Understanding Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

effect on the prince (or, most likely, the audience as well). Falstaff’s jests have failed to amuse and entertain Prince Hal on this occasion.

Falstaff’s richest scene in the second history play occurs when he must muster men for the coming war (III, ii: 85-343). Falstaff’s wit is in force as he drafts men with names such as Feeble, Shadow, and Wart and critiques them at the same time. But the humor lacks potency here as well. Falstaff criticizes the poor and disadvantaged, individuals unable to stand up for themselves. And if one recalls the first occasion when Falstaff impressed men into service in 1 Henry IV, the fate of the recruits in the second play appear to be heading in the same direction:

I have led my rag-of-muffins where they are peppered. There’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life.

(1 Henry IV, Act V, iii: 36-40)

Falstaff’s wit is of a different order in 2 Henry IV. Where it is gleeful and richly imaginative in the first play, it is caustic and harsh in the second. The audience may find it difficult to laugh with the portly knight in this scene. A number of other critics have also commented on the lack of comic effectiveness in this mustering scene. Norman Holland, for example, suggests the passiveness of the character (in agreement with Caroline Spurgeon as noted above) is particularly noticeable here: