# She Stoops to Conquer: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Oliver Goldsmith. 22 speaking roles, 20,313 words, about 145 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/she-stoops-to-conquer
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Marlow** has the most to say in She Stoops to Conquer: about 474 lines and 4,014 words, 19.8% of the play. Goldsmith’s comedy turns on a night of mistakes, when young Marlow takes the Hardcastle home for an inn. Marlow has the most words, about a fifth, with Hardcastle close behind. The load is shared widely: six roles each hold between 11% and 20%, which makes this a true ensemble comedy.

- Speaking roles: 22
- Scenes: 8
- Words: 20,313
- Speech time: 145 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Marlow | 474 | 4,014 | 19.8% | 28.7 | 6 |
| Hardcastle | 426 | 3,598 | 17.7% | 25.7 | 7 |
| Tony | 339 | 2,912 | 14.3% | 20.8 | 7 |
| Miss Hardcastle | 311 | 2,590 | 12.8% | 18.5 | 6 |
| Mrs. Hardcastle | 274 | 2,333 | 11.5% | 16.7 | 6 |
| Hastings | 291 | 2,327 | 11.5% | 16.6 | 7 |
| Miss Neville | 163 | 1,355 | 6.7% | 9.7 | 6 |
| Sir Charles | 39 | 305 | 1.5% | 2.2 | 2 |
| Diggory | 24 | 188 | 0.9% | 1.3 | 2 |
| Servant | 17 | 142 | 0.7% | 1.0 | 3 |
| Landlord | 18 | 135 | 0.7% | 1.0 | 1 |
| Second Fellow | 12 | 106 | 0.5% | 0.8 | 1 |
| Maid | 12 | 95 | 0.5% | 0.7 | 1 |
| Third Fellow | 6 | 59 | 0.3% | 0.4 | 1 |
| Jeremy | 5 | 49 | 0.2% | 0.4 | 1 |
| First Fellow | 3 | 24 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Second Servant | 3 | 22 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Fourth Fellow | 2 | 20 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Omnes | 5 | 15 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 2 |
| First Servant | 2 | 11 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Roger | 1 | 9 | 0% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Third Servant | 1 | 4 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: 1.1 = Act 1, Scene 1; 1.2 = Act 1, Scene 2; Act 2 = Act 2; Act 3 = Act 3; Act 4 = Act 4; 5.1 = Act 5, Scene 1; 5.2 = Act 5, Scene 2; 5.3 = Act 5, Scene 3.

