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In later reminiscence, he said, With this opera
(Nabucco) my artistic career may be said to have
begun.
Falstaff Page 24
Verdi s ambition to compose a comedy haunted
him throughout his career, however, he never found
the libretto that would stimulate his muse: he indeed
wanted to vindicate the failure of Un Giorno di Regno,
and certainly, he wanted to prove that he was capable
of composing a comedy. Verdi would fulfill his dream,
and that illusive comedy would indeed become his
final work: a comedy based on the works of his
favorite poet: William Shakespeare s Henry IV and
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
ir John Falstaff, appears in four of Shakespeare s
Splays: he is perhaps one of the most comic
character creations in all English literature.
Shakespeare reputedly modeled his character,
Falstaff, after Sir John Oldcastle, a soldier and
martyred leader. In his first version of Henry IV, Part
One (1597), Shakespeare indeed originally called this
comic character Sir John Oldcastle, but he was later
forced to change the name after Oldcastle s
descendants, prominent at the court, protested and
threatened litigation.
Shakespeare then turned to Sir John Fastolf,
1378-1459, an English career soldier who fought and
made his fortune in the second phase of the Hundred
Years War between England and France (1337-1453).
Fastolf served with distinction against the French at
Agincourt (1415), Verneuil (1424), and in the Battle
of the Herrings at Rouvay (1429), where he is reputed
to have used herring barrels to shield his troops. Later,
after his forces were defeated at Patay (1429), he was
accused of cowardice but was subsequently cleared
of the charge. In 1440 he retired from military service.
Shakespeare was able to document much of
Fastolf s life and irascible personality through papers
he left with a Norfolk friend. Fastolf was an
acquisitive man, utterly ruthless in his business
dealings, and being childless, left his possessions to
the University of Oxford which used them as their
financial source for their new Magdalen College.
Shakespeare s Henry IV, Part One (1597), is the
second in a sequence of four history plays: Richard
II, Henry IV, Part One, Henry IV, Part Two, and Henry
V, each play dealing with an aspect of the power
struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York.
By creating Sir John Falstaff (Fastolf), Shakespeare
added an element of comedy to the somber tone of
the plays.
Falstaff Page 25
The history plays follow the deposition of King
Richard II: they are set in a kingdom plagued with
rebellion, treachery, and shifting alliances. The two
parts of Henry IV focus on Prince Hal, later to become
Henry V, his development and maturity from young
spendthrift, idler, and loafer, to prudent ruler. As Part
One begins, Henry IV laments the cowardice and
frivolous life of his son, who, with his thriving rogue
cronies, the fat and boisterous Falstaff and his red-
nosed sidekick, Bardolph, drink and play childish
pranks at Mistress Quickly s inn at Eastcheap.
In the next segment, Henry IV, Part Two, Prince
Hal aids his father in war and proves his valor in battle.
He kills the rebel, Hotspur, in personal combat and
compassionately laments the wasteful death of his
noble opponent while his cowardly companion,
Falstaff, lies on the ground nearby feigning death.
After Prince Hal becomes King Henry V, he
transforms, rejecting Falstaff and chiding him for his
malingering and drunkenness, and ultimately
banishing him.
In The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600),
Shakespeare s Sir John Falstaff appears again, this
time, resurrected yet reduced to a dissolute and
clowning character, and an opportunistic seducer
involved in comic and romantic misadventures.
According to unsupported tradition, Merry Wives was
written by Shakespeare at the express command of
Queen Elizabeth I who had wished to see Falstaff in
love.
In Merry Wives, Falstaff attempts to seduce
Mistresses Page and Ford, two married women whose
financial substance he covets. He shares his plan with
his comrades, Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym, but after
Falstaff discharges the services of Pistol and Nym,
they betray him and reveal his scheme to the husbands
of Mistresses Page and Ford.
After the wives compare their identical love letters
from Falstaff, they resolve to trick the greasy knight.
Falstaff is twice humiliated by the wives: first he is
dumped into a muddy ditch, and later, with the women
disguised as witches, he is beaten. The trickery of the
two women also serves to frustrate the jealous
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