot by poachers. He assured the other two men that he and Nym and Pistol would be happy to take care of them, but Caius vetoed this plan at once. The doctor might not be above stealing a few horses in jest, but he did not mean for them to be stolen in earnest.
In the end, they handed two of them over to young William Page and Falstaff’s boy Robin, and told the delighted boys that they might run races until dusk as long as they returned the horses to the Host in the evening and told him they had found them roaming free. Slender and Caius led the third horse to Fenton’s house, hoping that their mutual rival would take the blame for its disappearance; but it proved to have strong homing instincts, and within half an hour it was happily cropping the grass behind the Garter.
* * *
When Hugh had heard the remarkable tale that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page told of their amorous adventures with Falstaff, he was inclined to think the fat knight had been punished quite enough; but the two women were adamant that they could trick him into appearing in the Park at midnight in the guise of Herne the Hunter. Mistress Page proposed to dress her own children and a few others as fairies and make them lie in ambush.
“And till he tell the truth,” Mistress Ford added, “let the supposed fairies pinch him sound and burn him with their tapers.”
Mistress Page nodded. “The truth being known, we’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit, and mock him home to Windsor.”
“The children must be practiced well to this,” Ford objected, “or they’ll ne’er do’t.”
Hugh was startled to hear himself volunteer. “I will teach the children their behaviors; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.” He felt that he had made a jack-an-apes of himself already; and punishing Falstaff for lust would in some measure demonstrate that he hated the sin, even if he could not punish himself in the same way without attracting comment.
In a fit of generosity, he decided to invite Mistress Quickly - Mistress Pistol, that was - and her husband as well, to show them that there were no hard feelings. They had done nothing but marry, after all, and they had created no new custom in this, nor broken any law; they meant no offense. Besides, the woman would look well in the guise of a fairy.
Ford nodded. “That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.”
A flurry of chatter and planning followed, and in spite of his recent humiliation Hugh found himself looking forward to spending another evening behind a mask. “Let us about it,” he said eagerly, “it is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.”
* * *
By the time he returned to the Garter, Bardolph was putting the final part of their plan into action. “Where be my horses?” the Host demanded, as Hugh listened at the door. “Speak well of them, varletto!”
“Run away with the cozeners,” came Bardolph’s voice, “for as soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind on of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.”
“They are but gone to meet the duke, villain,” said the Host, but there was more hope in his voice than conviction. “Do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men.”
Hugh took this as his cue to burst into the room. “Where is mine host?”
“What is the matter, sir?”
“Have a care of your entertainments,” Hugh warned him. “There is a friend of mine come to town, tells me there is three cozen-germans that have cozened all the hosts of Readens, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you,” he added with a touch of malice, “you are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ‘tis not convenient that you should be cozened. Fare you well.”
The look of distress on the Host’s face was all the revenge that he could have hoped for.
* * *
Hugh couldn’t help but notice the curves of the girls’ bodies when they were dressed as fairies, for what he had learned in the Jacob room could not be unlearned; but he felt the better and purer for being dressed as a jack-an-apes. Temptation was not likely to fall in his lap in his current guise, and under cover of night and masks one saw people for what they were rather than what they were generally supposed to be. He noticed, for example, that despite being the toast of Windsor’s youth, Anne Page was as flat-chested and graceless as a boy in her white gown. Mistress Quickly might not be reputed a beauty, but she was twice the woman Anne was. And what was more, Hugh was convinced that she was a good woman at heart, for her voice rang with genuine conviction when she invited the fairies to bless the castle:
About, about;
Search Windsor Castle, Elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state ‘tis fit,
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The humiliation of Falstaff came off beautifully; the various elopements scheduled for the evening less so, but Anne Page and young Fenton were so manifestly happy together, and so eloquent about the evils of forced marriage, that even her parents were charmed. “Heaven give you many, many merry days!” Mistress Page cried, embracing her new son-in-law. “Good husband, let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o’er by a country fire - Sir John and all.”
And Ford, astonishingly, offered his hand to Falstaff in friendship.
