Summary: Act III, scene iii
In the Boar’s Head Tavern in London, Falstaff complains
to -Bardolph about how thin and weak he has gotten of late (an obviously
ridiculous claim for the hugely fat Falstaff to make). The hostess
of the tavern, Mistress Quickly, appears and demands payment from
Falstaff for the food and drink he has consumed, as well as for some
clothing she has recently bought for him. Falstaff responds that
his pocket was picked the previous night while he was asleep, and
he accuses her of having done it. He claims to have had money and
a valuable ring in the pocket. The hostess accuses Falstaff of trying
to get out of paying his bill, but their argument is interrupted
by the entrance of Prince Harry and Peto.
Harry’s news is unsurprising but important: war is at
hand, and all must go off to fight. But first, the group must settle
the matter of Falstaff’s picked pocket. After some bawdy teasing
at the expense of the dim-witted hostess, Harry reveals that he
himself emptied -Falstaff’s pockets the night before (as detailed
in Act II, scene v) and that he found nothing in them but tavern
bills, receipts from whorehouses, and a handful of candy. Falstaff,
with his usual quick--wittedness, promptly weasels out of admitting
wrongdoing once again, tells the hostess that he forgives her, and
orders breakfast.
Harry informs Falstaff that he has bailed him out yet
again: he has paid back the money that Falstaff and the others had
stolen and lost the day before. Finally, he gets around to assigning
the war commissions to his friends. He sends Bardolph off to deliver
letters on horseback to King Henry’s troops, who are already on
their way—one letter to Harry’s younger brother, John, Lord of Lancaster, another
to the Earl of Westmoreland. He orders Peto to come on a different
errand with him, and he tells Falstaff that he has put him in charge
of a brigade of foot soldiers, commanding him to meet him the following
afternoon to get the details of the commission. All business now,
Harry departs on his military errand with Peto. -Falstaff, for his
part, does not plan to let the war effort come between him and a
good breakfast.
Read a translation of
Act III, scene iii →
Analysis
This little scene is largely an exercise in wit, full
of Falstaff’s easy bantering with Bardolph, the hostess Mistress
Quickly, and Harry. Like so many of Falstaff’s other scenes, this
one entertains and adds a depth and humor to the play (especially
in performance), but unlike some of the play’s other seemingly incidental
scenes, this one carries little in the way of plot development.
On some level, Falstaff’s jokes must simply be enjoyed rather than
analyzed in depth.
We do see an excellent example here of Falstaff’s ability
to adapt swiftly to change. His reaction to being trapped in a lie
is the same as in the earlier scene of the foiled highway robbery:
he pretends he was managing the situation all along and turns it
to his advantage. In this case, he turns the fact that he was pickpocketed
into an accusation of the hostess, enabling him to deflect her demands
for payment. Falstaff exaggerates the cheap “eightpenny matter”
of his lost ring (III.iii.94) into a valuable
object worth the large sum of “forty mark” (III.iii.73),
and he pretends that the shirts the hostess bought him were made
of coarse material. He lets no opportunity for his own betterment
slip by, even at the cost of telling quite extraordinary lies. When
Harry catches him barefaced in his falsehood about the lost money,
Falstaff weasels out with marvelous adroitness and lands on his
feet by making himself the victim of Harry’s thievery. He is so
successful in turning the situation on its head that he even forgives the
hostess and compels her to fetch him breakfast.
