{"id":203380,"date":"2026-03-23T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=203380"},"modified":"2026-06-21T19:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T23:18:24","slug":"2026-shakespeare-reading-project-king-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=203380","title":{"rendered":"2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: King John"},"content":{"rendered":"

My progress:
\nShakespeare Reading Project<\/strong>
\nHenry VI<\/em>, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III<\/em><\/a>
\nTwo Gentlemen of Verona<\/a><\/em>
\nThe Taming of the Shrew<\/a><\/em>
\nTitus Andronicus<\/a><\/em>
\nThe Comedy of Errors<\/a><\/em>
\nLove\u2019s Labour\u2019s Lost<\/a><\/em>
\nRomeo & Juliet<\/a><\/em>
\nA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a><\/em>
\nRichard II<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

King John<\/i><\/h1>\n

“King John” shouldn’t be the title. The title should be “Three Mothers and One Illegitimate Man”. King John barely registers in comparison to the wailing vicious women and Faulconbridge the Bastard. And unlike, say, Mercutio, who could be Faulconbridge’s brother, Faulconbridge does not go down in a blaze of glory, he’s not murdered. He triumphs. The final lines of the play are his. He’s such a cool character. <\/p>\n

The only thing I know about King John is he is the Magna Carta guy – and Shakespeare never mentions it. And based on what we see here, John does not inspire confidence. He is woman-pecked all around. These mothers are at each others’ throats. The framing makes things complicated. The women are vivid and histrionic. There are a lot of speeches. Hubert is almost immediately corrupted by power. John asks Hubert to kill the child Arthur, and it’s almost shocking Hubert’s response. These one-word replies and one-word responses. It’s brutal. John is basically trying to get rid of his competition, but Arthur is a child. Like the two little princes in Richard III. Or, later, the horrific off-stage murder of MacDuff and his whole family. You can feel Shakespeare shuffling off the compulsive lyricism and rhetoric. You can definitely feel it in Faulconbridge’s vivid language. Faulconbridge uses slang, he’s direct. He can see how the world works, how Commodity rules all. <\/p>\n

I’ve never seen King John<\/em> in production. It’s not exactly a thrilling read. I feel like it’s not done all that much. Constance’s wailing ancient-Greek grief goes on for two pages. I know she’s sad, but it’s tiresome. The whole thing is a little declamatory, especially with a central character as uninteresting as John! Henry V takes up the rousing center of his own play. King John is a bore. Shakespeare couldn’t help himself. Maybe he knew Faulconbridge was the scene-stealer Mercutio was. Maybe he didn’t care. Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost<\/em> is another precursor. <\/p>\n

I don’t need scholars and experts to “help” me with my favorite plays. Like Midsummer<\/em>, As You Like It<\/em>, Much Ado<\/em>, The Tempest<\/em>: I know these plays very well. I can always learn more and I appreciate it, but Midsummer<\/em> is so magic I honestly don’t CARE about the background. But with King John<\/em> … I really need them. There’s a wealth of good information provided by my chosen scholars (i.e. the ones I happen to have in my current library), including the observation that Faulconbridge is a breakthrough for Shakespeare, making room for Falstaff, who is about to make his appearance. <\/p>\n

Oh and I feel pretty proud of myself for piecing together a couple of scenes where Faulconbridge’s behavior was attention-getting even though he barely says anything. I’ll break it down below. Shakespeare here makes a character eloquent when he’s NOT speaking.<\/p>\n

Quotes on the play<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

“Much of the verse [in King John<\/em>] is so archaic that it suggests the Shakespeare of 1589 or so. And yet Faulconbridge the Bastard is Shakespeare’s first character who speaks with a voice entirely his own.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“King John<\/em> is his last frontal attack upon the historical heroic style. In Henry IV<\/em>, he will work on the flanks; and though in Henry V<\/em> he will make further forages over open ground he will understand and confess their futility.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“Constance in King John<\/em> and Richard II in Richard II<\/em> represent a combination of dramatic and lyrical writing. Shakespeare was learning to find a character suitable to a lyric style. Mark Van Doren notes that Constance is the last of Shakespeare’s wailing women.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946<\/p>\n

“The theme of the play is excess, and the [“painting the lily”] passage perfectly expresses it … Pembroke and Salisbury … go on gilding their gold through four more speeches, shifting the metaphor … The statement of the fault commits the fault and indeed the two noblemen continue through the rest of the play as a chorus whose manner, like their matter, is too much.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Shakespeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and characters. The Lady’s grief is very affecting, and the character of the Bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“The aon is renewed in King John<\/em>, where the dramatist betrays every anxiety at not being comfortable with the mode his play has inherited. With one exception, all the characters goad us to a frenzy of boredom with their Marlovian declamations and lamentations. The particular offender is the dreadful Constance, who famously invokes:
\nDeath, death, O amiable lovely death!
\nThou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!<\/em>
\nThat first line now reads like a proleptic parody of Walt Whitman. The second sounds like a Max Beerbohm parody of Shakespeare.
\n— Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence<\/em><\/p>\n

“[King John’s] last lines are too accomplished; he succumbs like most of his colleagues in the play to a passion for conceits, to a thirst for the phrase that will end the search for all phrases.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“[Constance] is the last and most terrible of Shakespeare’s wailing women; she is the point to which the line that begins with Lucrece<\/em> and extends through Richard III<\/em> has been so straightly drawn.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“The style of Constance’s speeches is like that of Sonnet 135 — ‘Whoever hath her wish thou hast the Will” — which was written at about the same time.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946<\/p>\n

“The Lady’s grief is very affecting. But a passion so violent cannot be borne long.”
\n— Dr. Johnson<\/p>\n

“The conceits of Constance and the stuffiness of the prevailing style would keep the air of King John<\/em> unbreathable were it not for the breeze that blows over fresh and strong from Philip Faulconbridge, the Bastard. No character in Shakespeare thus far has been more delightfully and unaccountable himself…[Faulconbridge] is, in other words, one of Shakespeare’s first evidences that he can create life without formula and without effort — life that overruns the play designed to contain it, capering off on by-paths under its own happy power…He is Shakespeare’s critic of the rant he has been writing, he is the force with whose aid Shakespeare stamps himself free from fustian, from the limitations of a too formal, heroic verse.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“Shakespeare is to return to [Faulconbridge’s] attacks in Hotspur, who will lead it for him still more brilliantly, and indeed will finish it so that it need never be undertaken in English again. Hotspur will be the full creature for whom Faulconbridge is still no more than a sketch… Meanwhile life has been created. And its abundance here is unique in literature.”
\n— Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“‘Look at them!’ Shakespeare seems to say as he places [King John and Faulconbridge] side by side, ‘a man is greater than a king!'”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

“There are few if any more important passages in the early works of Shakespeare than the lines at the end of Act II of this play in which the Bastard pays his respects to the God of this World to whom all but a few rare characters bow down … Two of Shakespeare’s greatest sonnets, the 123rd and 124th, on Time and Policy … are nothing but the Bastard’s soliloquy in another key, or two other keys.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

To me, and to the State of my great Grief,
\nLet Kings assemble. — Constance<\/em><\/p>\n

“In Much Ado About Nothing, the father of Hero, depressed by her disgrace, declares himself so subdued by grief that a thread may lead him<\/em>. How is it that grief in Leonato and Lady Constance, produce effects directly opposite, and yet both agreeable to nature. Sorrow softens the mind while it is yet warmed by hope, but hardens it when it is congealed by despair. Distress, while there remains any prospect of relief, is weak and flexible, but when no succor remains, is fearless and stubborn; angry alike at those that injure, and at those that do not help; careless to please where nothing can be gained; and fearless to offend when there is nothing further to be dreaded. Such was this writer’s knowledge of the passions.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“Out of the ghastly rhetoric of the play, Shakespeare improbably but wonderfully plucks the first of his superb originals, the Bastard Faulconbridge, a powerfully serio-comic misreading of the Marlovian Machiavel, and a giant step upon the way to Falstaff. Shakespeare’s daemonic language surges through the beautiful, laughing speeches of the Bastard, who substitutes ‘commodity’ for Marlowe’s ‘policy’: the swerve from Marlowe introduces fierce comedy into history, and converts the rhetoric of overreaching into a magnificence of railery.”
\n— Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence<\/em><\/p>\n

“I cannot escape the conviction that those words [‘Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth’] come as directly from Shakespeare’s own heart as from the Bastard’s, that he too meant to deliver ‘sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth’.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

^^ Maybe it’s not true but King John supposedly died – or it was believed he died – from eating too many peaces which had been poisoned.<\/em><\/p>\n

