126 flatly without qualification

  127 all … breathed ‘all those brave spirits who ever breathed the fury of battle’ (Smallwood)

  128 The youth the Dauphin. Note the Bastard’s enthusiasm at the prospect of battle, somewhat undercut by his shift in voice to that of the truly condescending and dismissive John.

  130 The structure of this sentence reveals the passion of the Bastard, who breaks the expected grammatical sequence in order to provide a commentary on his own narrative.

  * * *

  116 SD] Rowe 118 fair play] Pope; fair-play F 124 wilful-opposite] Theobald; wilfull opposite F

  131 apish and unmannerly foppish (in imitating, monkey-like, the latest fashion) and indecorous (with the additional idea of cowardly)

  132 harnessed masque stage-play in armour; a masque was a stately drama, with dance, disguise, myth and compliment as its components. The Bastard, speaking for the King, suggests that the French army is a toy opponent made up of boyish troops (133).

  133 *unhaired Some editors follow Theobald in amending F’s ‘vn-heard’ to unhaired, referring to the Dauphin as a beardless boy. Others take ‘unheard’ to mean unheard of, ‘weird’, perhaps an elliptical expression for ‘this situation of unheard [= unheeded, ignored] sauciness and boyish troops’. Ard2 notes, ‘Cf. beardless (5.1.69); haire was commonly spelt heare.’

  135 whip not merely defeat, but humiliate, as whipping was meted out to petty offenders in civil society

  136 circle compass, area limits, echoing, as Oxf points out, John’s comment on his crown in the previous scene, ‘The circle of my glory’ (5.1.2)

  138 cudgel another mode of punishment well below the dignity of a proper soldier

  take the hatch jump over the bottom half of a two-part door. The Bastard likes this reference: earlier (1.1.171), he rather insouciantly used a version of it to describe his own begetting.

  139 dive like buckets Ard2 sees the proverb ‘Like two Buckets of a well, if one goes up the other must go down’ (Dent, B695) as lying behind this thought.

  140 crouch in litter lie ignominiously in the bedding of a stabled animal

  141 pawns objects surrendered for the use of others; articles in pawn

  144 crow rooster, the emblematic bird of France. The insult is deep: the French army will not only be frightened by the noise of a bird that they take for an English soldier, but will misinterpret the bird with which they themselves, the Gauls (Lat. gallus = cock), are associated. Editors suggest that the actor stress the personal pronoun your.

  * * *

  133 unhaired] Theobald (unhair’d); vn-heard F 135 these] Rowe; this F 145 Englishman –] Oxf; Englishman. F

  148–53 Know … shame This rhetoric is quite close to Richard II’s when he is trying to pump some confidence into himself (R2 3.2.42ff.). Here the Bastard hyperbolically describes another weak king with an admixture of imperatives: Know and blush.

  149 eagle The French as crows (see 144n.) have little chance, however numerous they are, against the English eagle.

  eyrie both the nest and the brood in the nest

  150 souse swoop upon; smite

  151 ingrate a term with greater ethical weight in a feudal society than it has in today’s world. Cf. Lear to Goneril (KL 1.4.251) and of her (2.2.151–2).

  revolts rebels

  152 Neroes The Roman emperor Nero was notorious for having had the body of his mother opened, the better to view the place of his own origin (Suetonius, ‘Life of Nero’, Lives of the Twelve Caesars). Ard2 points out that this kind of indictment was frequent at the time of the Spanish Armada, citing G.D.’s Brief Discovery (1588): ‘he that will not sticke to rippe vp the wombe, and to teare and rake out the bowels of his owne mother, he that will endeuour to bring in an inuasion, to the vtter spoyle, ruine, and depopulation of his deare countrye: … what impietye, will hee leaue vnattempted?’ (sig. H2).

  155 Amazons warrior women of classical legend

  tripping dancing

  156–7 thimbles … needles This is so hyperbolical that one might see it as a heightened version of the weaponry of another Constance and her gossips in Ralph Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister, but the conversion of peacetime utensils into wartime armaments was a common theme in late 1580s pamphlets, as Ard2 shows.

  158 inclination tendency, but also the tilt forward of the knight with his lance

  159 brave challenge, act of defiance

  turn … peace The Dauphin suggests that (like Janus) the Bastard is two-faced, looking both towards war with his brave and towards peace, as perforce he must, if he (from the Dauphin’s point of view) doesn’t want to be defeated.

