ABSTRACT
In The First Part of Henry IV, Mistress Quickly is evicted from Falstaff’s improvised play-within-the play performed at the Boar’s Head Tavern for her failure to hold her tongue. Her parting words, in cheerful praise of the impromptu actor, are: ‘O Jesu, he doth it like one of these harlotry players as ever I see.’1 The reference to ‘harlotry players’ has attracted considerable critical attention. In view of Quickly’s linguistic infelicities that evoke so many laughs in the play, it is reasonably supposed that, in some sense, she has misused the pejorative ‘harlotry’ in her attempt to play theatre critic. A number of proposals have been made for her intended word: ‘harlot’ (itinerant jester), ‘morality’, ‘Herod’ or ‘Hero players’ are a few.2 E. A. Armstrong has suggested that the word ‘harlotry’ introduces sexual associations, implicit in the exchange between Falstaff and Quickly before she is removed.3 And Barbara Hardy has argued that ‘harlotry’ is a malapropic fusion of ‘harle (quin)’ and ‘(adul)tery’.4 Although Hardy recognizes that the malaprop is a theatrical metaphor, her concern is solely with the concept of Quickly’s adultery.
