Mistress Quickly enters the inn (at line 31) and speaks with Falstaff. She tells him that Mistress Ford is interested him: “You have brought her into such a canaries as ‘tis wonderful” (57-58). Some critics suggest that the word canaries is Mistress Quickly’s blunder for quandaries (dilemmas). Other critics suggest that it simply means a state of excitement, reflecting the quick movements of the songbird. Mistress Quickly is often not much better than Evans or Caius when it comes to speaking proper English: she does mangle the language at times. However, her intention here is to suggest that Mistress Ford is both excited and interested in having an illicit affair with the knight. Quickly then adds that Master Ford will be away from the house at ten o’clock, and at that time Falstaff should come to see Mistress Ford. Mistress Quickly also flatters Falstaff by telling him that other lords and gentlemen have expressed interest in Mistress Ford, but she rejected all of them. Quickly is implying that Falstaff is special, and he accepts the flattering words as truth.
Like all of the speakers in Shakespeare’s plays, Mistress Quickly also uses words that are now archaic. For example, when she tells Falstaff that Mistress Ford’s husband is extremely jealous, she adds, “She leads a very frampold life with him” (83- 84). The word frampold is not a blunder or invention of Quickly’s making: the English writer Thomas Nashe also used it during the 16th century. Like the similar word frampel, the word frampold means bad-