This short scene functions as an elegiac interlude between the high political drama of the court and the coming military campaign. Shakespeare deliberately places the death of Falstaff offstage, filtering it entirely through the Hostess's report. This choice keeps the comedy of the tavern world alive even as it mourns its presiding spirit, and it forces the audience to experience loss through the imperfect, malapropism-laden voice of a woman who loved Falstaff without fully understanding him.The Hostess's death-speech is one of Shakespeare's most celebrated pieces of tragicomic prose. Her misremembering of "Abraham's bosom" as "Arthur's bosom" and her confusion of "incarnate" with "carnation" are not merely comic errors; they reveal a mind struggling to give dignity to grief through language it cannot quite command. Yet the image of Falstaff fumbling with the sheets, playing with flowers, and babbling of green fields achieves genuine pathos precisely because it is unpolished. The pastoral motif of green fields stands in ironic contrast to the cold stone of his dying body and the blood-sucking war the survivors are about to join.Pistol's closing speech enacts a sharp tonal shift from mourning to mercenary opportunism. His injunctions—"Trust none," "oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes"—reframe the...
Act II, Scene 3
Scene Summary
Outside a London tavern, Pistol, the Hostess (Mistress Quickly), Nym, Bardolph, and the Boy prepare to part ways as the army departs for France. Pistol announces that Falstaff is dead, and the group pauses to mourn him. The Hostess delivers a vivid, tender account of Falstaff's final moments—his cold limbs, his babbling of green fields, his cries to God—while the others recall his last words about sack, women, and Bardolph's fiery nose.
After the brief elegy, Pistol briskly reasserts himself, commanding the Hostess to guard the household and urging his companions to march to France like horse-leeches to suck blood and profit. Farewells are exchanged, the Hostess is kissed, and the ragged band exits toward Southampton and the war.
"for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields." — Hostess (2.3)
"A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child." — Hostess (2.3)
"Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire: that's all the riches I got in his service." — Bardolph (2.3)
"For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck." — Pistol (2.3)
"Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys, To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!" — Pistol (2.3)
"And that's but unwholesome food they say." — Boy (2.3)
"Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell!" — Bardolph (2.3)
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