^^ Reading this was a light-bulb moment for me.<\/em><\/p>\n

“[Cardinal Pandulph] is a perfect preview of some of the totalitarians of our time.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Bastard is the king of the play.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

“King John<\/em> and Richard II<\/em> form a transition from the Henry VI<\/em> plays and Richard III<\/em> to the great Henry IV<\/em> plays and to Henry V<\/em>, where Shakespeare is getting bored. Set battle pieces remain in King John<\/em> … but they are absent in Richard II<\/em>. In Henry V<\/em>, battle scenes subside into the chorus … In King John<\/em> and Richard II<\/em> Shakespeare also drops the subplot, like Cade’s rebellion in Henry VI<\/em> … There is a consequent loss of the sense of the whole of society … Shakespeare brings the subplot back in Henry IV<\/em>.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

“The real interest in King John<\/em> and Richard II<\/em> lies in Shakespeare’s development as a writer.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946 lecture<\/p>\n

“In King John<\/em>, the star is not the king.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946 lecture<\/p>\n

On the speech in Act III, iii:<\/em><\/p>\n

“This speech shows an enormous advance in Shakespeare’s technical skill. He gets away from conventional rhetoric, and the single word speeches – ‘death,’ ‘a grave,’ ‘enough’ — are very skillful.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946 lecture<\/p>\n

“What was the ground of this quarrel of the Bastard to Austria is nowhere specify’d in the present play; nor is there in this place, or the scene where it is first hinted at (namely the second of Act 2.) the least mention of any reason for it. But the story is, that Austria, who kill’d Richard Coeur-de-lion, were as the spoil of that Prince, a lion’s hide which had belang’d to him. This circumstance renders the anger of the Bastard very natural, and ought not to have been omitted. In the first sketch of this play (which Shakespeare is said to have had a hand in, jointly with William Rawley) we accordingly find this insisted upon, and I have ventured to place a few of those verses here.”
\n— Alexander Pope<\/p>\n

“I don’t care for the Hubert-Arthur scene [IV.i]. Little kids onstage are impossible. They should be drowned.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946 lecture<\/p>\n

“Faulconbridge is apparently unconscious of literary style, but he actually displays an enormous literary gift. Shakespeare is interested in how men of action should<\/em> talk, not in conventional braggadocio. Out of this interest was to come the great development of his verse in the future.”
\n— W.H. Auden, 1946 lecture<\/p>\n

“King John<\/em> is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of, and we are not sorry that it is.”
\n— William Hazlitt, Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays<\/em><\/p>\n

Let zeal now matted by the windy breath
\nOf soft petitions, pity and remorse,
\nCool and congeal again to what it was. — II.i.477-479<\/em><\/p>\n

“We have here a very unusual, and, I think, not very just image of zeal<\/em>, which in its highest degree is represented by others as a flame, but by Shakespeare as a frost. To repress zeal<\/em>, in the language of others, is to cool<\/em>, in Shakespeare’s to melt<\/em> it; when it exerts its utmost power it is commonly said to flame<\/em>, but by Shakespeare to be congealed<\/em>.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“There are … few characters on the stage that excite more disgust and loathing [than King John]. He has no intellectual grandeur or strength of character to shield him from the indignation on which his immediate conduct provokes.”
\n— William Hazlitt, Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays<\/em><\/p>\n

“The character of the Bastard’s comic humor is the same in essence as that of other comic characters in Shakespeare; they always run on with good things and are never exhausted; they are always daring and successful. They have words at will and a flow of wit, like a flow of animal spirits.”
\n— William Hazlitt, Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays<\/em><\/p>\n

On Faulconbridge’s speech, Act I, sc i:<\/em><\/p>\n

“How much of English literature comes out of the Bastard’s monologue! In it one can hear, prophetically, Swift, Sterne, Dickens, and Browning, and a long tradition that reverberates still in the century now ending.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“Richard III<\/em> is a sort of biography of Force, a fitting close to the series of nine plays that began chronologically with King John<\/em>, a confirmation of the Bastard’s belief that Truth in the long run gets the better of Commodity, a crowning demonstration of the diabolic rather than the divine right on which absolute power rests, of the nemesis that is bound in the end to take over the “strong” man. How likely is it that Shakespeare would have composed this pitiless exposure of the hollowness and rottenness of power, only to turn a few years later to the glorification of it on an imperialistic scale? That is the paradox and the question with which the conventional interpretation of Henry V<\/em> confronts us.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1<\/em><\/p>\n