- **Marlow**: 1.2 (168), Act 2 (1,517), Act 3 (525), Act 4 (1,249), 5.1 (192), 5.3 (363)
- **Hardcastle**: 1.1 (610), Act 2 (1,060), Act 3 (612), Act 4 (427), 5.1 (361), 5.2 (191), 5.3 (337)
- **Tony**: 1.1 (85), 1.2 (660), Act 2 (505), Act 3 (459), Act 4 (516), 5.2 (608), 5.3 (79)
- **Miss Hardcastle**: 1.1 (479), Act 2 (416), Act 3 (930), Act 4 (294), 5.1 (121), 5.3 (350)
- **Mrs. Hardcastle**: 1.1 (396), Act 2 (601), Act 3 (527), Act 4 (402), 5.2 (303), 5.3 (104)
- **Hastings**: 1.2 (99), Act 2 (1,329), Act 3 (113), Act 4 (400), 5.1 (41), 5.2 (262), 5.3 (83)
- **Miss Neville**: 1.1 (244), Act 2 (300), Act 3 (146), Act 4 (520), 5.2 (93), 5.3 (52)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Mrs. Hardcastle: “Fine spoken, madam; you are most miraculously polite and engaging, and quite the very pink of courtesy and circumspection, madam. And you, you great ill-fashioned oaf, with scarce sense enough to keep your mouth shut—were you, too, joined against me? But I’ll defeat all your plots in a moment. As for you, madam, since you have got a pair of fresh horses ready, it would be cruel to disappoint them. So, if you please, instead of running away with your spark, prepare, this very moment, to run off with me. Your old aunt Pedigree will keep you secure, I’ll warrant me. You too, sir, may mount your horse, and guard us upon the way. Here, Thomas, Roger, Diggory! I’ll show you that I wish you better than you do yourselves.” | Act 4 | 131 | 14 |
| Mrs. Hardcastle: “Oh, sir, you’re only pleased to say so. We country persons can have no manner at all. I’m in love with the town, and that serves to raise me above some of our neighbouring rustics; but who can have a manner, that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and such places where the nobility chiefly resort? All I can do is to enjoy London at secondhand. I take care to know every tête-à-tête from the Scandalous Magazine, and have all the fashions, as they come out, in a letter from the two Miss Rickets of Crooked Lane. Pray, how do you like this head, Mr. Hastings?” | Act 2 | 113 | 12 |
| Hardcastle: “Ay, there goes a pair that only spoil each other. But is not the whole age in a combination to drive sense and discretion out of doors? There’s my pretty darling Kate! the fashions of the times have almost infected her too. By living a year or two in town, she is as fond of gauze and French frippery as the best of them.” | Act 1, Scene 1 | 111 | 12 |
| Hardcastle: “Nor I, confound me if ever I did! To come to my house, to call for what he likes, to turn me out of my own chair, to insult the family, to order his servants to get drunk, and then to tell me, “This house is mine, sir.” By all that’s impudent, it makes me laugh. Ha! ha! ha! Pray, sir, as you take the house, what think you of taking the rest of the furniture? There’s a pair of silver candlesticks, and there’s a fire screen, and here’s a pair of brazen-nosed bellows; perhaps you may take a fancy to them?” | Act 4 | 102 | 11 |
| Marlow: “So, then, all’s out, and I have been damnably imposed on. Oh, confound my stupid head, I shall be laughed at over the whole town! I shall be stuck up in caricatura in all the print-shops. The Dullissimo Maccaroni. To mistake this house of all others for an inn, and my father’s old friend for an innkeeper! What a swaggering puppy must he take me for! What a silly puppy do I find myself! There, again, may I be hanged, my dear, but I mistook you for the barmaid.” | Act 4 | 89 | 9 |
| Tony: “A damned cramp piece of penmanship, as ever I saw in my life. I can read your print hand very well. But here are such handles, and shanks, and dashes, that one can scarce tell the head from the tail.—“To Anthony Lumpkin, Esquire.” It’s very odd, I can read the outside of my letters, where my own name is, well enough; but when I come to open it, it’s all—buzz. That’s hard, very hard; for the inside of the letter is always the cream of the correspondence.” | Act 4 | 89 | 9 |
| Miss Hardcastle: “Ha! ha! ha! Was there ever such a sober, sentimental interview? I’m certain he scarce looked in my face the whole time. Yet the fellow, but for his unaccountable bashfulness, is pretty well too. He has good sense, but then so buried in his fears, that it fatigues one more than ignorance. If I could teach him a little confidence, it would be doing somebody that I know of a piece of service. But who is that somebody?—That, faith, is a question I can scarce answer.” | Act 2 | 87 | 9 |
| Marlow: “By Heaven! she weeps. This is the first mark of tenderness I ever had from a modest woman, and it touches me. Excuse me, my lovely girl; you are the only part of the family I leave with reluctance. But to be plain with you, the difference of our birth, fortune, and education, makes an honourable connection impossible; and I can never harbour a thought of seducing simplicity that trusted in my honour, of bringing ruin upon one whose only fault was being too lovely.” | Act 4 | 85 | 9 |
| Marlow: “Never; unless, as among kings and princes, my bride were to be courted by proxy. If, indeed, like an Eastern bridegroom, one were to be introduced to a wife he never saw before, it might be endured. But to go through all the terrors of a formal courtship, together with the episode of aunts, grandmothers, and cousins, and at last to blurt out the broad staring question of “Madam, will you marry me?” No, no, that’s a strain much above me, I assure you.” | Act 2 | 84 | 9 |
| Hardcastle: “And I say so too. And, Mr. Marlow, if she makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don’t believe you’ll ever repent your bargain. So now to supper. Tomorrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish about us, and the mistakes of the night shall be crowned with a merry morning. So, boy, take her; and as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife.” | Act 5, Scene 3 | 82 | 9 |

## Small roles that can be doubled

These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way.

- Sir Charles and Diggory
- Sir Charles and Landlord
- Sir Charles and Second Fellow
- Sir Charles and Maid
- Sir Charles and Third Fellow
- Sir Charles and Jeremy
- Sir Charles and First Fellow
- Sir Charles and Second Servant
- Sir Charles and Fourth Fellow
- Sir Charles and Omnes
- Sir Charles and First Servant
- Sir Charles and Roger

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in She Stoops to Conquer?

Marlow, with about 474 lines and 4,014 words, 19.8% of everything spoken in the play. Hardcastle is next, with about 426 lines (17.7%).

### How long is She Stoops to Conquer?

The full text has 20,313 spoken words, about 145 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in She Stoops to Conquer?

22 named roles speak in this edition, across 8 scenes. 15 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/oliver-goldsmith/she-stoops-to-conquer) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).