Characters
- Falstaff — A fat, aging knight bent on seduction and gold.
- Quickly — The housemaid and messenger; gossipy and shrewd.
Production Notes
A brief, charged encounter: Falstaff’s plan meets its first obstacle — a woman who knows everyone’s business. Quickly is not fooled by flattery, but she enjoys a good laugh and a good commission. The comedy lives in Falstaff’s desperation and Quickly’s pragmatism.
There’s also a DT:FC-wrapped version of this scene at the four-character Nenno unit →.
Script
Enter FALSTAFF and QUICKLY.
FALSTAFF:
Mistress Quickly, your friend; and your woman’s friend too. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come blowing into the market-place after Michaelmas: I will speak truth as I live: Ford’s a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou, Quickly, art honest.
QUICKLY:
Bless your heart!
FALSTAFF:
But, prithee, tell me: is Ford’s wife and Falstaff’s love true? Is she such a woman to be played withal?
QUICKLY:
Ay, sir; and she hath a radiant excellence in her; for, being thought to be a woman of honest repute, she is of such gravity and such gravity of carriage, as you would think her a saint — but, I believe, if she could speak freely, she would tell you a ribald tale. I would I were certain sure of what I do not know.
FALSTAFF:
What bigg’st thou me a pint of sack to come?
QUICKLY:
Ay, sir; and I will bring you word how things go; and I will promise you from her these glances and these sweetnesses; which are the effects of a kind of love. But, I pray you, master Falstaff, what’s the cause that my master is so strange unto my mistress?
FALSTAFF:
I will tell thee. There is a woman here in Windsor, whom I dearly love; I mean, Mrs. Ford.
QUICKLY:
I will tell her your mind.
FALSTAFF:
Do so. Between you and me, I think she’s a very worthy woman. I have a longing to do a charitable deed for her. Canst thou carry a letter to her?
QUICKLY:
Ay, sir, I can carry anything; I have carried a truss of linen to her before now.
FALSTAFF:
Go to, then; we have a nay-word here: thou shalt carry this letter for me; she will then know how much she is abused by him; and thou shalt carry him another letter from me, which shall tell him I will be his debtor, and she shall be mine.
QUICKLY:
By my troth, sir, I’ll go to her: but I shall never have the heart to tell her I come from such a man.
FALSTAFF:
I will make the best of thee. Do thy best, old woman; between you, Ford’s wife and I will have sport.
QUICKLY:
I am glad of your good cheer, sir; I will make shift to carry your letter.
FALSTAFF:
There, then; and tell her I am coming. Give her this letter.
Exit QUICKLY.
FALSTAFF:
I think I shall beat thee into handsomeness. If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance. I have assay’d her already with a love-letter, and find her passing strange. But here is the luck of it: — I mean, a man loves a woman; he flatters her; he thinks she will come to him. Now, the world is all reneged if such a match should not be made by the mere accident of lying down in the day-time. But to the very end of it: the fat knight of Windsor knows what he is about; and I will prosecute my purpose with all the heat and rage of a man whose liver burns. I will procure the letter; and I will proceed in this suit.
Exit FALSTAFF.
Facilitator Notes
Quickly is no dupe — she smells opportunity and gold. Falstaff believes his own lies. Try it with Quickly half-amused, half-skeptical of Falstaff’s success. The comedy comes from watching a man convince himself he has already won when he hasn’t even begun. Falstaff’s confidence is his most dangerous weapon and his ultimate undoing.