It was time, Hugh thought, that he too should forgive and forget his petty humiliations. He approached the fairy in blue. “I pray you, commend me unto your husband, Mistress Pistol. I wish you fery good luck and happinesses.”
Mistress Quickly threw her head back and laughed. “I’ faith, I am not married to Pistol. I said so in jest, to make trial of you.”
Hugh’s confusion at this was so great that he forgot to ask whether he had passed the test; but judging by the way Mistress Quickly drew her arm through his as they walked toward the town, he rather thought he had.
The Host was beaming when they entered the Garter. “Look you, my horses are all come home! I have always said Germans are honest men, even the knaves.”
“What is the sense of being a knave if one is going to be honest about it?” Bardolph muttered rebelliously. He had clearly not forgiven Slender and Caius for not letting him sell the horses at a handsome profit.
“None, Pardolph, none at all; and therefore I pray you, be always an honest tapster and no knave,” said Sir Hugh sententiously. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that he was still wearing his disguise, and Bardolph’s frank astonishment at being admonished in such terms by a clergyman in a jack-an-apes mask, with Mistress Quickly hanging on one of his arms, persuaded Hugh to abandon any attempt at pastoral care for the evening.
“Pring me a glass of metheglin,” he said, “and one for the lady.”
~ Fin ~
You can find a recipe for metheglin here. I think it sounds delicious.
I recommend reading this only if you have a high tolerance for silliness, badly rendered accents, and the odd anachronism, but then, you probably shouldn't be reading Merry Wives at all if such things bother you.
Honest Knaveries
“This is well!” exclaimed Sir Hugh Evans. “He has made us his vlouting-stog. I desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of the Garter.”
“By gar, with all my heart,” agreed Dr. Caius. “He promise to bring me where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.”
“Well, I will smite his noddles.” Evans was in such a towering state of rage that he had entirely forgotten he was a parson. “Pray you, follow.”
“By gar, we shall clapper-de-claw him.”
The two men had not precisely been on friendly terms of late, as Evans was hoping to make a match between Abraham Slender and Anne Page, while the French doctor had his eye on Anne himself. For the moment, however, their old quarrel was forgotten. The host of the Garter had made fools of them both with his latest jest, and if he thought he could smooth things over with a pint or two of burnt sack, he was sadly mistaken.
As they trudged across the muddy fields, Evans began to sing his revenge song.
To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals;
There will we make our beds of roses -
“We should not smite-a mine ‘ost de Zharteer,” said Caius thoughtfully, mostly because he hoped to make the parson stop singing. “Are we not men of learning, by gar? Can we not revenge ourselves wit de word and not de sword? De plus, if we killed-a him dere would be no more sack.”
“That is fery true. I would desires that we be clever in our revenges.”
Evans led the way into a small tavern near Frogmore. Caius nodded his approval: It was dark and sooty inside, with a shady-looking group of men sitting in the corner and a one-eyed cat that hissed when they came in, but both men took pleasure in the sinister atmosphere. It felt like a suitable place to plot revenge.
They called for wine, paper, and ink, and began to write.
* * *
“Out upon it, by God’s liggens!” shouted the Host of the Garter. “One day these Germans say they are coming on Monday, and I must turn away my other guests and have everything in the house ready to receive them, for they are potent at court. The next day, when I have made ready for them, they write to put me off until Wednesday; on Tuesday night they put me off again, and so on and so forth, and all the while I see neither hide nor hair of them. I defy these mad Bavarians, these fawning court-knolls, these yea-sayers and nay-sayers. What says Bardolph, what says my bully tapster? Shall we not give them a taste of their own sauce and turn them away when they come?”
Bardolph looked very absorbed in the mug of ale he was drawing. “Not yet, my good host. I, that have consorted with princes and know the ways of the court - I pray you, do not turn them away; our fortunes are made if they be once our friends.”
The Host shrugged. “Well, thou art a valiant cavaliero of the spigot; I will be ruled by thee.”
