136 reputed supposed; from Lat. puto = I think, but as the offspring of an unfaithful mother, pute (Fr.), a whore, he is reputed.

  137 Lord … presence ‘Master of that dignity, … that may sufficiently distinguish thee from the vulgar without the help of fortune’ (Johnson; noted by Honigmann); presence also refers to the sense of place or space which surrounds a person (OED 2a). In addition, the phrase implies nobleness, majesty, or handsomeness of bearing or appearance (OED 5a) as in John’s line at 2.1.367, ‘Lord of our presence’.

  no land beside i.e. no land to go with it; the parallel issue of inheritance in the case of John and the case of the Bastard is reinforced here when we remember that, before taking the throne, John had the sobriquet ‘Lackland’.

  138 an if and if

  139 Sir Robert’s … him i.e. Sir Robert’s shape is like Robert Faulconbridge’s shape.

  Sir Robert’s his use of the double genitive. Today we would use only one of these two possessives. Elizabethan English allowed for such intensifying by doubling.

  140 riding-rods thin switches used by horse riders to urge on their steeds

  141 eel-skins stuffed i.e. very thin, almost snake-like

  141–3 my face … three farthings ‘If I looked as thin as my brother does, I would not dare wear a rose behind my ear [as lovers do], as I’d be afraid that I would be called a coin of small value [one which had the profile of the Queen with a rose behind her ear]’ (Smallwood) Philip here insults his thin-faced younger brother.

  144 to in addition to

  146 it the land in dispute

  147 Sir Nob both a pet name for Robert, and ‘head’ (Ard2)

  in any case as Ard2 points out, case is a double entendre for pudendum, and is thus the last of a sequence of off-colour terms including shape, stir, foot, Sir Nob and probably riding-rods. The exact logic of these obscene references is not always clear beyond the obvious and essential link between legitimacy and female sexuality, but that the Bastard has a cheerful self-satisfaction in his delivery is a feature of almost all productions.

  149 Bequeath used synonymously with ‘devise’, in the sense of handing over a testamentary gift of real estate (Clarkson & Warren, 239)

  him your younger half-brother, Robert

  150 I … soldier Eleanor is an active campaigner upon whose resources John depends for his French expedition; see 4.2.117–19, 127–8, in which John expresses disappointment at the loss of his mother’s care (4.2.117).

  bound to headed for, with a subsidiary reminder that in her first marriage, to Louis VII, Eleanor was quite bound to France

  * * *

  138 an] and F

  * * *

  140 riding-rods] Capell; riding rods F 147 I] F2; It F Sir Nob] Capell; sir nobbe F

  151 chance opportunity, inasmuch as the negative hazard/risk (cf. 119) run by the Bastard’s legal father has resulted in the positive chance of his ‘son’

  153 fivepence Although amounting to more than a groat (see 94n.), this is still a pitifully small sum of money.

  dear overpriced

  154–6 Eleanor jokes at the Bastard’s chivalry by indicating that she would prefer him to precede her in death. The Bastard’s mannerly deference to one of his betters has proverbial precedent: cf. Dent, P89, ‘At an ill passage honour thy companion’.

  157 So far, both brothers are known simply as the sons of old Sir Robert Faulconbridge; the Bastard is named in 158 and Robert at 224. The Bastard is known by several names in the play.

  158–9 begun … son another couplet, continuing the Bastard’s unique style of speaking; wife’s eldest son may be proverbial as a way of denoting a bastard (Dent, L30.1, ‘My Lady’s eldest son’, citing The Puritan (Middleton?, 1607), 1.2.54–7, ‘Then was I turnde to my wittes, to shift in the world, to towre among Sonnes and Heyres, and Fooles, and Gulls, and Ladyes eldest Sonnes’); cf. MA 2.1.8–9, ‘the other too like my lady’s eldest son’.

  158 begun The Bastard gives only his Christian name.

  160 his i.e. Richard the Lionheart’s

  form image, likeness; cf. 5.7.26, ‘To set a form upon that indigest’.

  161–2 The Bastard receives knighthood and a new name; cf. 1H6 3.1.174–5, ‘Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet, / And rise created princely Duke of York.’

  Plantagenet See 9 and n.

