Like Hamlet, Tartuffe, Don Quixote, Falstaff has had his worshippers and
his exegetists. The character Dr. Johnson dwelled on still serves to-day
to exercise the critical capacity of the freshman; he is one of the
stars in a crowded cast, a human, fallible, lovable creature, and it is
not wonderful that so many have asked themselves whether there lurked
fineness and piety within his gross frame. But, though 'his pyramid rise
high unto heaven,' it is not everybody has fully realised his
psychological enormity, his nationality; the tendency has been to look
upon him rather as a man than as a type. I do not contend that it is
desirable to magnify type at the expense of personality; far from it,
for the personal quality is ever more appealing than the typical, but
one should not ignore the generalities which hide in the individual,
especially when they are evident. It is remarkable that Dr Johnson
should have so completely avoided this side of Falstaff's character, so
remarkable that I quote in full his appreciation of the fat Knight[5]:--
[Footnote 5: Following on the second part of _King Henry IV._, Dr
Johnson's edition, 1765.]
'But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff! how shall I
describe thee? thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may
be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but
hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and
with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief
and a glutton, a coward and a boaster; always ready to cheat the
weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult
the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in
their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar
with the prince only as an agent of vice; but of this familiarity
he is so proud, as not only to be supercilious and haughty with
common men, but to think his interest of importance to the Duke of
Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes
himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most
pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety; by an unfailing power
of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit
is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy
scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy.
It must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous or
sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive
but that it may be borne for his mirth.'
A judgment such as this one is characteristic of Johnson; it is
elaborate, somewhat prejudiced, and very narrow. Johnson evidently saw
Falstaff as a mere man, perhaps as one whose ghost he would willingly
have taught to smoke a churchwarden at the 'Cheshire Cheese.' He saw
in him neither heroic nor national qualities and would have scoffed at
the possibility of their existence, basing himself on his own remark to
Boswell: 'I despise those who do not see that I am right....'
But smaller men than Johnson have judged Falstaff in a small way. They
have concentrated on his comic traits, and considered very little
whether he might be dubbed either giant or Englishman: if Falstaff is a
diamond they have cut but one or two facets. Now the comic side of
Falstaff must not be ignored; if he were incapable of creating laughter,
if he could draw from us no more than a smile, as do the heroes of
Anatole France, of Sterne, or Swift, his gigantic capacity would be
affected. It is essential that he should be absurd; it is almost
essential that he should be fat, for it is an established fact that
humanity laughs gladly at bulk, at men such as Sancho Panza and Mr
Pickwick. It is likely that Shakespeare was aware of our instinct when
he caused Hal to call Falstaff 'this bed-presser, this
horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.' In the mathematics of the
stage fat = comedy, lean = tragedy; I do not believe that Hamlet was
flesh-burdened, even though 'scant of breath.'
Fat was, however, but Falstaff's prelude to comedy. He needed to be what
he otherwise was, coarse, salaciously-minded, superstitious, blustering,
cowardly, and lying; he needed to be a joker, oft-times a wit, and
withal a sleepy drunkard, a butt for pranks. His coarseness is comic,
but not revolting, for it centres rather on the human body than on the
human emotion; he does not habitually scoff at justice, generosity or
faithfulness, even though he be neither just, nor generous, nor
faithful: his brutality is a brutality of word rather than thought, one
akin to that of our poorer classes. Had Falstaff not had an air of the
world and a custom of courts he would have typified the lowest classes
of our day and perhaps stood below those of his own time. His is the
coarseness of the drunkard, a jovial and not a maudlin drunkard; when
sober he reacts against his own brutality, vows to '... purge and leave
sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.'
Falstaff led his life by a double thread. Filled with the joy of living,
as he understood it, limited by his desires for sack and such as Doll
Tearsheet, he was bound too by his stupidity. He was stupid, though
crafty, as is a cat, an instinctive animal; none but a stupid man could
have taken seriously the mockery of the fairies in Windsor Park; himself
it is acknowledges that he is 'made an ass.' We laugh, and again we
laugh when, in silly terror and credulity, he allows the Merry Wives to
pack him in the foul linen basket; where Falstaff is, there is also
rubicund pleasantry.