“Shakespearean protagonists from Faulconbridge on [Richard II, Juliet, Mercutio, Bottom, Shylock, Portia] prepare the way for Falstaff by manifesting an intensity of being in excess of their dramatic contexts. They all suggest unused potentialities that their plays do not require of them. The Bastard ought to be king, because nobody else in King John<\/em> is at all kingly. Richard II ought to be a metaphysical poet; Mercutio’s vitalism deserves to find some expression beyond bawdry; Bottom’s wonderfully good-humored, almost preternatural patience might weave an even more bottomless dream; Shylock’s desperate will to avenge insults could get beyond evil farce by forsaking literalism; Juliet and Portia warrant lovers more equal to them than Romeo and Bassanio … Shakespeare creates personalities who never could be accommodated by their roles …”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“[Hamlet, Iago, Edmund, Lear, Edgar, Macbeth, Cleopatra] … give the sense that all plot is arbitrary whereas personality, however daemonic, is transcendent, and is betrayed primarily by what’s within. They have an interior to journey out from … they are more, much more, than what happens to them.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name
\nSo slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,
\nTo charge me to an answering as the Pope. — III.i.<\/em><\/p>\n

“This must have been at the time when it was written, in our struggles with popery, a very captivating scene. So many passages remain in which Shakespeare evidently takes his advantage of the facts then recent, and of the passions then in motion, that I cannot but suspect that time has obscured much of his art, and that many allusions yet remain undiscovered which perhaps may be gradually retrieved by succeeding commentators.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

Faulconbridge’s final lines:<\/em><\/p>\n

“This speech seems to me poetically preferable to such effusions as John of Gaunt’s ‘this sceptred isle’ and Henry V’s ‘we happy few’ … the image of self-wounding is of a higher order than any in the other two speeches.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“The spirit of Christopher Marlowe still dominates King John<\/em>, and only Faulconbridge evades Marlowe’s preference for outwardness. John himself is in part a Marlovian cartoon, and unsatisfactory as such …”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
\nAnd sullen presage of your own decay. — I.i.27-28<\/em><\/p>\n

“By the epithet sullen<\/i>, which cannot be applied to a trumpet, it is plain, that our author’s imagination had now suggested a new idea. It is as if he had said, be a trumpet<\/i> to alarm with our invasion, be a bird<\/i> of ill omen<\/i> to croak out the prognostick of your own ruin.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“King John<\/em> is … engaged — one might say obsessed — with the imagery of the eye, a thematic emphasis that culminates in the famous scene (4.1.), invented by Shakespeare, in which the citizen Hubert of Angiers threatens, on John’s orders, to put out the eye of Prince Arthur, a rival claimant to the throne.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

Act 3, scene 4, Constance:<\/em><\/p>\n

“…almost metaphysical praise of grief … anticipates the torture scene in Act 4, scene 1, and it is important to remember that at this point Arthur is neither dead nor even physically threatened. Yet in performance this is a ‘mad scene,’ anticipating Ophelia and Lady Macbeth.”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“… neither Eleanor nor Constance prevails. Instead, as with Elizabeth, the key question continues to be not who will be the power behind the throne, but who will be the legitimate and powerful ruler. The model remains male (John; his son Prince Henry; the heroic Bastard). Elizabeth would have seen herself in the line of kings, and not among the female consorts. But the theatrical power of these two strong women is very effective …”
\n— Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“Critics have also compared [Faulconbridge] to Shakespeare’s Mercutio, Autolycus, Jaques, Touchstone, and even Falstaff. In any case,he is not only a brave soldier but also a witty commentator, a freshingly deflating cynic. It is worth noting that, unlike any others in this distinguished Shakespearean roster, he not only survives, as Edmund, Mercutio, and Falstaff do not, but also retains central power and influence. Indeed, his ascendancy is such that the play will reward him, at the close, with its final, stirring, and patriotic lines, giving him theatrical pride of place over King John’s succeeding son, Prince Henry.”
\n— Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All<\/em><\/p>\n

“It was necessary that Constance should be interrupted, because a passion so violent cannot be born long. I wish the following speeches had been equally happy; but they only serve to shew, how difficult it is to maintain the pathetick long.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