  * * *

  162 SD] Capell

  163 Brother … side i.e. half-brother (having the same mother)

  165 blessed blessèd

  hour Ard2 cites H. Kokeritz as showing ‘that hour and whore were homophones [R.E.S., XIX (1943), p. 358].’

  167 spirit mettle; vigour of mind; ardour; courage; disposition or readiness to assert oneself or to hold one’s own (OED n. III 13a); cf. AYL 1.1.66, ‘The spirit of my father grows strong in me’.

  169 by chance … though ‘It is by chance (that you are my grandmother) but not through virtue, but so what.’

  170 ‘more than a little improper’

  from the right an allusion to the ‘bar sinister’ a diagonal line on heraldic shields to indicate a bastard element (Dover Wilson)

  171 suggestive of illegal entry, as opposed to walking through the doorway; proverbial expressions of bastardy: Dent, W456, ‘To come in at the window’

  o’er the hatch over the lower part of a door which opened in two halves; cf. 5.2.138, ‘and make you take the hatch’; but with a secondary idea that the hatch was the smaller door inset within a full-sized door commonly found in brothels

  172 The Bastard has a que sera sera attitude here.

  stir go about; be roused or excited

  walk by night i.e. be a ‘night-walker’, a prowler or one who strolls in search of sexual custom (Williams, ‘walk’); cf. MW 5.5.144–5, ‘This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.’

  173 have is have ‘If I have it, it is mine’ (Dent, H215; earliest known example); allusive of coitus, often with the idea of possession (Williams, ‘have’).

  catch take possession (OED v. II 6 fig.); with the connotation of contracting a sexual disease (Onions)

  174 an allusion to archery; whether an archer is close or far from the target, a winning shot is still a good one; shot also = ejaculation (Williams, ‘shoot’). See LLL 4.1.114–37 for sexual quibbles on shooting: e.g. ‘A mark marvellous well shot’ (129).

  175 I am I an expression that anticipates in its self-confidence Caesar’s, ‘I do know but one … And that I am he’ (JC 3.1.68–70), and in the same vein echoes Yahweh’s ‘I am that I am’ (Exodus, 3.14) (C. Dinsdale). A possible additional source is in the Andria of Terence, l. 636: ‘proximus sum egomet mihi’ (‘I am always closest to myself’). Traditionally a dangerous sentiment, since it implies the speaker’s dissociation from societal structures. It is common amongst the Machiavels of Elizabethan drama; see, for instance, Richard of Gloucester’s extreme statement, ‘I am myself alone’ (3H6 5.6.83).

  176 Faulconbridge Robert, the younger brother and now inheritor of his father’s property

  177 landless The whole issue of inheritance, the theme of both the brothers Faulconbridge vignette and the larger plot of King John and Prince Arthur, is underscored when landless recalls John’s sobriquet, ‘Lackland’, given him because his father, Henry II, had already designated his possessions to John’s elder brothers, initially leaving no land to his youngest son.

  squire that is, Robert Faulconbridge, who belongs to the social rank below that of knight, the new title of his bastard brother (162)

  179 more than need absolutely necessary

  181 i’th’ … honesty in the morally approved manner; proverbial (Dent, W155); honesty carries a reference to womanly honour or chastity.

  182 A foot a grade, that is status, footing; the agreed or understood position or status a person occupies (OED foot n. VI 24)

  183 many a many emphatic for ‘many’ (OED a. 1b, citing this line)

  184 make … lady i.e. by virtue of his new status the Bastard can marry any common girl, who would then be entitled to be called lady. Joan was a generic name for a female rustic; cf. LLL 5.2.908, ‘While greasy Joan doth keel the pot’; also a colloquialism for ‘whore’ (Williams, ‘Joan’). The proximity in pronunciation of Joan to ‘John’ allows a resonating in the ear of the audience and even of the reader, which suggests that the Bastard subsequently has also the power to make or unmake John.

  185 Good-den short for ‘God give ye good even’ or good evening

  Godamercy God reward you. ‘Response to a respectful salutation or wish, usually expressed by an inferior’ (Onions). Both expressions are part of the Bastard’s imagined dialogue between himself, newly ennobled (new-made honour, 187), and a provincial whose name can be carelessly mistaken (see 186–7).

  fellow address implying polite condescension

  187 new-made … names proverbial, see Dent, H583, ‘Honours change manners’.