  * * *

  148 No!] Collier; No: F 153 mother England] Theobald; Mother-England F

  160 out-scold outdo in scolding; the Dauphin suggests that the Bastard is the winner verbally, but, by implication, that the French are better at deeds. Perhaps the Dauphin feels as the Bastard once did regarding Austria, that he is bethumped with words (2.1.466); cf. Antony to Cassius in JC before Philippi.

  162 brabbler quarreller

  169 braced with the skin tautly stretched

  172 welkin’s heaven’s; cf. Holofernes’ series of synonyms: ‘like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven’ (LLL 4.2.4–5).

  173 mock … thunder Cf. Claudius’s cannonade that accompanies his quaffing, ‘Re-speaking earthly thunder’ (Ham 1.2.128).

  174 halting legate halting means ‘wavering’, ‘shifting’; cf. Dover Wilson’s reference to Elijah’s ‘How long halt ye between two opinions’ in 1 Kings, 18.21; legate may involve a pun on ‘leg’. In terms of motion, Pandulph is lame; in terms of commitment, he is unreliable.

  176 forehead Ard2 cites Good News from France (written 1591): ‘Terror and maiestie sitteth in the forehead of this christian King’ (sig. A3v). See also R2 3.2.160–2, ‘For within the hollow crown / That rounds the mortal temples of a king / Keeps Death his court’.

  * * *

  170 all] Pope; all, F 173 deep-mouthed] Theobald; deep mouthed F

  177 office duty

  178 feast recalling death’s earlier appetite, ‘And now he [death] feasts, mousing the flesh of men’ (2.1.354).

  180 And … find it Ard2 cites M. Hurault’s Discourse upon the present estate of France (1588): ‘Carrie thither the fire of war, seeing it is there that thou shouldest finde thine enimies, and thou shalt finde them in deede’ (54). Oxf1 sees a pun in find: both ‘discover’ and ‘suffer’. There may also be a macaronic pun on find and Dauphin: the end of the finding is the end, Fr. fin, of the Dauphin.

  5.3.1 How … day In a play filled with instability it is appropriate to find uncertainty regarding the outcome the battle; of course, classical and medieval battles were notoriously difficult to interpret when in progress, with the nature of the struggle and sometimes the literal myopia of the protagonists playing their parts in the confusion.

  3 fever This is the first that we have heard of such sickness.

  * * *

  179 SD] this edn

  8 Swinstead A number of late sixteenth-century texts including Troublesome Reign err in terms of historical precision, by using this town for that of Swineshead. Ard2 tells us that Swinstead (where there was no abbey) is 25 miles from Swineshead Abbey, where John rested.

  9 supply both additional troops and their necessary equipment. Scholars debate whether the similar information and expression in 5.5.12–13 are signs of (1) intentional emphasis showing how both sides have suffered serious setbacks; (2) unintentional repetition unaddressed when the play left the dramatist’s hand for performance; or (3) a version of (2) in which with second thoughts Shakespeare revised the last act, and either he or the compositor left both instances in with their too obvious redundancy of phrasing and circumstance.

  10 here We can see the different responses of the two men, John and the Dauphin.

  11 Are The problem is not in supply (9), which as a group noun can take a verb either singular or plural, but that the Messenger shifts the notion of supply from singular to plural within seven words, though just possibly he first stresses the general idea of reinforcements (was, 10) and then is moved by the event to thinking of the individuals drowning (Are = ‘were’).

  Goodwin Sands another plural considered as a singular; the ‘shoal off the coast of Kent between the Isle of Thanet and the S.Foreland’ (Sugden, 227). Sugden notes that Salerio in MV 3.1.4–6 calls it ‘a very dangerous flat, and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried’. MV is customarily dated 1596.

  12 Richard Richard Plantagenet, as the Bastard was dubbed by John (1.1.162)

  13 coldly The adverb helps the paradox of John’s burning with fever when he should be coldly pleased and the Dauphin and his troops who should be hot in battle fighting coldly.

  retire withdraw

  14 tyrant The word suggests the idea that John is the condign victim of an even more illegally powerful ruler than he himself, if we take tyrant not simply as a powerfully abusive force but as someone who rules, however powerfully, illegally – one who ruled by virtue of his ‘strong possession much more than [his] right’ (1.1.40).