On Act III, sc i, 209-218:<\/em><\/p>\n

“[This] passage resonates with many swear\/forswear\/oath moments in early comedies like Love’s Labour’s Lost<\/em>, as well as with the constant Shakespearean theme of personal civil war (‘rebellion to thyself’). But there is, too, a verbal inkling of a later moment of ‘good’ rebellion in Pandulph, phrase ‘better conquest never canst thou make’ — the anticipation here is to Cornwall’s worthy servant in King Lear<\/em> … Before we dismiss this echo as the merest accident, we might recall the circumstances: Cornwall is in the act of putting out Gloucester’s eyes. That Shakespeare should, when writing Lear<\/em>, recall the cadence of his earlier warning, in a play that also threatens torture of an innocent man by blinding, seems a fair instance of subliminal association, if it is not a direct or deliberate reference. Indeed, if we are thinking along these lines, we might compare Arthur’s leap to his death in King John<\/em> … to the suicidal ‘leap’ of the blind Gloucester from what he thinks is ‘Dover cliff’ — but is actually flat ground.”
\n— Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All<\/em><\/p>\n

“…dynamic of rivalry between women is palpable in this play almost from the outset.”
\n— Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All<\/em><\/p>\n

“A puzzling and uneven play. King John<\/em> is a daring exploration into the murky depths of realpolitick. In Shakespeare’s earlier history plays – the Henry VI<\/em> plays and Richard III<\/em> — politics is treated as a branch of morals. The course of events, apparently jagged and complex, is shown to have a pattern and a direction that reveal a moral purpose coextensive with the will of God … This doctrine of providential history … begins to yield to something darker and more subtle in King John<\/em>. Shakespeare is still concerned with politics, of course, but in tracing the link between politics and morals, he is less cocksure and doctrinaire.”
\n— Herschel Baker, Riverside Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“In this play the eponymous hero is in fact an anti-hero whom we cannot admire and whom we find it easy to detest.”
\n— Herschel Baker, Riverside Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

Had you such a loss as I,
\nI could give bitter comfort. — Constance<\/em><\/p>\n

“This is a sentiment which great sorrow always dictates. Whoever cannot help himself casts his eyes on others for assistance, and often mistakes their inability for coldness.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“It is significant that [Faulconbridge’s] famous soliloquy (II.i) occurs so early in the play, for it is the start and not the end of the Bastard’s hard-bought worldly knowledge … Faulconbridge grows strong in self-awareness. In a world of knaves and fools that is governed by ‘Commodity’ he alone cuts through fraud and privileged error to assert the claims of valor, truth, and loyalty.”
\n— Herschel Baker, Riverside Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“[Faulconbridge is] one of Shakespeare’s grand creations. In him, as Johnson said, levity and greatness are united. One sign of his distinction is a superb vitality, which has a language all its own … Slangy, coarse, and impudent, his language throbs with life … As Mark Van Doren has observed, poetry works like yeast in every line he utters.”
\n— Herschel Baker, Riverside Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

“It is King John<\/em> over again, with its antithesis between the real and titular hero. King John remains history became John was only a King and not a ‘man’, while Faulconbridge, who was both man and ‘king’ did not fall. Julius Caesar<\/em> becomes tragedy because Brutus both was a ‘man’ and did fall.”
\n— Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare: Volume 1<\/i><\/p>\n

Coleridge spends some time in his lectures shooting down the choices of other editors, like William Warburton. So in Act I, scene i, the Bastard says “Philip? Sparrow!” – a much argued-about line. Warburton suggests “spare me” might be what was meant. <\/em><\/p>\n

“Had Warburton read old Skelton’s Philip Sparrow<\/i>, an exquisite and original poem, and, no doubt, popular in Shakespeare’s time, even Warburton would scarcely have made so deep a plunge into the bathetic<\/i> as to have deathified ‘sparrow’ into ‘spare me’!”
\n— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lecture on King John<\/em><\/p>\n

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France,
\nFor ere thou canst report I will be there,
\nThe thunder of my cannon shall be heard. — King John<\/em><\/p>\n

“The simile does not suit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightnin is destructive and the thunder innocent.”
\n— Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

Quotes from the play<\/h2>\n

So much my conscience whispers in your ear
\nWhich none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.
\n— ELEANOR, I.i.42-43<\/p>\n

I am I, howe’er I was begot.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, I.i.175<\/p>\n

