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Gadshill: Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
Chamberlain: No, I’ll none of it. I pray thee, keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.
Gadshill: What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows, for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling.
(Act 2, scene 1, lines 66–74)
This exchange between Gadshill and the chamberlain takes place at the top of act 2, just prior to the Gad’s Hill robbery. Neither of these characters plays an important role in the play. However, Shakespeare often puts important and even prophetic words into the mouths of minor characters. On the surface, these lines reflect the base banter of two common thieves. Gadshill swears to the chamberlain that the travelers who are soon to leave the latter’s inn will “meet . . . with Saint Nicholas’ clerks.” In other words, they will meet with a band of robbers, whose patron saint happens to be St. Nicholas. He seals this claim with a common oath: “I’ll give thee this neck.” The chamberlain then makes a joke, telling Gadshill to save his neck for the hangman. Gadshill replies, indicating that if he hangs for the crime he’s about to help commit, then so will his co-conspirators—most notably, the enormously fat Falstaff. The joke here apparently relates to the image of the hangman having to deal with “a fat pair of gallows.”
The gallows humor on display in this exchange echoes the several other idiomatic phrases about hanging that come up in the first scenes of act 2, such as “I’ll be hanged” (2.1.2) or “I’ll see thee hanged” (2.1.44). Though meant to be funny and unassuming, this idiom of execution also accurately indicates the stakes of the robbery to come. Anyone who engages in such activity is risking their neck—literally. As such, these references to execution by hanging aren’t just idiomatic; they also articulate real danger. The danger of the hangman is also symbolic for the drama as a whole. In a play where both lowly taverns and royal courts are full of traitors and thieves, the figure of the hangman looms large. Even the king himself may be considered a traitor to his country and a thief of the Crown.