* * *
Sir Hugh Evans looked dubiously at the fake beards that Caius had furnished. One was jet black; that was all right. Another was a flaming Judas red; that seemed less right, but in dim light it might pass for a natural color. The third was an unearthly shade of green.
“Is this a French-colored peard?” he asked.
“No, I borrowed it of Bardolph, and de red one is of Pistol. By gar, Bardolph said there are many of de Zhairmans wit dis color beards-a; dey are de fashion at court.”
“I do not trust that Pardolph,” said Hugh. Like most of the inhabitants of Windsor, he was not sure what to make of the strangers from Eastcheap. They had arrived with Sir John Falstaff, but showed no sign of departing now that he had turned his followers away; Bardolph had found a job at the Garter, and Nell Quickly, who had bright canary-yellow hair and pretended to be a widow, was keeping house for Dr. Caius. Hugh felt quite firmly that he ought not to approve of Mistress Quickly. She had been present the other day when he had examined young William Page in Latin, and she seemed capable of finding bawdy double-entendres in the most inoffensive of demonstrative pronoun declensions.
And yet, if Hugh were going to be completely honest with himself, he would have had to admit that he had found the conversation oddly stimulating. But he was a respectable clergyman, and rarely completely honest with himself.
“Mistress-a Quickly says-a dat Bardolph is a good christom man,” said Caius.
Hugh shook his head sadly. “I do not think that ‘oman knows a good Christians from a pad. She is as a lost ewe lamb, and fery much in need of pastoral care.”
“Oui, dey say de men of Wales like-a de sheep,” said Caius slyly.
Hugh decided at once to change the subject. “You will loog fery well in the blag peard,” he said, “and I must wear the red, for I am fairer than you are.”
Caius nodded and picked up the green beard. “And dis is for Abraham Slender. I ‘ave ask ‘im to make-a de turd in de party.”
Hugh was sure that the doctor really wanted to keep an eye on Slender so that he could not secretly sneak off and marry Anne Page, but he had no objection to the arrangement. Slender was an exceptionally silly and lovesick young man, and Hugh rather hoped that he would stay away from Anne until her father had won her over to the idea of the marriage, since he had so far contrived to make a complete ass of himself every time he had actually spoken to her.
Caius tied the black beard about his chin and attempted to get in character. “Remember you, ve are Zhairmanns,” he said.
“Wir sint Germans,” corrected Hugh as he put on the red beard.
“Oui, oui!” cried Caius heartily. Hugh slapped him about the head, and he remembered himself. “Ja, ja!”
Hugh grinned behind his beard. “Sie is spreggen goot German, ja, mein Herr Dogtor. Let us seeken Herr Slender.”
Hugh felt like an altogether different man now that he was wearing a disguise. He was no longer a respectable village parson and schoolmaster; he was an outlaw, a man who could do anything. He began to sing:
To shallow rivers, to whose falls -
Caius slapped him about the head. “Zhairmann,” he said meaningfully.
Ach, du lieber rivers to whose falls,
Melodious Vogels sing madrigals,
There vill ve make our beds of edelweiss,
Und ein tausand fragrant days and nights...
Caius cleared his throat loudly and made a point of striking up a conversation. “Bardolph said dat ‘e is de good friend of de Prince Henry. When de king is dead, ‘e will be important gentleman at de court, and Pistol also, and Sir Zhon Falstaff will make-a de rare ‘angman. Do you tink-a dat is true?”
Hugh considered the question for a moment. “I do not think princes is any man’s goot friends,” he said at last. “For look you, a friend is an equal; and the prince has no equal.”
“Dat is not de prince’s fault.”
“No.” Hugh began to think some more about disguises. He was in disguise now, and they said the heir apparent sometimes went about in disguise; who would know the parson from the prince? So perhaps all men were equals under a false beard. But one had to take false beards off sooner or later. The one Pistol had lent him was already beginning to itch; he thought it might be infested with fleas.
“Ah, ‘ier kommt de ‘err Slender,” said Caius.
