277 falsehood falsehood cures See Dent, D174, ‘One deceit (falsehood) drives out another’; cf. TNK 4.3.93–4, ‘It is a falsehood she is in, which is with falsehoods to be combated.’

  277–8 1fire … burned a folklore belief in homeopathic cure. See Dent, F277. Cf. 5.1.48, ‘be fire with fire’; TGV 2.4.189, ‘as one heat another heat expels’; RJ 1.2.44, ‘one fire burns out another’s burning’; JC 3.1.171; Cor 4.7.54. Greenewald points to the aptness here: ‘Philip inadvertently burnt himself by his oath to John; by infidelity to that oath, he will burn himself again, but morally it will cool the burn’ (127).

  * * *

  275 again;] Theobald; again, F

  278 scorched scorchèd

  279 Cf. Berowne’s comment, ‘Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, / Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths. / It is religion to be thus forsworn’ (LLL 4.3.335–7).

  religion the general sense is: man’s recognition of his relation to God, who is entitled to ‘obedience, reverence and worship’, and man’s acceptance of his duties and obligations to God as a standard of spiritual and practical life (see OED 7); a second sense of ‘strict fidelity or faithfulness’ may also be implied (see OED 6a), cf. AYL 4.1.183–6, ‘ROSALIND … keep your promise. ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind.’

  281 ‘You have sworn an oath (i.e. to John) which conflicts with the religious faith by which you swear.’

  283 Against The repetition of the word also repeats the grammatical logic of the way it is used in 280 and 281, i.e. the items that John has sworn against; this makes ‘to swear’ understood at the beginning of the line.

  288–9 ‘Therefore your second oath, being contrary to your first, is rebellion in yourself to yourself.’ Cf. Warwick’s internal dilemma in E3: ‘Well may I tempt myself to wrong myself / When he hath sworn me by the name of God / To break a vow made by the name of God’ (2.514–16).

  289 Is singular verb governing the single action of making ‘later vows, against thy first (vows)’

  292 giddy unsafe or foolish

  suggestions temptations

  293 part side, party; Oxf 1 suggests a play on nobler parts (291)

  come in bring assistance (i.e. in a fight) (Schmidt)

  * * *

  280 religion,] Collier (Knight); religion: F 282–3 truth … oath;] Steevens; truth, … oath F

  294 vouchsafe graciously receive or accept Oxf1

  295 light descend (in opposition to heavy in 296 and black in 297); plural verb governed by plural curses after the singular subject peril

  296 as that (Abbott, 109)

  297 in despair die Here despair is used in its theological sense, relating to a soul refusing to believe in the hope of salvation; hence to ‘die in despair’ is to be damned; cf. ‘Despair and die’ throughout R3 5.3.

  black deadly, baneful, horrible

  298 Rebellion, flat rebellion Austria echoes Pandulph’s word from 289 perhaps as a ‘simple’ reinforcement of the Cardinal’s argument, or perhaps the line is spoken as an urgent exclamation to King Philip who has yet to respond to Pandulph’s threat.

  flat plain, absolute, unqualified

  Will’t not be? The Bastard reacts to Austria’s interjection with a common expression for exasperation, i.e. ‘Is all in vain?’ (Schmidt). See Dent, B112.2, ‘Will it (It will) not be?’, and cf. 1H6 1.5.33, RJ 4.5.11. Shakespeare has Talbot use this expression of frustration before Orleans in 1H6: ‘It will not be, retire into your trenches’ (1.5.33), and has the Nurse say the same when she fails to wake the drugged Juliet on her wedding morning: ‘Will it not be?’ (RJ 4.5.11).

  299 stop that mouth Dent, M1264, ‘To stop one’s mouth’ (from 1546)

  302 kept celebrated (OED keep v. II 12)

  303 braying adjectival form of noun meaning a sound associated with asses (rather than with lions); a loud harsh sound produced by natural agencies, brass musical instruments, etc. (OED). Cf. King Richard’s comment about the noise of war interrupting sleeping peace, ‘With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray’ (R2 1.3.135).

  churlish drums Blanche repeats the phrase used by Chatillon at 2.1.76.

