Hostess — Henry V, Act II, Scene iii

Production Notes

The Hostess — Mistress Quickly — describes the death of Falstaff to his old companions. Falstaff never appears in Henry V; he is already gone when the play begins, and the Hostess’s speech is his entire death scene. It is a masterpiece of comic-grief: funny and heartbreaking in the same breath, as specific and unsentimental as a nurse’s report.

The speech has no self-pity. The Hostess describes what she saw and felt with complete accuracy and only intermittent awareness of what it meant. Players who play the observation — not the emotion about the observation — will find the grief arrives on its own.

Script

HOSTESS

He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. He made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child. He parted ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o’ th’ tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his finger’s end, I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen and he talked of green fields. “How now, Sir John?” quoth I. “What, man, be o’ good cheer!” So he cried out “God, God, God!” three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

Facilitator Notes

Warm-up: Ask Players to describe something they have witnessed — something that mattered — in the most precise factual terms they can. Then bring that register to the speech.

Debrief prompts:

• “I bid him he should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.” This line is often played for a laugh. What does it reveal about the Hostess?
• The Hostess feels his body going cold — “so upward and upward.” What does that physical act of checking tell us about her relationship with him?
• Falstaff is one of Shakespeare’s greatest characters. His death is reported, not shown. What does it mean to give his death speech to someone else?
• The speech ends on the physical: “all was as cold as any stone.” Why does Shakespeare end here, with this image?