  188–9 ’Tis … conversion i.e. (remembering men’s names) is too respectful (respective) and too familiar or companionable (sociable) for your new aristocratic status.

  189 your … your one’s, that is, the Bastard’s; in both instances used indefinitely with reference to what is known and common

  conversion either conversation (Ard2, following Halliwell), or newly acquired status. Honigmann helpfully suggests that both are operative.

  189–93 Now … countries Travellers brought news, had many tales to tell and were therefore good guests at dinner; cf. AW 2.5.27–8, ‘A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner’; also Gaveston, who employs a traveller to ‘tell me lies at dinner time’ (Edward II, 1.1.31).

  190 toothpick a sign of insouciance, brandished particularly by recently returned travellers eager to show off their newly acquired cultural superiority. Cf. the archetypal affected traveller, Sir Peregrine in Ben Jonson’s Volpone: ‘I went, and bought two tooth-picks, whereof one / I burst, immediately, in a discourse / With a dutch merchant’ (4.1.139–41).

  my worship’s mess i.e. a table where people of title have gathered to dine; my worship’s = ‘my lord’s’, or belonging to some putative social superior, while a mess was ‘one of the groups of persons, normally four, into which the company at a banquet was divided’ (Onions).

  191 sufficed satisfied

  192 suck my teeth i.e. draw in with the mouth in order to clean between the teeth (therefore not needing a toothpick)

  catechize instruct by question-and-answer method

  193 picked pickèd; three meanings: (1) refined, spruce, affected; (2) having used a toothpick; (3) selected, chosen, special (because of his foreign travels)

  of countries concerning the traveller’s journeys to many countries

  195 beseech implore

  195–6 Question … Absey-book An ABC-book or abcee-book, absey-book, was an introductory book to any subject, often in catechism or dialogue form between Question and Answer (OED ABC n. 4 attrib., citing this example); a primary-level school text, bound together with the Catechism, which would be structured in, again, a simple question-and-answer form

  * * *

  189 conversion.] Capell; conuersion, F

  198 employment The word defined correctly as ‘service’ reminds us of the callous joke of the Bastard’s at 98. Here it reminds us of how Sir Richard has become Sir Richard.

  200 would intends

  201 Saving except

  dialogue of compliment exchange of artificial, high-sounding words or praise (cf. Osric and the mocking Hamlet, Ham 5.2.68ff.)

  202–3 Alps … Po These geographical features are representative of the foreign venues visited by a traveller. Their names all have a p in them, allowing the actor playing the Bastard to stress these plosives to good mocking effect.

  202 Alps … Apennines high mountains in France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria; central mountain range in Italy

  203 Pyrenean … Po mountain range between Spain and France; river in northern Italy

  204 draws toward supper i.e. the time is filled between dinner at midday and the evening meal at five or six o’clock.

  205 worshipful high and artificial; recalling 190 and including an attitude of flattery

  206 mounting spirit ambitious, the ‘aspiring mind’ of the Renaissance soldier of fortune, celebrated by Marlowe, and also found in Troublesome Reign.

  207–8 bastard … observation ‘He is not a proper member of today’s milieu if he isn’t playing the game of compliments.’ Cf. ‘he will prosper most whose mode of acting best adapts itself to the character of the times; and conversely that he will be unprosperous, with whose mode of acting the times do not accord’ (Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 25).

  208 *smack have a taste of, savour (the figurative sense)

  observation paying close attention; paying court (Onions)

  209 And so am I i.e. I am literally a bastard; a reconfiguration of 175, ‘And I am I’.

  210–11 the rhythm and source of the words used by Hamlet to his mother, ‘’Tis not alone my inky cloak’ (Ham 1.2.77). Emrys Jones (Scenic Form, 99–102) finds other KJ influence upon Hamlet’s exchanges with his mother in the closet scene of 3.4, which he sees as a development of KJ 1.1.233–55, especially in terms of Hamlet’s ‘genial insolence’ in the irony of his ‘courteous forms of address’.

