She launches into a long, very detailed speech about the exact day, time, and setting in which Falstaff proposed to marry her: “Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber at the round table by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, ” ( 2 Henry IV, 2.1.89-92). When the Chief Justice arrives, the Hostess points out that in addition to the money, Falstaff owes her himself. “Quean” refers to a whore, and Falstaff has a history of making such rude remarks about the Hostess, but she always hurls it back at him. Falstaff’s response, “Throw the quean in the channel,” is answered by her, “Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel” ( 2.1.47-50). She is on a rampage to have them arrest Falstaff for the money he owes her: “A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on” ( 2 Henry IV, 2.1.31-34). The Hostess returns in Henry IV, Part 2, with two officers of the law (aptly named Fang and Snare). Here is the type of woman Shakespeare and his friends must have known in the taverns they frequented: witty, shrewd, not above playing one man off against another, sympathetic to the downtrodden, but always ready to defend her honor. When Falstaff tries to pass the debt to Bardolph, the Hostess says, “He? Alas, he is poor. She goes on to remind him of his debt to her for food, drink, and “a dozen of shirts” which she has bought for him. You owe me money, Sir John,Īnd now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. Falstaff accuses her of harboring a pickpocket in her tavern, but she sees through him and gives as good as she gets: It is really in Act 3, scene 3 that the Hostess comes into her own. George Cruikshank, printmaker, London, 1857. “Falstaff enacting the part of the King,” Henry 4th part 1st scene 4th
Folger henry iv part 1 series#
Victorian artist George Cruikshank, known for his illustrations of the novels of Charles Dickens, did a series on Falstaff including the etching here, showing the Hostess giggling as she watches Falstaff and the prince perform. Shakespeare loved these kinds of theatrical “in” jokes. The Hostess delights in their little performance, as do we, and shows that she herself is a theater-goer when she says, “O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see,” referring to the very players from Shakespeare’s company who are putting on Henry IV. In this scene, she acts as audience for the “play” put on by Falstaff, who pretends to be the King, so that Prince Hal can practice answering the scolding he knows is coming from his real father. Nineteenth-century productions cut such profanities as “O Jesu” but kept much of the rest of her rough and straightforward speaking. She first appears well into the tavern scene of Act 2 in Henry IV, Part 1, with the words “O Jesu, my lord the Prince,” and she goes on to tell Prince Hal that a messenger has come from his father. Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Quickly by Alfred Dever. Referred to primarily as “the Hostess” in Part 1, she evolves into the more substantial Mistress Quickly as the plays progress. Evidently aware of her popularity with audiences, Shakespeare developed her character further in Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Hostess seems to have been a favorite character from the beginning, ruling the tavern where Prince Hal hangs out with Falstaff.
Henry IV, Part 1was popular from the time it was first staged around 1597 it was published six times during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and more afterward. Edward Gero as Falstaff and Kate Eastwood Norris as the Hostess / Mistress Quickly in 1 Henry IV, Folger Theatre, 2019.
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