Mistress Quickly: Difference between revisions

| name = Eleanor Quickly
| series = [[Henriad]]

| caption = ''Falstaff and Mistress Quickly from The Merry Wives of Windsor'', [[Francis Philip Stephanoff]], {{circa}} 1840

| gender = Female

'''Mistress Nell Quickly''' is a fictional character who appears in several plays by [[William Shakespeare]]. She is an [[inn-keeper]], who runs the [[Boar's Head Inn|Boar's Head Tavern]], at which [[Sir John Falstaff]] and his disreputable cronies congregate.

In all the plays Quickly is characterised as a woman with strong links to the criminal underworld, but who is nevertheless preoccupied with her own respectable reputation. Her speech is filled with [[malapropism]]s, [[double entendres]] and "bawdy innuendo".<ref>{{cite book |last =Hattaway |first =Michael| authorlink =|title =The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's History Plays|publisher =[[Cambridge University Press]]| series =| volume =| edition =| year =2002|location =[[Cambridge]]| pages =169–171| language =| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=PLUcb-NK644C&pg=PA170&dqq=%22Mistress+Quickly%22&hlpg=en&sa=X&ei=6yI4UcbyIomArAHm3oDYCA&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22Mistress%20Quickly%22&f=falsePA170 |doi publisher=|[[Cambridge isbnUniversity Press]] |location=9780521775397Cambridge |mryear=2002 |pages=|zbl169–171 =|jfm isbn=978-0521775397}}</ref>

Her name may be a pun on "quick lay", though "quick" also had the meaning of "alive", so it may imply "lively", which also commonly had a sexual connotation.<ref name = "mad">J. Madison Davis, ''The Shakespeare Name and Place Dictionary'', Routledge, 2012, p. 406. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Quickly's character is most fully developed in ''Henry IV, Part 2'' in which her contradictory aspirations to gentility and barely concealed vulgarity are brought out in her language. According to James C. Bulman, she "unwittingly reavealsreveals her sexual history" by her blithe malapropisms and "her character is both defined and undone by her absurdly original speech".<ref>James C. Bulman, "Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2", ''The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's History Plays'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, p.&nbsp;170. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

Though her age is not specified, the comment that she is "pistol proof" has been interpreted to mean that she is past childbearing age,<ref>Melchiori, G. (ed.),. ''The Second Part of King Henry IV'', Cambridge University Press, 2007, p.&nbsp;126. {{isbn |978-0521869263}}</ref> and she says she has known [[Falstaff]] for twenty nine29 years.<ref>''Henry IV, Part 2'', Act 2, Scene 4.</ref>

In ''Henry IV, Part 1'', Mistress Quickly is described as the proprietor of the [[Boar's Head Inn|Boar's Head Tavern]] in the London neighbourhood of [[Eastcheap]]. She is married, as Prince Hal asks after her husband, referring to him as "an honest man"; he does not appear in the play. She participates in the mock-court scene in which Falstaff pretends to be the king.

In ''Henry IV, Part 2'', she asks the authorities to arrest [[Falstaff]], accusing him of running up excessive debts and making a fraudulent proposal of marriage to her (implying that she is now a widow).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Silverbush |first1=Rhona |last2=Plotkin |first2=Sami |title=Speak the Speech!: Shakespeare's Monologues Illuminated |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X7hZobhR-GsC&q=%22Mistress+Quickly%22&pg=PA87 |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |year=2002 |pages=87–90 |isbn=978-0571211227}}</ref> Mistress Quickly has a friendship of long standing with [[Doll Tearsheet]], a prostitute who frequents the tavern, and protects her against aggressive men she calls "swaggerers".<ref>{{cite book |last=Jay |first=Milinda |title=Female Friendship Alliances in Shakespeare |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rNBMICX66mgC&q=%22Mistress+Quickly%22&pg=PA13 |year=2008 |pages=12–13 |isbn=978-1109046014}}</ref> At the end of that play, Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet are arrested in connection with the beating to death of a man by [[Ancient Pistol]].

In ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' she works as nurse to Caius, a French physician, but primarily acts as a messenger between other characters, communicating love notes in a plot largely concerned with misdirected letters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Courtni Crump |title=The Women of Shakespeare's Plays: Analysis of the Role of the Women in Select Plays with Plot Synopses and Selected One-Act Plays|year=1993|publisher=University Press of America|pages=59–62|url=https://books.google.co.ukcom/books?id=dfRpv0n1kG4C&lpg=PA60&dqq=Mistress%20Quickly+Quickly&pg=PA62#v |publisher=onepage&qUniversity Press of America |year=Mistress%20Quickly&f1993 |pages=false59–62 |isbn=978-0819188267}}</ref> At the end she takes the role of the queen of the fairies in the practical joke played on Falstaff.

In ''Henry V'', she is referred to as Nell Quickly. She is with Falstaff at his deathbed, and describes his death to his friends. She marries Falstaff's ensign, Ancient Pistol, despite having previously been engaged to [[Corporal Nym]]. While Pistol is away in France, he receives a letter from which he learns that "my Doll is dead", having succumbed to the "malady of France" ([[syphilis]]). Many editors take the name Doll to be a misprint for "Nell", but it has also been interpreted as a reference to Doll Tearsheet rather than Quickly.<ref>Dr Andrew Griffin, ''Locating the Queen's Men, 1583–1603'', Ashgate, 2013, p.&nbsp;142</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=A Shakespeare Encyclopaedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LiUOAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Mistress+Quickly%22&pg=PA670 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=1966 |pages=670}}</ref><ref>F. E. Halliday, ''A Shakespeare Companion, 1550–1950'', Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1952, p.&nbsp;525.</ref>

[[File:Falstaff and other theatrical characters.jpg|thumb|The earliest depiction of Mistress Quickly (labelled "hostes[s]") with Falstaff, in a print from 1662 depictingthat depicts popular stage characters of the time.]]

Quickly's role in ''The Merry Wives'' is sufficiently different from her role in the other plays that some critics have suggested that she cannot be the same character.<ref name = "mad"/> Nothing suggests that she already knows Falstaff (or [[Bardolph and(Shakespeare character)|Bardolph]], or Pistol), and there is no explanation of how she comes to be working for Dr. Caius. However, there are also many other continuity problems with other characters in the play. For example, the play is set at an unspecified period in the reign of Henry IV, but Shallow is feuding with Falstaff from the beginning, even though in the Henriad plays he only realises his mistake in trusting him after Henry V is crowned. These oddities may have arisen because the play was written rapidly for a specific occasion.<ref>T. W. Craik (ed.), ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' (Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]], 1990), 1–13. See also H. J. Oliver (ed.). ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' (London: Arden, 1972), lv and Leslie Hotson, ''Shakespeare versus Shallow'' (London: Kessinger, 2003), 111–122.</ref> There are some signs of attempts to make the events fit the action of the [[Henriad]] plays, for example the brief scene in which Pistol expresses his attraction to her and says "she is my prize". This fits with his marriage to her in ''Henry V''. There is no further reference to his pursuit of her in the play, but he plays the part of her consort in the fairy masque at the end.

There are similar, less glaring problems with the Henriad plays. In ''Henry IV, Part 1'' she is evidently a married innkeeper. No reference is made to the death of her husband in ''Part 2'', just that Falstaff promises to marry her. Likewise, the tavern seems to evolve into a reputed brothel by the beginning of ''Henry V''.

Alan Skinner's novel ''Master Quickly'' (2013) attempts to fill in the gaps in Shakespeare by revealing the truth about her neglected husband.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

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