Slender’s nose was buried deep in his Book of Riddles, which he had evidently borrowed back from Alice Shortcake. Hugh was relieved to see this, because it meant that Slender might be capable of making some conversation other than “O sweet Anne Page!” which would, he thought, rather give the third German’s identity away.
“We mean-a to play a merry jest on mine ‘ost de Zharteer,” said Caius. “Will you come-a wit us and make-a one?”
Slender lowered the Book of Riddles. “O excellent! I have as keen a nose for a device as any man in England, I warrant you.”
“Wir sint Germans,” Hugh explained, “kommen von ze court, unt zo Sie mussen spreggen like zis, ja? Verstehen Sie zis, do you understant?”
Slender shook his head. “I cannot speak Welsh.”
“Dat is no Welsh,” said Caius, “today de parson is a Zhairmann, and you need-a only wear-a dis beard and speak de English like a Zhairmann also; dat will serve.”
Slender brightened. “I vill be zee best German zat effer came out of Germanland, you vill see! O schveet Anne Page!”
* * *
“Sir,” said Bardolph, “the Germans desire to have three of your horses; the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.”
The Host was by now at his wit’s end. “What duke should this be that comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?”
“Ay, sir,” said Bardolph, although he had doubts about whether either Evans’ or Caius’ preferred idiom could really be described as English. “I’ll call them to you.”
He left the Host muttering imprecations against the Germans, who had been threatening to come and putting him off for a full week, and returned a moment later with three bearded figures. Their presence had evidently aroused a great deal of curiosity in Windsor already; Mistress Quickly, Alice Shortcake, and half the boys in the town were tagging behind them.
“So you wish me to lend you my horses, do you?” said the Host in none-too-friendly tones.
“Ja, ja,” said the red-bearded German. “Ze Duke von Germany is comink early to-morrow; zere ist kein time to lose.”
“And you will have them, but you must pay; you must come off, you must tender the coin of the realm, you must render unto Caesar what is the Caesar’s, the Kaiser’s, the emperor’s. Do you understand, my mad Bohemians?”
The red-bearded German shook his head. “Nein; Caesar ist nicht Bohemian. He vas of Rome.”
“If you want the horses now,” said the Host very slowly and loudly, “you must pay now: if you will stay the night, you may pay in the morning. What will you do?”
“Ve vill stay,” said the black-bearded man. “Ve ‘aff ‘ad a long -” He turned to his red-bearded companion, and Bardolph heard him whisper in a voice suspiciously like that of Dr. Caius, “‘Ow do you say ‘zhournay’ in Zhairmann?”
“Fahrt,” muttered the other German in Sir Hugh Evans’ voice.
The black-bearded German looked around and beamed. “Ve ‘aff ‘ad a long fahrt, and ve are vairy tired.”
Mistress Quickly flew to open the windows.
The third German at last looked up from his book, and all the company saw that his beard was a peculiar green. “Please,” he said to the Host, “how is zee raven like zee writink-desk, ja?”
The Host, perceiving that his mad Bohemians were even madder than he had bargained for, threw up his hands. “Come, let me show you to your chamber; ‘tis the best in the house, ‘tis painted all around with the story of Jacob.”
* * *
Hugh settled into the most comfortable chair in the Jacob chamber and took a swig from his mug. He had called for a pint of the house’s best beer, knowing that the Germans were great drinkers. He knew that he would have to hide his beard and make his escape through the back door shortly, in order to reappear in his own person at the Fords’ house while Caius and Slender made away with the horses. If all went well, the others would also contrive to be seen in public before anybody noticed the horses were missing, and no one would suspect them of being two people at once.
For now, though, he was glad of having a quarter of an hour to relax. Between Ford’s fits of jealousy, the vexing question of who would marry Anne Page, and his own practical joke on the host, it had been quite the most unsettling week Windsor had ever known.
He scratched at a flea bite on his neck and wiped some of the foam from his false beard. Although his disguise was uncomfortable, he felt strangely reluctant to remove it. He felt that as soon as he became Hugh Evans again, he would have to examine his conscience and reflect upon whether he was setting a good example for his flock, and he knew all too well what the answer would be.