  16 my litter Ard2 cites Holinshed: ‘not able to ride, [John] was faine to be carried in a litter’ (194, i).

  straight immediately

  * * *

  12 now;] this edn; now, F 14 Ay] (Aye)

  5.4.1 stored provided, supplied

  2 put … French Even as rebels the English are more vigorous than their host partners from across the Channel.

  4 misbegotten bastard

  5 In … spite in defiance of defiance

  alone Faulconbridge is like Talbot in 1H6 or Macbeth as Bellona’s bridegroom, or Coriolanus, ‘Alone I did it’ (5.6.117).

  6 sore very, especially

  8 other names that is, other than rebels. Ard2 suggests a complex set of meanings: ‘(a) When we had other names we were happy; (b) We were happy before we became rebels; (c) When things were going well with us you gave us other names. The line veils resentment.’

  10 bought and sold a proverbial expression (Dent, B787), equivalent to ‘tricked’

  * * *

  5.4.2–3 French; … miscarry,] Capell subst.; French, … miscarry: F 6.1 SD led] Capell

  11 Editors from Malone on take rude as a transferred epithet logically belonging to rebellion, and almost all see the image as one of sewing. In R2, the sister play to KJ, there is a related sewing image from the biblical expression referring to a camel going through the eye of a needle, an image Shakespeare would have found in Nashe’s Christ’s Tears. It is possible that there is an allusion to the unthreading of the eyelid of a falcon when it is ready to be obedient. See Dover Wilson, Shakespeare’s England. John himself, like many another medieval royal, was a keen falconer.

  12 discarded an image from wool-working: the removal of threads by means of a card, a tined instrument; hence cast off, rejected

  15 He the Dauphin

  16–19 he sworn … altar perhaps the most egregious instance of the many heinous examples of betrayal of promises, vows and others in the play.

  23 quantity small amount. Ard2 cites TS 4.3.113 and 2H4 5.1.69.

  24–5 even … fire Melun dies as wax melting in a flame, while John dies as paper shrivelling in a fire (see 5.7.32–4).

  28–9 It was believed that the last words of a dying person were guaranteed to be truthful, presumably because of the very high stakes involved: i.e. their consignment to heaven or hell. Cf. Dent, M514, ‘Dying men speak true’.

  29 hence in another place, i.e. heaven; henceforward. Cf. 4.2.89.

  * * *

  17 more] Rowe; moe F

  31 forsworn a delicious irony that recalls some of Pandulph’s casuistical arguments about permissible oath-breaking: having sworn agreement with the English lords, the Dauphin then swore to execute them (see 15–20), and now wants to avoid the accusation that he might be guilty of oath-breaking (i.e. of the second oath), being forsworn, if he were not to kill them on the night of their (assumed) shared victory.

  34 smokes spreads like smoke (OED v. 2b, citing this as the first instance of this meaning). Ard2 suggests ‘grows misty’, as in the ‘smoke and dusky vapours of the night’ (1H6 2.2.27).

  crest helmet, but ‘cresset’ as ‘beacon’ or ‘torch’ is a possible emendation.

  36 expire breathe out

  37–8 fine … fine penalty … end

  37 rated (1) assessed; (2) estimated at its true value (Dover Wilson), though for Melun to call the English lords’ joining with the Dauphin treachery is to view this action from the perspective of John (and, it must be said, of themselves)

  41 respect consideration

  42 my grandsire … Englishman Cf. the similar compound loyalty in Ajax’s situation in TC (4.5.84ff.).

  44 In lieu whereof in consequence of which

  45 noise and rumour a doublet, with rumour meaning ‘confused din’ (= noise) and an instance of hendiadys for ‘noisy rumour’, with rumour meaning ‘confused’

  47 part separate

  49 beshrew curse

  50 favour appearance

  52 untread reverse, retrace, echoing Unthread in 11

  damned damnèd

  53 bated ebbed

  retired retirèd

  54 rankness swelling, overflowing, but with a morally pejorative secondary association

  57 ocean … John In his hyperbolic analogy, Salisbury may be experiencing such relief in the opportunity to escape from the entangling alliance with France and from the danger of the Dauphin’s betrayal that his rhetoric soars beyond the reality we have been watching.