In the same spirit we make merry over his cowardice; the cowardice
itself is not comic, indeed it would be painful to see him stand and
deliver to Gadshill, if the surrender were not prefaced by the deep
grumbles of a man who suspects that Hal and Poins have captured his
affections with drugs, who acknowledge that 'eight yards of uneven
ground is threescore and ten miles afoot' with him. The burlesque
conceals the despicable, and we fail to sneer because we laugh; we
forgive his acceptance of insult at the hands of the Chief Justice's
servant: it is not well that a knight should allow a servant to tell him
that he lies in his throat, but if leave to do so can be given in jest
the insult loses its sting. Falstaff is more than a coward, he is the
coward-type, for he is (like Pistol) the blustering coward. The mean,
cringing coward is unskilled at his trade: the true coward is the fat
knight who, no sooner convicted of embellishing his fight with
highwaymen, of having forgone his booty rather than defend it, can roar
that he fears and will obey no man, and solemnly say: ''Zounds! an' I
were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell
you upon compulsion.' The attitude is so simple, so impudent, that we
laugh, forgive. And we forgive because such an attitude could not be
struck with confidence save by a giant.
A giant he is, this comic and transparent man. There is nothing
unobtrusive in Falstaff's being; his feelings and his motives are large
and unmistakable. His jolly brutality and mummery of pride are in
themselves almost enough to ensure him the crown of Goliath, but add to
these the poetry wrapped in his lewdness, the idealistic gallantry which
follows hard upon his crudity, add that he is lawless because he is
adventurous, add simplicity, bewilderment, and cast over this
temperament a web of wistful philosophy: then Falstaff stands forth
enormous and alone.
Falstaff is full of gross, but artistic glee; for him life is epic and
splendid, and his poetic temperament enables him to discover the beauty
that is everywhere. It may be that Henry IV. rightly says: 'riot and
dishonour stain the brow of my young Harry,' but it may be also that
the young prince is not unfortunate in a companion who can find grace in
highwaymen: '... let us not that are squires of the night's body be
called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters,
gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say, we be men
of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and
chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.' Falstaff is
big with the love of life and ever giving birth to it; he is the spirit
of the earth, a djinn released whom none may bottle. Because of this he
is lawless; he cannot respect the law, for he can respect no limits; he
bursts out from the small restrictions of man as does his mighty paunch
from his leather belt. It is hopeless to try to abash him; force even,
as embodied in the Chief Justice, does not awe him overmuch, so well
does he know that threats will not avail to impair his pleasure.
Falstaff in jail would make merry with the jailers, divert them with
quips, throw dice and drink endlessly the sack they would offer him for
love. He cannot be daunted, feeling too deeply that he holds the ball of
the world between his short arms; once only does Falstaff's big, gentle
heart contract, when young Hal takes ill his kindly cry: 'God save thee,
my sweet boy!' He is assured that he will be sent for in private, and it
is in genuine pain rather than fear he cries out: 'My lord, my lord!'
when committed to the Fleet.
In this simple faith lies much of Falstaff's gigantic quality. To
believe everything, to be gullible, in brief to be as nearly as may be
an instinctive animal, that is to be great. I would not have Falstaff
sceptical; he must be credulous, faithfully become the ambassador of
Ford to Ford's wife, and be deceived, and again deceived; he must
believe himself loved of all women, of Mistress Ford, or Mistress Page,
or Doll Tearsheet; he must readily be fooled, pinched, pricked, singed,
ridiculously arrayed in the clothes of Mother Prat. One moment of doubt,
a single inquiry, and the colossus would fall from his pedestal, become
as mortal and suspicious men. But there is no downfall; he believes and,
breasting through the sea of ridicule, he holds Mistress Ford in his
arms for one happy moment, the great moment which even a rain of
potatoes from the sky could not spoil. It could not, for there echoes
in Falstaff's mind the sweet tune of 'Green Sleeves':
'Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?'
It is natural that such a temperament should, in the ordinary sense,
breed lies. Falstaff does and does not lie; like Tartarin he probably
suffers from mirage and, when attacked by highwaymen, truly sees them as
a hundred when, in fact, they are but two. But he is not certain, he is
too careless of detail, he readily responds when it is suggested he lies
and makes the hundred into a mere sixteen. Falstaff the artist is either
unconscious of exaggeration, therefore truthful, or takes a childish
pleasure in exaggerating; he is a giant, therefore may exaggerate, for
all things are small relatively to him. If the ocean could speak none
would reproach it if it said that fifty inches of rain had fallen into
its bosom within a single hour, for what would it matter? one inch or
fifty, what difference would that make to the ocean? Falstaff is as the
ocean; he can stand upon a higher pedestal of lies than can the mortal,
for it does not make him singular. Indeed it is this high pedestal of
grossness, lying, and falsity makes him great; no small man would dare
to erect it; Falstaff dares, for he is unashamed.
He is unashamed, and yet not quite unconscious. I will not dilate on the
glimmerings that pierce through the darkness of his vanity: if anything
they are injurious, for they drag him down to earth; Shakespeare
evidently realised that these glimmerings made Falstaff more human,
introduced them with intention, for he could not know that he was
creating a giant, a Laughter God, who should be devoid of mortal
attributes. But these flecks are inevitable, and perhaps normal in the
human conception of the extra-human: the Greek Gods and Demigods, too,
had their passions, their envies, and their tantrums. Falstaff bears
these small mortalities and bears them easily with the help of his
simple, sincere philosophy.