There was a knock on the door. “Ja, komm in,” he called.
He had just enough time to reflect that it was a good thing he still had his beard on and was prepared to receive visitors, and then Nell Quickly burst into the room, threw herself into his lap, and kissed him smack on the lips, and he realized he wasn’t prepared for this at all.
She leaned forward so that her generous bosom was squashed against his chest, and kissed him a second time, slower and more gently. Her tongue slid between his parted lips.
Hugh was a bachelor, and though he had his faults he tried his best to be a man of God. He had never had an experience like this before. It was a revelation that shook him to the core, and his whole body responded to it - some parts with considerable alacrity.
After a long minute in his arms, Mistress Quickly at last pulled away for breath, and pulled the false beard away with her.
She gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth when she saw Hugh’s face. “I cry you mercy, parson Evans! I took you for Pistol. Why are you disguised as him?”
“Art thou lunatics, ‘oman?” Hugh demanded, trying to salvage the remaining scraps of his dignity. “How can I be disguised as Pistol? You know as well as I do that Pistol hath no peard!”
Mistress Quickly pursed her lips and frowned. “You were disguised as Pistol in disguise,” she said severely.
This was patently ridiculous. Hugh crossed his arms over his chest and adopted his strictest schoolmaster manner. “Pistol in disguise; fidilicet, Pistol when he is not like himself, looks nothing like Pistol, or it would not be a goot disguise. Ergo, I was disguised as someone who looks nothing like Pistol; quod erat demonstrando, I was not disguised as Pistol at all.”
“Fie on ‘demonstrando,’ if it be erotic,” said Mistress Quickly. “What manner of parson are you, to be always harping on country matters, and in Latin at that!”
Hugh glared at her. “What manner of ‘oman art thou, to be kissing Pistol after a manner that would be unchaste if thou wert his wife!”
“But I am his wife,” replied Mistress Quickly calmly. “We were married Tuesday last, at Frogmore.”
The full horror of the situation hit Hugh square in the face. Kissing a woman of loose morals who had flung herself into one’s lap was the sort of lapse that even a respectable parson might be forgiven; kissing another man’s wife was something else entirely.
With a cry of despair, he fled from the room and ran to the parish church; but he had not had time to pray for absolution before he remembered that he was late for his appointment at the Fords’ house.
* * *
While this interesting scene was playing out in the Jacob room at the Garter, Dr. Caius and Slender, assisted by Bardolph, led the Host’s horses out of the stable. Slender was in favor of turning them loose in Windsor Park and letting them find their own way home, but Bardolph pointed out that they were sure to be mistaken for deer and shot by poachers. He assured the other two men that he and Nym and Pistol would be happy to take care of them, but Caius vetoed this plan at once. The doctor might not be above stealing a few horses in jest, but he did not mean for them to be stolen in earnest.
In the end, they handed two of them over to young William Page and Falstaff’s boy Robin, and told the delighted boys that they might run races until dusk as long as they returned the horses to the Host in the evening and told him they had found them roaming free. Slender and Caius led the third horse to Fenton’s house, hoping that their mutual rival would take the blame for its disappearance; but it proved to have strong homing instincts, and within half an hour it was happily cropping the grass behind the Garter.
* * *
When Hugh had heard the remarkable tale that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page told of their amorous adventures with Falstaff, he was inclined to think the fat knight had been punished quite enough; but the two women were adamant that they could trick him into appearing in the Park at midnight in the guise of Herne the Hunter. Mistress Page proposed to dress her own children and a few others as fairies and make them lie in ambush.
“And till he tell the truth,” Mistress Ford added, “let the supposed fairies pinch him sound and burn him with their tapers.”
Mistress Page nodded. “The truth being known, we’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit, and mock him home to Windsor.”
“The children must be practiced well to this,” Ford objected, “or they’ll ne’er do’t.”