  60 Right clearly; immediate (Ard2, from Steevens)

  61 intends moves toward

  5.5.1 loath reluctant

  2 welkin sky

  3 English Englishmen

  *measured past tense rather than F’s present, given was and staged in the Dauphin’s narrative of what is past

  4 bravely splendidly, gloriously

  5 needless i.e. because we already have the English retreating (and possibly they are now beyond the range of the French cannon)

  * * *

  61 SD assisting Melun] Theobald 5.5.3 measured] Pope; measure F

  7 tottering Ard2’s gloss is useful: ‘Totter (variant of tatter) was associated with totter = swing to and fro (cf. OED). Both “wav[er]ing” and “tattered, in rags” may be meant, for ragged ensigns (colours) were no disgrace but implied hard fighting.’

  11 fallen off traitorous; having once betrayed John they have now (from the perspective of the equally treacherous Dauphin) betrayed Lewis.

  12–13 See 5.3.9n.

  13 Goodwin Sands See 5.3.11n.

  14 shrewd … Beshrew The Dauphin puns with shrewed = painful, troubling, and Beshrew = curse. Cf. Salisbury’s beshrew my soul in 5.4.49.

  15 so sad the Dauphin at least knows the origin of his sadness; contrast Antonio in MV 1.1.1, ‘In sooth I know not why I am so sad.’

  18 stumbling night not that night loses its balance, but rather that it causes others to lose theirs in the darkness

  20 keep good quarter be on the alert; see OED quarter n. III 14d, which glosses this line as ‘keep good watch’.

  * * *

  7 wound] Rowe; woon’d F

  22 try … adventure embrace the rich opportunity

  5.6.2 Of the part on the side

  3 What’s … thee By the response of the Bastard in the next line it is clear that this line is not only a question, but a challenging query on the part of one independent of the authority of anyone unknown to him.

  6 perfect exact, precise

  7 hazards perils. John and Chatillon have already used this expression: cf. 1.1.119 and 2.1.71.

  10 befriend act as a friend, with a possible ironic play on the too frequent use of friend in 2 and 8

  11 I … way i.e. I come by an elliptical, unusual way, that is, illegitimacy.

  12 Unkind unnatural; Hubert’s memory of the Bastard and his identity is appropriately imperfect in the darkness.

  Thou i.e. his memory personified

  * * *

  5.6.1 ho!] Theobald; hoa, F 3 dost] F2; doest F 12 remembrance!] Theobald; remembrance: F

  14 accent word

  breaking from uttered by

  15 scape escape

  acquaintance recognition

  16 sans without

  17 in under

  18 To … out Hubert, already a now morally recuperated character in the eyes of the audience, increases his stature still further in his deliberate seeking out of the other chief moral figure in the play, the Bastard.

  21 wound origin, cause; with painful implication

  22 swoon faint; F’s ‘swound’, echoing wound in the previous line, would allow the Bastard to smile at his own wordplay and the very idea that he would behave like a woman.

  23 poisoned … monk Unless the Elizabethans had a more detailed knowledge of the nature of the death of King John (and it is not impossible that they did, and that his poisoning would be as well known as later events – such as the beheading of Charles I or the shooting of Abraham Lincoln – would be for subsequent audiences), this bit of news would have shocked the audience with its unexpectedness.

  24–5 broke … acquaint Hubert’s heightened state of excitement may here be leading him to repeat himself in the terms he used 10 lines earlier: accent/speech[less], breaking/broke and acquaintance/acquaint.

  26 sudden time unexpected situation

  27 at leisure when you were not already occupied with other business

  * * *

  16 compliment] Warburton; complement F

  28 taste to him Although the role of royal taster was essential to preserving the life of the king the system was not foolproof, as we know from R2 5.5. The Bastard is understandably quick to question the loyalty of the taster.

  29 resolved resolvèd; purposeful

  30 Whose … out as a consequence of the ingested poisoned food, but also in keeping with the kind of undignified death of traitors and heretics as far back as Judas and then Arius. The latter was the unfortunate victim of the new orthodoxy of the Council of Nicaea, that the Son was equal to the Father, a theme appropriate to KJ.