  210 habit dress, garb, attire

  device heraldic emblem on a shield; in this case the ‘bar sinister’ denoting a bastard

  * * *

  201 compliment] Rowe; Complement F 203 Pyrenean] Pope; Perennean F 208 smack] Theobald; smoake F

  211 accoutrement clothing. A good illustration of the use of the word in a text well known to Shakespeare occurs in Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) when Jack Wilton, a roguish mounting spirit not unlike the Bastard, visits Wittenberg and its university in the company of his master the Earl of Surrey, where the heads of the university ‘met him in their hooded hypocrisie and doctorly accoustrements’ (Works, 2.246).

  212 from wanting, lacking

  inward motion inner inclination, desire, impulse

  213 sweet poison flattery; Dent, F349.1, ‘Flattery is sweet poison’, citing H5 4.1.247–8, ‘What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, / But poisoned flattery?’

  tooth appetite; a reminder of the link between the artificiality of the toothpick-wielding traveller and the greater danger of the poisonous flattery, which rankles

  214–15 The Bastard is not duplicitous, but he will study the duplicity of others and in that study learn to avoid the lies of others and rise in society: i.e. ‘I do not intend deliberately to deceive others, yet I am determined to study deception in order that people will not deceive me.’ The line could also imply, ‘I must study how to deceive others in order that their deceit will not harm me’ (Smallwood) Cf. 2H6 3.1.264–5, ‘for that is good deceit / Which mates him first that first intends deceit.’

  214 practise make a habit

  216 Ard2 cites Ard1, ‘as I rise flattery will be strewn before me like flowers before one making a progress’, and adds, ‘Or he may refer to the rushes strewing the presence-chamber of a king, and the stage (C. Porter).’

  it i.e. the art of seeing the duplicity of others; or flattery

  218 woman-post female courier

  219 pains echoing the term used (78) in the description of creating of the Bastard

  blow … her allusion to the horn which announced the arrival of the post-rider, here made into a joke about cuckolds who proclaim their ‘horns’ and loose wives who turn their husbands into cuckolds; a variation of the proverb ‘Wear a horn and blow it not’ (Dent, H618).

  219.1 James GURNEY Why provide a name for a character who is onstage for a mere dozen lines? The naming of such a minor figure is sometimes said to be a characteristic gesture by Shakespeare to individualize even the most insignificant characters. However, it is possible that James Gurney is a Mr Brown figure, a loyal male retainer like the widowed Queen Victoria’s Scottish attendant – faithful, and ambivalently/ambiguously both friend and lover. A lover would accentuate the force of the Bastard’s punning use of ‘commodity’ and reinforce the principle of self-interest, which operates throughout the play.

  * * *

  218 woman-post] F4; woman post F 219.1] Capell; after 221 F

  220 ’tis Ard2 finds this expression facetiously mincing.

  223 holds in chase hunts, pursues (as in hunting); cf. Cor 1.6.18–19, ‘Spies of the Volsces / Held me in chase’.

  up and down all over; completely

  225 Colbrand the Giant Danish hero of legendary strength who was slain by Guy, Earl of Warwick, in the popular fourteenth-century romance Guy of Warwick (printed versions existed in the sixteenth century); cf. H8 5.3.20–1, ‘I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand, / To mow ’em down before me’. The legend of Sir Guy and Colbrand is celebrated in Michael Drayton’s Polyolbion (1613, song 12). Compare the slender form of Robert Faulconbridge, the physical antithesis of a giant (138–143). See also Peachman for the idea of an allusion to Ben Jonson’s difficulties.

  230 James Gurney ‘the simple dramatic point is that the Bastard, in his newly created knighthood, and having just promised to show his rank by forgetting men’s names, forgets to forget the name of this servant, who is the next man he meets’ (Richard Proudfoot, SS 28, 179).

  give us leave common expression (Dent, L167.1) for permission to depart, used in polite forms of dismissal

  231 Good leave willing permission

  Philip? Sparrow! ‘Merely Philip?’; as the newly made Sir Richard Plantagenet, the Bastard reacts to Gurney’s familiar form of address (good Philip). Philip was a common name for pet sparrows (as in John Skelton’s elegy Philip Sparrow and George Gascoigne’s Praise of Philip Sparrow); hence, Philip is a name good enough for a sparrow but not for him, yet we note that the Bastard’s satirical, flippant nature is actually well referred to as that of ‘Philip Sparrow’.