And if his name be George, I’ll call him Peter;
\nFor new-made honor doth forget men\u2019s names;
\n\u2019Tis too respective and too sociable
\nFor your conversion.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, I.i.86-89<\/p>\n

And not alone in habit and device,
\nExterior form, outward accouterment,
\nBut from the inward motion to deliver
\nSweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age\u2019s tooth,
\nWhich though I will not practice to deceive,
\nYet to avoid deceit I mean to learn,
\nFor it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, I.i.210-216<\/p>\n

… that pale, that white-faced shore,
\nWhose foot spurns back the ocean\u2019s roaring tides
\nAnd coops from other lands her islanders,
\nEven till that England, hedged in with the main,
\nThat water-wall\u00e8d bulwark, still secure
\nAnd confident from foreign purposes,
\nEven till that utmost corner of the West
\nSalute thee for her king.
\n— AUSTRIA, II.i.23-30<\/p>\n

Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
\nGive it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
\nThere\u2019s a good grandam.
\n— CONSTANCE, II.i.161-163<\/p>\n

KING JOHN:
\nI bring you witnesses,
\nTwice fifteen thousand hearts of England’s brood–
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nBastards, and else.
\nKING JOHN:
\nTo verify our title with their lives.
\nKING PHILIP:
\nAs many and as well-born bloods those–
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nSome bastards too.
\n— II.i.275-279<\/p>\n

Faulconbridge is almost scary onstage. He subsides into silence quite a lot, but when he does speak, he stays on focus. Unshakable.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cry ‘havoc,’ kings! back to the stained field,
\nYou equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!
\nThen let confusion of one part confirm
\nThe other’s peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, II.i.357-360<\/p>\n

‘Zounds, I was never so bethump’d with words
\nSince I first call’d y brother’s father dad.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, II.i.466-467<\/p>\n

“Dad”. so colloquial, he cuts through the bullshit.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do protest I never lov’d myself
\nTill now indeed I beheld myself
\nDrawn in the flattering table of her eye.
\n— DAUPHON, II.i.561-563<\/p>\n

That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Commodity,
\nCommodity, the bias of the world\u2014-
\nThe world, who of itself is peis\u00e8d well,
\nMade to run even upon even ground,
\nTill this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
\nThis sway of motion, this Commodity,
\nMakes it take head from all indifferency,
\nFrom all direction, purpose, course, intent.
\nAnd this same bias, this Commodity,
\nThis bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
\nClapped on the outward eye of fickle France,
\nHath drawn him from his own determined aid,
\nFrom a resolved and honorable war
\nTo a most base and vile-concluded peace.
\nAnd why rail I on this Commodity?
\nBut for because he hath not wooed me yet.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, II.i.373-388<\/p>\n

The world STILL runs on Commodity. I “rail” on it too and want every billionaire who values commodity above all else to go down. The twist is … Faulconbridge recognizes how Commodity has not “wooed” him yet and so he too could be susceptible. This is self-awareness.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!
\n–FAULCONBRIDGE, II.i.569<\/p>\n

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
\nAnd say there is no sin but to be rich;
\nAnd being rich, my virtue then shall be
\nTo say there is no vice but beggary.
\nSince kings break faith upon Commodity,
\nGain, be my lord, for I will worship thee!
\n–FAULCONBRIDGE, II.i.93-98<\/p>\n

Amen, brother. <\/em><\/p>\n

This juggling witchcraft with revenue.
\n–KING JOHN on Catholics, III.i.93-98<\/p>\n

For I am sick and capable of fears,
\nOppressed with wrongs and therefore full of fears,
\nA widow, husbandless, subject to fears,
\nA woman naturally born to fears.
\n— CONSTANCE, III.i.12-15<\/p>\n

Here we go with the Faulconbridge thing I mentioned at the top. There’s all this negotiating going on and Faulconbridge, who really has no business being a part of any of it, is present. The French king and the Duke of Austria attacks the city of Angiers, on behalf of Arthur the child, and the rightful heir – or, who knows, I don’t get the family tree. England’s army arrives. There’s a standoff between three armies. There’s all this business where John’s niece is basically forced to marry the Dauphin, sight unseen, to create an alliance. Nobody knows who’s the rightful king, John or Arthur. John basically gives away territory. Faulconbridge is on the sidelines, looking on. For some reason, he homes in on the Duke of Austria, who is rude to him on first meeting: the Duke basically says to him, “And who the hell are you?” This tiny bit of disrespect seals Austria’s doom, but Austria has no idea. <\/p>\n

