# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 4]

Mistress Page

2242

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter and my little son
And three or four more of their growth we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphes 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,
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,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.

2

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 4]

Mistress Ford

2257

And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
And burn him with their tapers.

3

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 4]

Mistress Page

2269

My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.

4

Merry Wives of Windsor
[IV, 4]

Mistress Page

2278

Fear not you that. Go get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.

5

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 2]

Page

2512

Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we
see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,
my daughter.

6

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 3]

Mistress Ford

2539

Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the
Welsh devil Hugh?

7

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 4]

(stage directions)

2553

[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies]

8

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 4]

Sir Hugh Evans

2554

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.

9

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Falstaff

2595

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]

10

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Hostess Quickly

2601

Fairies, black, grey, 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.

11

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Falstaff

2611

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.

12

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Hostess Quickly

2620

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 several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

13

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Hostess Quickly

2656

Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG.
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.
[During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS]
comes one way, and steals away a boy in green;
SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white;
and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE.
A noise of hunting is heard within. All the
Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's
head, and rises]

14

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Falstaff

2696

And these are not fairies? I was three or four
times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet
the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my
powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a
received belief, in despite of the teeth of all
rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now
how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon
ill employment!

15

Merry Wives of Windsor
[V, 5]

Sir Hugh Evans

2704

Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your
desires, and fairies will not pinse you.