Hugh was startled to hear himself volunteer. “I will teach the children their behaviors; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.” He felt that he had made a jack-an-apes of himself already; and punishing Falstaff for lust would in some measure demonstrate that he hated the sin, even if he could not punish himself in the same way without attracting comment.
In a fit of generosity, he decided to invite Mistress Quickly - Mistress Pistol, that was - and her husband as well, to show them that there were no hard feelings. They had done nothing but marry, after all, and they had created no new custom in this, nor broken any law; they meant no offense. Besides, the woman would look well in the guise of a fairy.
Ford nodded. “That will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.”
A flurry of chatter and planning followed, and in spite of his recent humiliation Hugh found himself looking forward to spending another evening behind a mask. “Let us about it,” he said eagerly, “it is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.”
* * *
By the time he returned to the Garter, Bardolph was putting the final part of their plan into action. “Where be my horses?” the Host demanded, as Hugh listened at the door. “Speak well of them, varletto!”
“Run away with the cozeners,” came Bardolph’s voice, “for as soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind on of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.”
“They are but gone to meet the duke, villain,” said the Host, but there was more hope in his voice than conviction. “Do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men.”
Hugh took this as his cue to burst into the room. “Where is mine host?”
“What is the matter, sir?”
“Have a care of your entertainments,” Hugh warned him. “There is a friend of mine come to town, tells me there is three cozen-germans that have cozened all the hosts of Readens, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you,” he added with a touch of malice, “you are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ‘tis not convenient that you should be cozened. Fare you well.”
The look of distress on the Host’s face was all the revenge that he could have hoped for.
* * *
Hugh couldn’t help but notice the curves of the girls’ bodies when they were dressed as fairies, for what he had learned in the Jacob room could not be unlearned; but he felt the better and purer for being dressed as a jack-an-apes. Temptation was not likely to fall in his lap in his current guise, and under cover of night and masks one saw people for what they were rather than what they were generally supposed to be. He noticed, for example, that despite being the toast of Windsor’s youth, Anne Page was as flat-chested and graceless as a boy in her white gown. Mistress Quickly might not be reputed a beauty, but she was twice the woman Anne was. And what was more, Hugh was convinced that she was a good woman at heart, for her voice rang with genuine conviction when she invited the fairies to bless the castle:
About, about;
Search Windsor Castle, Elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state ‘tis fit,
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The humiliation of Falstaff came off beautifully; the various elopements scheduled for the evening less so, but Anne Page and young Fenton were so manifestly happy together, and so eloquent about the evils of forced marriage, that even her parents were charmed. “Heaven give you many, many merry days!” Mistress Page cried, embracing her new son-in-law. “Good husband, let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o’er by a country fire - Sir John and all.”
And Ford, astonishingly, offered his hand to Falstaff in friendship.
It was time, Hugh thought, that he too should forgive and forget his petty humiliations. He approached the fairy in blue. “I pray you, commend me unto your husband, Mistress Pistol. I wish you fery good luck and happinesses.”
Mistress Quickly threw her head back and laughed. “I’ faith, I am not married to Pistol. I said so in jest, to make trial of you.”
Hugh’s confusion at this was so great that he forgot to ask whether he had passed the test; but judging by the way Mistress Quickly drew her arm through his as they walked toward the town, he rather thought he had.
The Host was beaming when they entered the Garter. “Look you, my horses are all come home! I have always said Germans are honest men, even the knaves.”
“What is the sense of being a knave if one is going to be honest about it?” Bardolph muttered rebelliously. He had clearly not forgiven Slender and Caius for not letting him sell the horses at a handsome profit.
“None, Pardolph, none at all; and therefore I pray you, be always an honest tapster and no knave,” said Sir Hugh sententiously. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that he was still wearing his disguise, and Bardolph’s frank astonishment at being admonished in such terms by a clergyman in a jack-an-apes mask, with Mistress Quickly hanging on one of his arms, persuaded Hugh to abandon any attempt at pastoral care for the evening.
“Pring me a glass of metheglin,” he said, “and one for the lady.”
~ Fin ~
You can find a recipe for metheglin here. I think it sounds delicious.