So, Act II, sc.i, here’s the first interaction: <\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTRIA:
\nPeace!
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nHear the crier!
\nAUSTRIA:
\nWhat the devil art thou?
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nOne that will play the devil, sir, with you,
\nAnd ‘a may catch your hide and you alone.
\nYou are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
\nWhose valor plucks dead lions by the beard.
\nI\u2019ll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right.
\nSirrah, look to \u2019t. I\u2019 faith, I will, i\u2019 faith!<\/p>\n

Notice his imagery: the skin of a dead animal wrapped around Austria. <\/p>\n

That’s the extent of the first interaction. Faulconbridge falls into silence for the next page and a half. You could even forget he was there. But Shakespeare knew: even in his silence, Faulconbridge is thinking. And seething. <\/p>\n

At the end of the scene comes their second interaction. Faulconbridge, by the way, is the illegitiate son of Richard the Lion-Hearted, hence all the lion imagery.<\/em><\/p>\n

FAULCONBRIDGE:
\nSaint George, that swinged the dragon and e\u2019er since
\nSits on \u2019s horseback at mine hostess\u2019 door,
\nTeach us some fence! To Austria. Sirrah, were I at home
\nAt your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
\nI would set an ox head to your lion\u2019s hide
\nAnd make a monster of you.
\nAUSTRIA:
\nPeace! No more.
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nO, tremble, for you hear the lion roar.<\/p>\n

Then comes Act III, scene i. Constance goes off, and at one point Austria says to her, “Lady Constance, peace.” Naturally, this ratchets her up higher. She goes off on him and her speech ends with the line <\/em><\/p>\n

Thou wear a lion\u2019s hide! Doff it for shame,
\nAnd hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.<\/p>\n

Same imagery as Faulconbridge in the scene before, which Faulconbridge hears and leaps upon, quoting Constance. <\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTRIA:
\nO, that a man should speak those words to me! [basically saying: thank God you’re a woman, I’d knock your block off if you were a man.<\/em>]
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\n\u201cAnd hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.\u201d
\nAUSTRIA:
\nThou dar\u2019st not say so, villain, for thy life!
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\n\u201cAnd hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shivers. Faulconbridge quotes Constance … twice. No matter what Austria says, the response is the same. The scene moves on and Faulconbridge subsides into silence. Austria does not know the danger he is in from these two brief altercations. The next time Faulconbridge speaks is a page later: and again it is in reply to Austria. In fact, every time Austria speaks, it is Faulconbridge who responds. The net is tightening.<\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTRIA: [to Philip<\/em>]
\nDo so, King Philip. Hang no more in doubt.
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nHang nothing but a calfskin, most sweet lout.<\/p>\n

Again with the image of the calfskin. The scene moves on. 100 lines later, Austria speaks again and Faulconbridge is ON it: <\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTRIA:
\nRebellion, flat rebellion!
\nFAULCONBRIDGE:
\nWill \u2019t not be?
\nWill not a calfskin stop that mouth of thine?<\/p>\n

I get this image of Faulconbridge standing totally still, never taking his eyes off Austria. Austria is all caught up in the events, unaware he is now a target. I feel like, if played right, even though Faulconbridge rarely speaks, he is the sole focus of the scene. 50 lines later, Faulconbridge exits the stage in the middle of a big melee. The following scene starts immediately after the previous scene, and Faulconbridge walks onstage holding the decapitated head of Austria. The “seed” for this was planted three scenes before, and it all played out with Faulconbridge barely saying a word, except for the same sentence with the same calf-skin threat. It’s truly quite frightening and beautifully constructed. <\/em><\/p>\n

Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back
\nWhen gold and silver becks me to come on.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, Act III.iii.12-13<\/p>\n

“bell, book, and candle” was an extant saying, regarding to excommunication rituals. Marlowe uses it in Doctor Faustus. <\/p>\n

KING JOHN:
\nHe is a very serpent in my way,
\nAnd wheresoe\u2019er this foot of mine doth tread,
\nHe lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
\nThou art his keeper.
\nHUBERT:
\nAnd I\u2019ll keep him so
\nThat he shall not offend your Majesty.
\nKING JOHN:
\nDeath.
\nHUBERT:
\nMy lord?
\nKING JOHN
\nA grave.
\nHUBERT:
\nHe shall not live.
\nKING JOHN:
\nEnough.
\nI could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.
\nWell, I\u2019ll not say what I intend for thee.
\n–III.iii.59-67<\/p>\n