  * * *

  300 SP1, 317, 337 SPs] this edn; Daul./Dolph. F

  311 virtuous (1) morally upright, and (2) powerful

  312 Alter change, with the submerged pun on ‘altar’, the place where Blanche and the Dauphin were recently wed. See Son 116.1–3, ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments; love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds’.

  doom judgement

  forethought predestined

  315 upholdeth The stem of the verb recalls the holding of John’s hand and the serpent’s tongue, lion’s paw and tiger’s tooth of 258–61.

  317 muse wonder

  cold indifferent (the Dauphin’s interpretation of King Philip’s silence thus far)

  318 profound respects heartfelt considerations

  320 fall from abandon; forsake (i.e. break the alliance)

  * * *

  306 SD] this edn 310 SD] this edn 320 SD] Cam2

  321 i.e. now the real royal you is back. Constance sees King Philip’s true royalty returning from exile to its proper self.

  322 French inconstancy It is a bit much for Eleanor of Aquitaine to complain of this, although her pun on inconstancy and Constance is well made.

  324–5 ‘Time keeps our clocks and has made this hour the one that France will regret.’ Cf. Hamlet’s note as clock-setter (or bone-setter), ‘The time is out of joint; O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!’ (Ham 1.5.186–7).

  Time … rue Ard2 explains the punning here after citing the proverb that ‘ “Rue and thyme grow both in one garden” (Tilley, p. 577) … If it is only a question of time (thyme), then France shall rue, because rue and thyme go together (grow in the same garden).’

  324 bald … Time See Dent, T311, ‘Take time (occasion) by the forelock, for she is bald behind’; cf. CE 2.2.71–2, ‘as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time himself’, and 110–11, ‘Time himself is bald’.

  sexton church officer having the care of the church and the duties of ringing the bells and digging graves; here combined with the figure of Old Time

  327–36 Cf. Octavia’s conflicting loyalties in AC: ‘A more unhappy lady, / If this division chance, ne’er stood between, / Praying for both parts. / The good gods will mock me presently / When I shall pray “O, bless my lord and husband!” / Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud / “O, bless my brother!” Husband win, win brother, / Prays and destroys the prayer; no midway / ’Twixt these extremes at all’ (3.4.12–20).

  333 Father i.e. father-in-law (King Philip)

  fortune victory

  * * *

  324 clock-setter] F3; clocke setter F 330 whirl] Rowe; whurle F

  335 on … lose because she is part of both sides either by blood or by marriage

  336 Assured assurèd

  match be played word-play on match as ‘marriage’ and as ‘game’ played between two sides; played also as sexual intercourse (see Williams, ‘play’) thereby making Assured loss an ironic statement of losing one’s virginity before consummation has occurred. The new bride Blanche’s words were anticipated by the almost-bride Juliet: ‘And learn me how to lose a winning match, / Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods’ (RJ 3.2.12–13).

  339 puissance armed force. Here, but not always, Shakespeare uses a three-syllable pronunciation.

  340–3 burned … France See Dent, B465.1, ‘Only blood can quench the fire’; cf. RJ 1.1.82–3, ‘That quench the fire of your pernicious rage / With purple fountains issuing from your veins’; R2 1.1.153, ‘Let’s purge this choler without letting blood’; Marlowe’s 1 Tamb, 2.6.32–3, ‘And burne him in the fury of that flame, / That none can quence but blood’, and 4.1.56, ‘Then must his kindled wrath bee quencht with blood’. The image of John burning up with heat returns at 344, 5.3.14 and 5.7.30ff noted in Oxf 1. Rather than letting his own blood, John applies the image to the blood-letting of King Philip (‘dearest-valued blood of France’).

  340 burned up an anticipation of his condition at his death

  341 hath this condition is such (condition = quality; OED n. 10, with the added sense of ‘royal rank’, OED n. II 10)

  342 allay alleviate, quell, abate (i.e. the heat of John’s rage, 341); cf. 5.7.7–8, ‘That, being brought into the open air, / It would allay the burning quality’.

  342–3 blood … blood … blood The verbal repetition recalls 1.1.19, 2.1.329 and 3.1.2.

  343 dearest-valued blood three meanings: (1) literally the royal blood of King Philip (i.e. in opposition to the rank (condition) of John’s blood); (2) best blood as opposed to bad or impure blood (i.e. in opposition to the intention of blood-letting which was to remove bad blood); and (3) highly prized men of spirit

  * * *

  339 SD] Pope

  344–5burn … ashes a prophetic foreshadowing of John’s description of his own death. Cf. Wisdom, 2.3, ‘Which being extinguished, the body is turned into ashes’, and the Burial Service in BCP, ‘ashes to ashes’.

