Mistress Quickly

Play

Henry IV, Part 2, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Summary

Mistress Quickly is the hospitable, warm-hearted, and linguistically confused hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap. She is perpetually victimised by Falstaff, who borrows money he never repays and whom she has briefly sued for breach of a marriage promise — yet she cannot stay angry with him. Her malapropisms and unintentional bawdry are a running source of comedy. She is present at Falstaff's death offstage (reported movingly in Henry V by Pistol and the Boy), and she also appears in The Merry Wives of Windsor as housekeeper to Dr. Caius.

Notable Quotations

"He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his." *(2H4, 2.1)*

"'A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child... 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide." *(Henry V, 2.3 — the Hostess's account of Falstaff's death)*

Cross-references

• Henry IV, Part 2 — the play
• The Merry Wives of Windsor — the play
• Histories — the genre
• character_falstaff — Falstaff, her exploiter
• character_pistol_henry5 — Pistol, whom she eventually marries