Hubert says “sure I’ll do it” without having to think for even just a little bit of time. <\/em><\/p>\n

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
\nLies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
\nPuts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
\nRemembers me of all his gracious parts,
\nStuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
\nThen, have I reason to be fond of grief?
\n— CONSTANCE, III.iv.93-98<\/p>\n

Evils that take leave,
\nOn their departure most of all show evil.
\n— PANDULPH, III.iv.114-115<\/p>\n

This line reminds me of a phrase my friend Shelagh and I reference often, the one about dragons screaming loudest as they are dying. And how this is what we are seeing … everywhere. Basically. However, Pandulph is a terrible character so take that into consideration. <\/em><\/p>\n

A sceptre snatched with an unruly hand
\nMust be as boisterously maintain’d as gain’d.
\n— PANDULPH, III.iv.135-136<\/p>\n

I mean, I think we’re seeing this play out as well today. You steal the throne you are not in the clear. Every day will be a fight to maintain. <\/em><\/p>\n

If the midnight bell
\nDid with his iron tongue and brazen mouth
\nSound on into the drowsy race of night;
\nIf this same were a churchyard where we stand,
\nAnd thou possess’d with a thousand wrongs;
\nOr if that surly spirit, melancholy,
\nHad baked thy blood and made it heavy, thick,
\nWhich else runs tickling up and down the veins,
\nMaking that idiot, laughter, keep men\u2019s eyes
\nAnd strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
\nA passion hateful to my purposes;
\nOr if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
\nHear me without thine ears, and make reply
\nWithout a tongue, using conceit alone,
\nWithout eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;
\nThen, in despite of brooded watchful day,
\nI would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
\n— KING JOHN, III.iii.37-51<\/p>\n

Therefore, to be possessed with double pomp,
\nTo guard a title that was rich before,
\nTo gild refin’d gold, to paint the lily,
\nTo throw a perfume on the violet,
\nTo smooth the ice or add another hue
\nUnto the rainbow, or with taper-light
\nTo seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
\nIs wasteful and ridiculous excess.
\n— SALISBURY, IV.ii.9-16<\/p>\n

I don’t think I realized “gild the lily” came from King John. Maybe it was a colloquialism at the time. <\/em><\/p>\n

But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
\nThen let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, IV.ii.135-136<\/p>\n

He is relentless. Fearless. <\/em><\/p>\n

But as I traveled hither through the land,
\nI find the people strangely fantasied,
\nPossessed with rumors, full of idle dreams,
\nNot knowing what they fear, but full of fear.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, IV.ii.143-146<\/p>\n

It is the curse of kings to be attended
\nBy slaves that take their humors for a warrant.
\n— KING JOHN, IV.ii.208-209<\/p>\n

Typical. A leader not accepting responsibility and blaming his followers. <\/em><\/p>\n

I am amaz’d, methinks, and lose my way
\nAmong the thorns and dangers of this world.
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, IV.iii.140-141<\/p>\n

Shall a beardless boy,
\nA cock’red silken wanton, brave our fields
\nAnd flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
\nMocking the air with colors idly spread,
\nAnd find no check?
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, V.i.69-73<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t want Faulconbridge as an enemy. <\/em><\/p>\n

Come, come, sans compliment, what news abroad?
\n— FAULCONBRIDGE, V.vi.15<\/p>\n

“Sans” again! Love’s Labour’s Lost, “sans sans”. Predicting the big “sans” from Jacques: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2019Tis strange that Death should sing.
\nI am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
\nWho chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
\nAnd from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
\nHis soul and body to their lasting rest.
\n— PRINCE HENRY, V.vii.20-24<\/p>\n

Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room.
\n— KING JOHN, V.vii.28<\/p>\n

And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much.
\nI beg cold comfort.
\n— KING JOHN, V.vii.41-42<\/p>\n

This England never did nor never shall
\nLie at the proud foot of a conqueror
\nBut when it first did help to wound itself.
\n— — FAULCONBRIDGE, V.vii.112-114<\/p>\n

England helped wound itself. Sounds familiar. Heartbroken.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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I adore the imagery: a perfect evocation of the weirdly haunted experience of grieving a person. I quoted this passage in my review of Went Up the Hill<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n