  346 in jeopardy two combined meanings both deriving from games of chance: in peril or danger (as a king in chess); a position in a game in which the chances of winning and losing hang in balance (OED jeopardy 2). Ard2 notes alleged etymology as from ‘ “French jeu parti”, a game where the risk was evenly divided – a sense which would connect with ll. 261–2.’

  3.2.0.1 Alarums loud noises which signal the call to arms, made with trumpets or drums

  0.2 Austria’s head A severed head (or heads) was a stock property of any theatrical company; see Tit 3.1.234.1, R3 3.5.20.1, Mac 5.9.19.1. Oxf1 points out that from the time of Garrick, out of fear of laughter, directors have rewritten and substituted a lion’s skin for Austria’s head; however, more recently the head has been returned and used as a football.

  1 this day … hot i.e. the day itself but primarily the battle. Cf. 2.1.314, ‘this hot malicious day’, and note Fluellen’s similar language at Harfleur, ‘It is no time to discourse … The day is hot, and the weather, and the wars’ (H5 3.2.106–7).

  2 airy devil evil spirit whose job it is to cause storms; Beaurline cites a passage from Nashe’s Terrors of the Night (1594) that illustrates the link between this creature and Austria: ‘As for the spirits of the aire [a subset of devils], which have no other visible bodies or form, but such as by the unconstant glimmering of our eies is begotten; they are in truth all show and no substance, deluders of our imagination & nought els. Carpet knights they inspire with a humor of setting big lookes on it, being the basiest cowards under heaven, covering an apes hart with a lions case [which phrase may have significance for the crux at 3.1.259] and making false alarums when they mean nothing but a May-game’ (Works, 1.353).

  3 mischief harm, injury

  * * *

  347 let’s] F3; le’ts F 3.2] (Scœna Secunda.)

  4 Philip i.e. the Bastard, who refers to himself by his (original) Christian name. John forgets that when he knighted the Bastard he gave him the new name of Richard.

  breathes (1) catches his breath, takes a rest; but also (2) still lives

  5 Hubert … boy Arthur’s capture derives from Holinshed’s account of the battle of Mirabeau (1202): ‘Arthur with the residue of the armie that escaped with life from the first bickering was taken … being herevpon committed to prison’ (164b); ‘Arthur was kept in prison, vnder the charge of Hubert de Burgh’ (165a). Hubert’s role as Arthur’s keeper is re-emphasized at 3.3.64. The stage action must show the newly captured Arthur.

  make up advance, hurry forward (see OED make v.1 96n, citing this line)

  6–7 an example of Shakespeare conflating his materials from his historical source. Holinshed reports that Eleanor was under siege and taken captive at Mirabeau by Arthur and his followers before Arthur’s capture by John (164b). John rescued his mother when Mirabeau fell under his attack, but in this scene Shakespeare gives the credit of the rescue to the Bastard. Perhaps, as Ard2 says, ‘Shakespeare felt unsure about [the] facts and pretended that his character was unsure.’

  assailed assailèd

  I rescued her The Bastard’s offstage saving of Eleanor contributes to his expanding image of the heroic in a phrase not quite so memorable as ‘Reader, I married him’ but nevertheless important.

  * * *

  4 SD] this edn 4.1] Capell; after 3 F; Pope, omitting 4, here inserts from TR: Thus hath K. Richards Sonne performed his vowes. / And offred Austrias bloud for sacrifice / Unto his fathers euerliuing soule.); Enter King John, Arthur, and Hubert / Smallwood 10 SD] Oxf1 Exeunt.] Rowe; Exit F

  3.3.0.1–2 The battle referred to in 3.2 has been won by the English forces with the French in retreat. Some time has elapsed in which the English party have discussed plans and preparations for their departure, which they are still discussing as they enter.

  0.1 retreat sounds made by trumpets and drums signalling the withdrawal of troops from battle

  1–2 So … guarded Cf. the entrance of the French party in mid-discussion at 3.1.75. The topic refers to the forces that are to remain with Eleanor in France (referred to again at 70).