It is pitiful to think of Falstaff's death, in the light of his
philosophy. According to Mr Rowe,[6] 'though it be extremely natural,
"it" is yet as diverting as any part of his life.' I do not think so,
for hear Mrs Quickly, the wife of Pistol: 'Nay, sure, he's not in hell:
he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a
finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; a' parted
just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after
I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon
his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as
sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. "How now, Sir John!"
quoth I: "what, man! be of good cheer!" So a' cried out, "God, God,
God!" three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should not
think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such
thoughts yet. So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand
into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I
felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any
stone.'
[Footnote 6: _Account of the Life and Writings of Shakespeare._]
It is an incredible tale. Falstaff to die, to be cold, to call
mournfully upon his God ... it is pitiful, and as he died he played
with flowers, those things nearest to his beloved earth. For he loved
the earth; he had the traits of the peasant, his lusts, his simplicity,
his coarseness and his unquestioning faith. His guide was a rough and
jovial Epicureanism, which rated equally with pleasure the avoidance of
pain; Falstaff loved pleasure but was too simple to realise that
pleasure must be paid for; the giant wanted or the giant did not want,
and there was an end of the matter. He viewed life so plainly that he
was ready to juggle with words and facts, so as to fit it to his
desires; thus, when honour offended him, he came to believe there was no
honour, to refuse God the death he owed him because of honour: 'Yea, but
how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set a
leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour
hath no skill in surgery then? No. Who hath it? he that died o'
Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. It is insensible
then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why?
Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it; honour is a
mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.'
Casuist! But he was big enough to deceive himself. Such casuistry was
natural to the Englishman of Falstaff's day, who took his Catholicism as
literally as any Sicilian peasant may take his to-day. Of Falstaff's
unquestioning faith there is no doubt at all; his familiar modes of
address of the Deity, his appeal when dying, his probable capacity for
robbing a friar and demanding of him absolution, all these are
indications of a simplicity so great that casuistry alone could rescue
him from the perilous conclusions drawn from his faith. This is a
difficulty, for Falstaff is not entirely the Englishman of to-day; he is
largely the boisterous, Latinised Englishman of the pre-Reformation
period; he is almost the typical Roman Catholic, who preserved through
his sinful life a consciousness that faith would save him. But the human
sides of Falstaff are wholly English; his love of meat and drink, his
sleepiness, his gout, his coarseness (which was free from depravity),
all these live to-day in the average Englishman of the
well-to-do-classes, that Englishman who dislikes the motor-car but
keeps a hunter he is too fat to ride, who prefers suet pudding to any
hotel _bavaroise_, and who, despite his gout (inherited from Falstaff),
is still a judge of port.
That Englishman is not quite Falstaff, for he has lost his gaiety; he
does not dance round the maypole of Merrie England; he is oppressed by
cares and expenditures, he fears democracy and no longer respects
aristocracy: the old banqueting-hall in which Falstaff rioted is
tumbling about his ears. Yet he contains the Falstaffian elements and
preciously preserves them. He is no poet, but he still enshrines within
him, to burst out from among his sons, the rich lyrical verse which, Mr
Chesterton truly says, belongs primarily to the English race. The poetry
which runs through Falstaff is still within us, and his philosophy
radiates from our midst. The broad tolerances of England, her taste for
liberty and ease, her occasional bluster and her boundless conceit, all
these are Falstaffian traits and would be eternal if admixture of Celtic
blood did not slowly modify them. Falstaff contains all that is gross in
England and much that is fine; his cowardice, his craft, his capacity
for flattery are qualifying factors, for they are not English, any more
than they are Chinese: they are human, common. But the outer Falstaff is
English, and the lawless root of him is yet more English, for there is
not a race in the world hates the law more than the English race. Thus
the inner, adventurous Falstaff is the Englishman who conquered every
sea and planted his flag among the savages; he is perhaps the Englishman
who went out to those savages with the Bible in his hand; he is the
unsteady boy who ran away to sea, the privateersman who fought the
French and the Dutch; he is the cheerful, greedy, dull, and obstinate
Englishman, who is so wonderfully stupid and so wonderfully full of
common sense. Falstaff was never crushed by adversity: no more was the
English race; it was, like him, too vain and too optimistic, too
materially bounded by its immediate desires. It is not, therefore, wild
to claim him as the gigantic ancestor and kindly inspiration of the
priests, merchants, and soldiers who have conquered and held fields
where never floated the lilies of the French or the castles of the
Portuguese. Too dull to be beaten and too big to be moved, Falstaff was
the Englishman.