  1 stay behind Smallwood remarks that Eleanor is left in control of John’s French possessions, although Shakespeare’s exaggeration at 2.1.487–9 seems to leave him without any. Perhaps Shakespeare was thinking about Aquitaine, over which Eleanor was regent. Though she gave it to John, she retained a life-interest in the province.

  5 this the English victory with Arthur’s consequent capture

  7 shake the bags i.e. empty the moneybags. Ard2 points out that because ‘shake-bag’ was a cant term for a scoundrel or thief, John’s use of the phrase suggests an awareness on his part of wrongdoing.

  8 hoarding abbots John alludes to the revenues of the English Church. Since the sanctity of monasteries made them comparatively safe from violence, they were used by wealthy lay people as depositories for valuables and money; the added benefit being that these goods would not be liable to taxation (see Painter, 133–4).

  9 hungry i.e. John’s hungry soldiers who have been at war as opposed to the monks and their fat prosperity of peace (8)

  *now makes sense, but possibly a compositor’s misreading of ‘maw’

  10 angels gold coins (see 2.1.590–2n.); but with the ‘anti-Catholic implication that the abbots are unsuitable guardians of faith’ (Oxf1)

  * * *

  3.3] Capell; scene contd F 1 SD] Hanmer subst. 2, 6, 17 SDs] Pope

  11 commission delegated authority or the document articulating the authority. Cf. 2.1.110n.

  his its

  12 Bell … candle the elements essential in the rite of excommunication in the Catholic Church, which ends with the words, ‘Do to [close] the book, quench the candle, ring the bell’ (see Dent, B276, ‘To curse with bell, book, and candle’). The process is dramatized in Doctor Faustus, 3.2.1072–87. Compare the Bastard’s confidently flippant remark here, unique in Shakespeare, on the eagerness with which he will carry out King John’s command to despoil the monks of their treasure, with Nashe’s flippant description of his necessary response to Richard Harvey’s attack upon him from the pulpit: ‘but the blind vicar would needs let flie at me with his churchdoor keies, and curse me with bel, book, and candle, because in my Alphabet of Idiots I had overskipt the H’s, what could I doe but draw upon him with my penne and defend myselfe with it and a paper buckler as well as I might’ (Works, 1.262).

  13 becks beckons, summons. Cam2 notes that the Bastard’s response to money recalls 2.1.598, ‘Gain be my lord, for I will worship thee.’ The use of a singular verb with a plural subject is not uncommon in the period (see Abbott, 333, 335).

  16 kiss your hand a form of bidding farewell which did not necessarily accompany any action

  18 SD *The stage becomes divided into groups of characters who do not overhear John and Hubert, who occupy the central position onstage, speaking. Eleanor and Arthur form one group, the Lords another. Eleanor’s action in drawing Arthur aside does not necessarily imply that she is privy to John’s plot, though it may suggest it. See Oxf1

  20 We … much a statement without basis in the action of the play so far unless it is an expression of gratitude for Hubert’s charge of Arthur (see 3.2.5). This is probably nothing more than a random statement forming part of Shakespeare’s method of introducing Hubert (who is first seen but not heard in 3.2) to the audience in terms of a pre-existing relationship to John. The voluntary oath at 23 can be similarly explained. See Dover Wilson

  * * *

  18 SD] Pope subst.

  21 counts which accounts

  her relating to the soul; the Latin word for soul, anima, is feminine, an example of Shakespeare’s something more than ‘small Latin’

  23 voluntary oath commitment offered freely (i.e. without compulsion); but also in the sense of a soldier’s (voluntary’s) vow of service. See 2.1.67n.; cf. TC 2.1.94–5, ‘Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.’

  24 cherished cherishèd

  26 fit it make it accordant, suit (i.e. what John had to say)

  tune speech, rhetorical style or tone of discourse (OED n. 4); cf. MA 3.4.42, ‘do you speak in the sick tune?’. F’s ‘tune’ makes sense, but Pope’s emendation, ‘time’, deserves some consideration as it fits well with the hesitation of John and his delaying tactic, hoping that Hubert did intuitively recognize his desire, even as Richard of Gloucester hoped for from his agent Buckingham, after making the same kind of hand-holding gesture as has John, ‘give me thy hand’ (R3 4.2.3ff.).

  32–3 it … thing … it The indefinite nature of John’s topic whets the audience’s appetite for knowing what it is and reveals John’s own uncertainty as to how to proceed (or reveals his extraordinary rhetorical and psychological skills).